Provided by: libcatalyst-manual-perl_5.9012-1_all 
NAME
Catalyst::Manual::ExtendingCatalyst - Extending The Framework
DESCRIPTION
This document will provide you with access points, techniques and best practices to extend the Catalyst
framework, or to find more elegant ways to abstract and use your own code.
The design of Catalyst is such that the framework itself should not get in your way. There are many entry
points to alter or extend Catalyst's behaviour, and this can be confusing. This document is written to
help you understand the possibilities, current practices and their consequences.
Please read the "BEST PRACTICES" section before deciding on a design, especially if you plan to release
your code to CPAN. The Catalyst developer and user communities, which you are part of, will benefit most
if we all work together and coordinate.
If you are unsure on an implementation or have an idea you would like to have RFC'ed, it surely is a good
idea to send your questions and suggestions to the Catalyst mailing list (See "SUPPORT" in Catalyst)
and/or come to the "#catalyst" channel on the "irc.perl.org" network. You might also want to refer to
those places for research to see if a module doing what you're trying to implement already exists. This
might give you a solution to your problem or a basis for starting.
BEST PRACTICES
During Catalyst's early days, it was common to write plugins to provide functionality application wide.
Since then, Catalyst has become a lot more flexible and powerful. It soon became a best practice to use
some other form of abstraction or interface, to keep the scope of its influence as close as possible to
where it belongs.
For those in a hurry, here's a quick checklist of some fundamental points. If you are going to read the
whole thing anyway, you can jump forward to "Namespaces".
Quick Checklist
Use the "CatalystX::*" namespace if you can!
If your extension isn't a Model, View, Controller, Plugin, Engine, or Log, it's best to leave it out
of the "Catalyst::" namespace. Use <CatalystX::> instead.
Don't make it a plugin unless you have to!
A plugin should be careful since it's overriding Catalyst internals. If your plugin doesn't really
need to muck with the internals, make it a base Controller or Model.
Also, if you think you really need a plugin, please instead consider using a Moose::Role.
There's a community. Use it!
There are many experienced developers in the Catalyst community, there's always the IRC channel and
the mailing list to discuss things.
Add tests and documentation!
This gives a stable basis for contribution, and even more importantly, builds trust. The easiest way
is a test application. See Catalyst::Manual::Tutorial::Testing for more information.
Namespaces
While some core extensions (engines, plugins, etc.) have to be placed in the "Catalyst::*" namespace, the
Catalyst core would like to ask developers to use the "CatalystX::*" namespace if possible.
Please do not invent components which are outside the well known "Model", "View", "Controller" or
"Plugin" namespaces!
When you try to put a base class for a "Model", "View" or "Controller" directly under your "MyApp"
directory as, for example, "MyApp::Controller::Foo", you will have the problem that Catalyst will try to
load that base class as a component of your application. The solution is simple: Use another namespace.
Common ones are "MyApp::Base::Controller::*" or "MyApp::ControllerBase::*" as examples.
Can it be a simple module?
Sometimes you want to use functionality in your application that doesn't require the framework at all.
Remember that Catalyst is just Perl and you always can just "use" a module. If you have application
specific code that doesn't need the framework, there is no problem in putting it in your "MyApp::*"
namespace. Just don't put it in "Model", "Controller" or "View", because that would make Catalyst try to
load them as components.
Writing a generic component that only works with Catalyst is wasteful of your time. Try writing a plain
perl module, and then a small bit of glue that integrates it with Catalyst. See
Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema for a module that takes the approach. The advantage here is that your
"Catalyst" DBIC schema works perfectly outside of Catalyst, making testing (and command-line scripts) a
breeze. The actual Catalyst Model is just a few lines of glue that makes working with the schema
convenient.
If you want the thinnest interface possible, take a look at Catalyst::Model::Adaptor.
Using Moose roles to apply method modifiers
Rather than having a complex set of base classes which you have to mixin via multiple inheritance, if
your functionality is well structured, then it's possible to use the composability of Moose roles, and
method modifiers to hook onto to provide functionality.
These can be applied to your models/views/controllers, and your application class, and shipped to CPAN.
