Kindly understand the class in Perl means Package.
In case of perl,inheritance takes place by @ISA variable.
Here the classes from which a package has to inherit can be assigned to the @ISA variable.
When object belonging to the class comes across a method call it first searches in the current class(package),if not available it searches in the class specified in the @ISA variable left to right.
If not found also in the @ISA variable ,then only throws a error.
In case of Perl,multiple inheritance is also possible.
Take this perl program for example:
#here the package A has the new constructor which is responsible for creating the Perl object.Here it creates #anonymous hash by using "{}" and blessing into package which comes through shift.
#it also has a subroutine A_method
package A;
sub new { bless {}, shift };
sub A_Method {
print "A_Method\n";
}
package B;
#here the inherutance is defined and @ISA of package B is assigned to A.This makes Package B to inherit
# from A.It has two sub-routines.
@ISA=qw(A);
sub B_Method {
print "B_Method\n";
}
sub Method {
print "Method (in B)\n";
}
package C;
#here @ISA is assigned to B. Now the Package C inherits both from B and A as B inherits from A.It also #has two subroutines.
@ISA = qw(B);
sub C_Method{
print "C_Method\n";
}
sub Method {
print "Method (in B)\n";
}
package main;
# By this method a object reference of the package is returned.
$a = new A;
#here the method first gets converted into A::new(A) in the format of class::Method('class','arg1','arg2')
#here the new method of Package A is inherited to return the object reference for B.
$b=new B;
#here the new method of Package A is inherited to return the object reference for B.
$c=new C;
$c->C_Method(); #here it calls C_Method of class C
$c->Method(); #here it calls Method of class C
$c->B_Method();#here it calls inherited B_Method of class B
$b->A_Method();#here it calls inherited A_Method of class A
$a->B_Method();#returns a fatal error as the Object A does not inherit B.
OUTPUT:
G:\perl_programs>perl perlinherit.pl
C_Method
Method (in B)
B_Method
A_Method
Can't locate object method "B_Method" via package "A" at perlinherit.pl line 43.
For better understanding also refer to the below program.
Here there are two Classes Person and Student.
The Package Student inherits the new sub-routine of Class Person to define a Student.
package Person;
sub new
{
my $pkg=shift;
bless{ @_ },$pkg;
}
package Student;
# here the Student inherits the Person Package.
@ISA=qw(Person);
$ddd=new Person(name=>"jjjjj",age=>55);
$aaa=new Student(name=>'ssss',id=>55,class=>"tenth");
print $ddd->{name}; # here it prints the name of the Person
print $aaa->{name}; # here it prints the name of the Student.
Output:
