preaction

For a large application, configuration files become a necessity. They help flexible code be used in multiple instances across multiple modules. But they are, for the most part, only data structures, which can be a problem if the configured object is expecting another configured object.

package FakeRepository;

use Moose;
use TimeSeries;
has timeseries => (
    is => 'rw',
    isa => 'TimeSeries',
    required => 1,
);

package TimeSeries;

use Moose;
has dates => (
    is => 'rw',
    isa => 'HashRef[Number]', # Date => Value pairs
    default => sub { {} },
);

Here we have a FakeRepository that requires a TimeSeries object. Certainly, this is where a Dependency Injection framework could step in and inject the required TimeSeries. The drawback is the indirection: The two configured objects are completely separate, joined only by the reference, like so:

# dependency.yml
- service:
    name: 'test_repo'
    class: 'FakeRepository'
    constructor_args:
        timeseries: { ref: test_data }

- service:
    name: 'test_data'
    class: 'TimeSeries'
    constructor_args:
        dates:
            2012-01-01: 1.56
            2012-01-02: 1.69
            2012-01-03: 1.45

So here, we define two services (objects), test_repo and test_data, and test_repo uses test_data to fill its timeseries attribute. test_data fills in its dates attribute directly from the configuration file.

This works great if test_data is needed by more than just test_repo. It also works fine as-is, the dependency injection framework does the work. But what if we wanted to specify the timeseries value directly, instead of indirectly?

Moose's typing system allows us to do just that. By creating a custom type with a coercion from the data structure in our configuration file, we can create the dependency that our test_repo needs.

package My::Types;

use MooseX::Types qw( HashRef Number );
use TimeSeries;

# declare our TimeSeries class as a type
class_type TimeSeriesType;
# coerce a TimeSeries from a hash of date => value pairs
coerce TimeSeriesType, from HashRef[Number], via sub {
    # coercions put the value to be coerce in $_
    return TimeSeries->new( data => $_ );
};

Once we have our new custom types, we must use them in our package.

package FakeRepository;

use Moose;
use My::Types qw( TimeSeriesType );

has timeseries => qw(
    is => 'rw',
    isa => TimeSeriesType,  # Not quoted!
    coerce => 1,            # Activate coercion powers!
    required => 1,
);

Now, we can configure our TimeSeries directly from our configuration file, without indirection.

# dependency.yml
- service:
    name: 'test_repo'
    class: 'FakeRepository'
    constructor_args:
        timeseries:
            2012-01-01: 1.56
            2012-01-02: 1.69
            2012-01-03: 1.45

Moose will create the object for us using our defined coercion.

There are other ways to solve this: Enhance the Dependency Injection framework to allow anonymous objects (instead of providing a ref: to an object, provide a full object definition with class: and constructor_args:), but having these coercions in place also helps when writing test code:

use Test::More;
use FakeRepository;
my $repo = FakeRepository->new(
    timeseries => {
        '2012-01-01' => 1.56,
        '2012-01-02' => 1.69,
        '2012-01-03' => 1.45,
    },
);

No need to increase the apparent coverage of the test by including the TimeSeries class, we never have to refer to it at all. No need to lock the interface to a specific TimeSeries class (if that's a desired goal of the project), the coercion takes care of creating the actual object used.

Coercions are a powerful feature. I've used them to build complicated trees from arrays of arrays (more on that later), and I've used them to simply force-uppercase a string so that Log4perl would do its job. Coercions are one more very useful tool in a robust toolbox.