Please see Catalyst::Manual::CatalystAndMoose for specific information about using Roles in combination
with Catalyst, and Moose::Manual::Roles for more information about roles in general.
Inheritance and overriding methods
When overriding a method, keep in mind that some day additional arguments may be provided to the method,
if the last parameter is not a flat list. It is thus better to override a method by shifting the invocant
off of @_ and assign the rest of the used arguments, so you can pass your complete arguments to the
original method via @_:
use MRO::Compat; ...
sub foo {
my $self = shift;
my ($bar, $baz) = @_; # ... return
$self->next::method(@_);
}
If you would do the common
my ($self, $foo, $bar) = @_;
you'd have to use a much uglier construct to ensure that all arguments will be passed along and the
method is future proof:
$self->next::method(@_[ 1 .. $#_ ]);
Tests and documentation
When you release your module to the CPAN, proper documentation and at least a basic test suite (which
means more than pod or even just "use_ok", sorry) gives people a good base to contribute to the module.
It also shows that you care for your users. If you would like your module to become a recommended
addition, these things will prove invaluable.
If you're just getting started, try using CatalystX::Starter to generate some example tests for your
module.
Maintenance
In planning to release a module to the community (Catalyst or CPAN and Perl), you should consider if you
have the resources to keep it up to date, including fixing bugs and accepting contributions.
If you're not sure about this, you can always ask in the proper Catalyst or Perl channels if someone else
might be interested in the project, and would jump in as co-maintainer.
A public repository can further ease interaction with the community. Even read only access enables people
to provide you with patches to your current development version. subversion, SVN and SVK, are broadly
preferred in the Catalyst community.
If you're developing a Catalyst extension, please consider asking the core team for space in Catalyst's
own subversion repository. You can get in touch about this via IRC or the Catalyst developers mailing
list.
The context object
Sometimes you want to get a hold of the context object in a component that was created on startup time,
where no context existed yet. Often this is about the model reading something out of the stash or other
context information (current language, for example).
If you use the context object in your component you have tied it to an existing request. This means that
you might get into problems when you try to use the component (e.g. the model - the most common case)
outside of Catalyst, for example in cronjobs.
A stable solution to this problem is to design the Catalyst model separately from the underlying model
logic. Let's take Catalyst::Model::DBIC::Schema as an example. You can create a schema outside of
Catalyst that knows nothing about the web. This kind of design ensures encapsulation and makes
development and maintenance a whole lot easier. The you use the aforementioned model to tie your schema
to your application. This gives you a "MyApp::DBIC" (the name is of course just an example) model as well
as "MyApp::DBIC::TableName" models to access your result sources directly.
By creating such a thin layer between the actual model and the Catalyst application, the schema itself is
not at all tied to any application and the layer in-between can access the model's API using information
from the context object.
A Catalyst component accesses the context object at request time with "ACCEPT_CONTEXT($c, @args)" in
Catalyst::Component.
CONFIGURATION
The application has to interact with the extension with some configuration. There is of course again more
than one way to do it.
Attributes
You can specify any valid Perl attribute on Catalyst actions you like. (See "Syntax of Attribute Lists"
in attributes for a description of what is valid.) These will be available on the Catalyst::Action
instance via its "attributes" accessor. To give an example, this action:
sub foo : Local Bar('Baz') {
my ($self, $c) = @_;
my $attributes = $self->action_for('foo')->attributes;
$c->res->body($attributes->{Bar}[0] );
}
will set the response body to "Baz". The values always come in an array reference. As you can see, you
can use attributes to configure your actions. You can specify or alter these attributes via "Component
Configuration", or even react on them as soon as Catalyst encounters them by providing your own component
base class.
Component Configuration
At creation time, the class configuration of your component (the one available via "$self->config") will
be merged with possible configuration settings from the applications configuration (either directly or
via config file). This is done by Catalyst, and the correctly merged configuration is passed to your
component's constructor (i.e. the new method).
Ergo, if you define an accessor for each configuration value that your component takes, then the value
will be automatically stored in the controller object's hash reference, and available from the accessor.
The "config" accessor always only contains the original class configuration and you MUST NEVER call
"$self->config" to get your component configuration, as the data there is likely to be a subset of the
correct config.
For example:
package MyApp
use Moose;
extends 'Catalyst';
...
__PACKAGE__->config(
'Controller::Foo' => { some_value => 'bar' },
);
...
package MyApp::Controller::Foo;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
BEGIN { extends 'Catalyst::Controller' };
has some_value ( is => 'ro', required => 1 );
sub some_method {
my $self = shift;
return "the value of 'some_value' is " . $self->some_value;
}
...
my $controller = $c->controller('Foo');
warn $controller->some_value;
warn $controller->some_method;
IMPLEMENTATION
This part contains the technical details of various implementation methods. Please read the "BEST
PRACTICES" before you start your implementation, if you haven't already.
Action classes
Usually, your action objects are of the class Catalyst::Action. You can override this with the
"ActionClass" attribute to influence execution and/or dispatching of the action. A widely used example of
this is Catalyst::Action::RenderView, which is used in every newly created Catalyst application in your
root controller:
sub end : ActionClass('RenderView') { }
Usually, you want to override the "execute" and/or the "match" method. The execute method of the action
will naturally call the methods code. You can surround this by overriding the method in a subclass:
package Catalyst::Action::MyFoo;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
use MRO::Compat;
extends 'Catalyst::Action';
sub execute {
my $self = shift;
my ($controller, $c, @args) = @_;
# put your 'before' code here
my $r = $self->next::method(@_);
# put your 'after' code here
return $r;
}
1;
We are using MRO::Compat to ensure that you have the next::method call, from Class::C3 (in older perls),
or natively (if you are using perl 5.10) to re-dispatch to the original "execute" method in the
Catalyst::Action class.
The Catalyst dispatcher handles an incoming request and, depending upon the dispatch type, will call the
appropriate target or chain. From time to time it asks the actions themselves, or through the
controller, if they would match the current request. That's what the "match" method does. So by
overriding this, you can change on what the action will match and add new matching criteria.
For example, the action class below will make the action only match on Mondays:
package Catalyst::Action::OnlyMondays;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
use MRO::Compat;
extends 'Catalyst::Action';
sub match {
my $self = shift;
return 0 if ( localtime(time) )[6] == 1;
return $self->next::method(@_);
}
1;
And this is how we'd use it:
sub foo: Local ActionClass('OnlyMondays') {
my ($self, $c) = @_;
$c->res->body('I feel motivated!');
}
If you are using action classes often or have some specific base classes that you want to specify more
conveniently, you can implement a component base class providing an attribute handler.
It is not possible to use multiple action classes at once, however Catalyst::Controller::ActionRole
allows you to apply Moose Roles to actions.
For further information on action classes and roles, please refer to Catalyst::Action and
Catalyst::Manual::Actions.
Component base classes
Many Catalyst::Plugin that were written in Catalyst's early days should really have been just controller
base classes. With such a class, you could provide functionality scoped to a single controller, not
polluting the global namespace in the context object.
You can provide regular Perl methods in a base class as well as actions which will be inherited to the
subclass. Please refer to "Controllers" for an example of this.
You can introduce your own attributes by specifying a handler method in the controller base. For example,
to use a "FullClass" attribute to specify a fully qualified action class name, you could use the
following implementation. Note, however, that this functionality is already provided via the "+" prefix
for action classes. A simple
sub foo : Local ActionClass('+MyApp::Action::Bar') { ... }
will use "MyApp::Action::Bar" as action class.
package MyApp::Base::Controller::FullClass;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
BEGIN { extends 'Catalyst::Controller'; }
sub _parse_FullClass_attr {
my ($self, $app_class, $action_name, $value, $attrs) = @_;
return( ActionClass => $value );
}
1;
Note that the full line of arguments is only provided for completeness sake. We could use this attribute
in a subclass like any other Catalyst attribute:
package MyApp::Controller::Foo;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
BEGIN { extends 'MyApp::Base::Controller::FullClass'; }
sub foo : Local FullClass('MyApp::Action::Bar') { ... }
1;
Controllers
Many things can happen in controllers, and it often improves maintainability to abstract some of the code
out into reusable base classes.
You can provide usual Perl methods that will be available via your controller object, or you can even
define Catalyst actions which will be inherited by the subclasses. Consider this controller base class:
package MyApp::Base::Controller::ModelBase;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
BEGIN { extends 'Catalyst::Controller'; }
sub list : Chained('base') PathPart('') Args(0) {
my ($self, $c) = @_;
my $model = $c->model( $self->{model_name} );
my $condition = $self->{model_search_condition} || {};
my $attrs = $self->{model_search_attrs} || {};
$c->stash(rs => $model->search($condition, $attrs);
}
sub load : Chained('base') PathPart('') CaptureArgs(1) {
my ($self, $c, $id) = @_;
my $model = $c->model( $self->{model_name} );
$c->stash(row => $model->find($id));
}
1;
This example implements two simple actions. The "list" action chains to a (currently non-existent) "base"
action and puts a result-set into the stash taking a configured "model_name" as well as a search
condition and attributes. This action is a chained endpoint. The other action, called " load " is a chain
midpoint that takes one argument. It takes the value as an ID and loads the row from the configured
model. Please not that the above code is simplified for clarity. It misses error handling, input
validation, and probably other things.
The class above is not very useful on its own, but we can combine it with some custom actions by sub-
classing it:
package MyApp::Controller::Foo;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
BEGIN { extends 'MyApp::Base::Controller::ModelBase'; }
__PACKAGE__->config( model_name => 'DB::Foo',
model_search_condition=> { is_active => 1 },
model_search_attrs => { order_by => 'name' },
);
sub base : Chained PathPart('foo') CaptureArgs(0) { }
sub view : Chained('load') Args(0) {
my ($self, $c) = @_;
my $row = $c->stash->{row};
$c->res->body(join ': ', $row->name,
$row->description); }
1;
This class uses the formerly created controller as a base class. First, we see the configurations that
were used in the parent class. Next comes the "base" action, where everything chains off of.
Note that inherited actions act like they were declared in your controller itself. You can therefore call
them just by their name in "forward"s, "detaches" and Chained(..) specifications. This is an important
part of what makes this technique so useful.
The new "view" action ties itself to the "load" action specified in the base class and outputs the loaded
row's "name" and "description" columns. The controller "MyApp::Controller::Foo" now has these publicly
available paths:
/foo
Will call the controller's "base", then the base classes "list" action.
/foo/$id/view
First, the controller's "base" will be called, then it will "load" the row with the corresponding
$id. After that, "view" will display some fields out of the object.
Models and Views
If the functionality you'd like to add is really a data-set that you want to manipulate, for example
internal document types, images, files, it might be better suited as a model.
The same applies for views. If your code handles representation or deals with the applications interface
and should be universally available, it could be a perfect candidate for a view.
Please implement a "process" method in your views. This method will be called by Catalyst if it is asked
to forward to a component without a specified action. Note that "process" is not a Catalyst action but a
simple Perl method.
You are also encouraged to implement a "render" method corresponding with the one in Catalyst::View::TT.
This has proven invaluable, because people can use your view for much more fine-grained content
generation.
Here is some example code for a fictional view:
package Catalyst::View::MyView;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
extends 'Catalyst::View';
sub process {
my ($self, $c) = @_;
my $template = $c->stash->{template};
my $content = $self->render($c, $template, $c->stash);
$c->res->body( $content );
}
sub render {
my ($self, $c, $template, $args) = @_;
# prepare content here
return $content;
}
1;
Plugins
The first thing to say about plugins is that if you're not sure if your module should be a plugin, it
probably shouldn't. It once was common to add features to Catalyst by writing plugins that provide
accessors to said functionality. As Catalyst grew more popular, it became obvious that this qualifies as
bad practice.
By designing your module as a Catalyst plugin, every method you implement, import or inherit will be
available via your applications context object. A plugin pollutes the global namespace, and you should
be only doing that when you really need to.
Often, developers design extensions as plugins because they need to get hold of the context object.
Either to get at the stash or request/response objects are the widely spread reasons. It is, however,
perfectly possible to implement a regular Catalyst component (read: model, view or controller) that
receives the current context object via "ACCEPT_CONTEXT($c, @args)" in Catalyst::Component.
