Quickly Create an Object Oriented Perl Module

1. Create a directory under the current directory for your module
   
2. Create a file called yourmodule.pm
3. Put the following line at the top:
   package yourmodule;
4. Now paste the following and edit the require code to include all the libraries your package needs
   

   use 5.0;
   #use strict;
   use warnings;
   
   require Win32::GuiTest, HTTP::Request, XML::Smart, Exporter;
   our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
   our %EXPORT_TAGS = ( 'all' => [ qw() ] );
   our @EXPORT_OK = ( @{ $EXPORT_TAGS{'all'} } );
   our @EXPORT = qw( );
   
   our $VERSION = '1.00';

   
   
5. Create a constructor subroutine; it needs to bless a reference to the object as its last line (put whatever you like before that)
   

   sub new {
    my $self = { FOO => 1, BAR => 0};
    bless $self, "yourmodule";
   }

6. Load the module in your Perl file
   
   use lib './yourmodule'; # this adds the module directory to your include path
   use yourmodule; # this loads your module
7. You can now call your module from your perl file:
   

   my $barf = yourmodule->new();
   print $barf->get_stuff() . "\n";
   exit(0);



8. Remember! when you call your package's methods using an object ($object->method()), the first argument is a reference to the object-- you can restore 'normal' operation (if you just pasted the sub routine from within a normal perl file) by just adding my $self=shift; to the top of your sub routine.