UNIVERSAL - base class for ALL classes


NAME

UNIVERSAL - base class for ALL classes (blessed references)


SYNOPSIS

    $io = $fd->isa("IO::Handle");
    $sub = $obj->can('print');
    $yes = UNIVERSAL::isa($ref, "HASH");


DESCRIPTION

UNIVERSAL is the base class which all bless references will inherit from, see the perlobj manpage

UNIVERSAL provides the following methods

isa ( TYPE )
isa returns true if REF is blessed into package TYPE or inherits from package TYPE.

isa can be called as either a static or object method call.

can ( METHOD )
can checks if the object has a method called METHOD. If it does then a reference to the sub is returned. If it does not then undef is returned.

can can be called as either a static or object method call.

VERSION ( [ REQUIRE ] )
VERSION will return the value of the variable $VERSION in the package the object is blessed into. If REQUIRE is given then it will do a comparison and die if the package version is not greater than or equal to REQUIRE.

VERSION can be called as either a static or object method call.

The isa and can methods can also be called as subroutines

UNIVERSAL::isa ( VAL, TYPE )
isa returns true if one of the following statements is true.
UNIVERSAL::can ( VAL, METHOD )
If VAL is a blessed reference which has a method called METHOD, can returns a reference to the subroutine. If VAL is not a blessed reference, or if it does not have a method METHOD, undef is returned.

These subroutines should not be imported via use UNIVERSAL qw(...). If you want simple local access to them you can do

  *isa = \&UNIVERSAL::isa;

to import isa into your package.

 UNIVERSAL - base class for ALL classes