4.3.2. Defining Methods

You define a method for this class by defining a function in that namespace that accepts the object's instance as its first argument.

Here are two example methods in the class Foo, that retrieve and set its name:

sub get_name
{
    # This step is necessary so it will be treated as a method
    my $self = shift;

    return $self->{'name'};
}

sub assign_name
{
    my $self = shift;

    # Notice that we can pass regular arguments from now on.
    my $new_name = shift || "Fooish";

    $self->{'name'} = $new_name;

    return 0;
}

And here's a script that makes use of these functions. Can you guess what its output would be?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Foo;

my $foo = Foo->new("MyFoo", 500);

print $foo->get_name(), "\n";

$foo->assign_name("Shlomi Fish");

print $foo->get_name(), "\n";