When is a plugin suited to your task? Your code needs to be a plugin to act upon or alter specific parts
of Catalyst's request lifecycle. If your functionality needs to change some "prepare_*" or "finalize_*"
stages, you won't get around a plugin.
Note, if you just want to hook into such a stage, and run code before, or after it, then it is
recommended that you use Moose's method modifiers to do this.
Another valid target for a plugin architecture are things that really have to be globally available, like
sessions or authentication.
Please do not release Catalyst extensions as plugins only to provide some functionality application wide.
Design it as a controller base class or another better suited technique with a smaller scope, so that
your code only influences those parts of the application where it is needed, and namespace clashes and
conflicts are ruled out.
The implementation is pretty easy. Your plugin will be inserted in the application's inheritance list,
above Catalyst itself. You can by this alter Catalyst's request lifecycle behaviour. Every method you
declare, every import in your package will be available as method on the application and the context
object. As an example, let's say you want Catalyst to warn you every time uri_for was called without an
action object as the first parameter, for example to test that all your chained uris are generated from
actions (a recommended best practice). You could do this with this simple implementation (excuse the
lame class name, it's just an example):
package Catalyst::Plugin::UriforUndefWarning;
use strict;
use Scalar::Util qw/blessed/;
use MRO::Compat;
sub uri_for {
my $c = shift;
my $uri = $c->next::method(@_);
$c->log->warn( 'uri_for with non action: ', join(', ', @_), )
if (!blessed($_[0]) || !$_[0]->isa('Catalyst::Action'));
return $uri;
}
1;
This would override Catalyst's "uri_for" method and emit a "warn" log entry containing the arguments to
uri_for.
Please note this is not a practical example, as string URLs are fine for static content etc.
A simple example like this is actually better as a Moose role, for example:
package CatalystX::UriforUndefWarning;
use Moose::Role;
use namespace::autoclean;
after 'uri_for' => sub {
my ($c, $arg) = @_;
$c->log->warn( 'uri_for with non action: ', join(', ', @_), )
if (!blessed($_[0]) || !$_[0]->isa('Catalyst::Action'));
return $uri;
};
Note that Catalyst will load any Moose Roles in the plugin list, and apply them to your application
class.
Factory components with COMPONENT()
Every component inheriting from Catalyst::Component contains a "COMPONENT" method. It is used on
application startup by "setup_components" to instantiate the component object for the Catalyst
application. By default, this will merge the components own "config"uration with the application wide
overrides and call the class' "new" method to return the component object.
You can override this method and do and return whatever you want. However, you should use Class::C3 (via
MRO::Compat) to forward to the original "COMPONENT" method to merge the configuration of your component.
Here is a stub "COMPONENT" method:
package CatalystX::Component::Foo;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
extends 'Catalyst::Component';
sub COMPONENT {
my $class = shift;
# Note: $app is like $c, but since the application isn't fully
# initialized, we don't want to call it $c yet. $config
# is a hashref of config options possibly set on this component.
my ($app, $config) = @_;
# Do things here before instantiation
$new = $class->next::method(@_);
# Do things to object after instantiation
return $new;
}
The arguments are the class name of the component, the class name of the application instantiating the
component, and a hash reference with the controller's configuration.
You are free to re-bless the object, instantiate a whole other component or really do anything compatible
with Catalyst's expectations on a component.
For more information, please see "COMPONENT($c,$arguments)" in Catalyst::Component.
Applying roles to parts of the framework
CatalystX::RoleApplicator will allow you to apply Roles to the following classes:
Request
Response
Engine
Dispatcher
Stats
These roles can add new methods to these classes, or wrap preexisting methods.
The namespace for roles like this is "Catalyst::TraitFor::XXX::YYYY".
For an example of a CPAN component implemented in this manor, see
Catalyst::TraitFor::Request::BrowserDetect.
SEE ALSO
Catalyst, Catalyst::Manual::Actions, Catalyst::Component
AUTHORS
Catalyst Contributors, see Catalyst.pm
COPYRIGHT
This library is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself.
perl v5.38.2 2024-02-09 Catalyst::Manu...tendingCatalyst(3pm)