NAME Tie::Autotie - Automatically ties underlying references SYNOPSIS use Tie::Autotie 'Tie::Module', # the module to autotie [ 'use', 'args' ], # arguments to 'use Tie::Module' [ 'tie', 'args' ]; # arguments to tie() for Tie::Module # then use Tie::Module as usual DESCRIPTION This module allows you to automatically tie data structures contained in a tied data structure. As an example: use Tie::Autotie 'Tie::IxHash'; tie my(%hash), 'Tie::IxHash'; $hash{jeff}{age} = 22; $hash{jeff}{lang} = 'Perl'; $hash{jeff}{brothers} = 3; $hash{jeff}{sisters} = 4; $hash{kristin}{age} = 22; $hash{kristin}{lang} = 'Latin'; $hash{kristin}{brothers} = 1; $hash{kristin}{sisters} = 0; for my $who (keys %hash) { print "$who:\n"; for my $what (keys %{ $hash{$who} }) { print " $what = $hash{$who}{$what}\n"; } } This program outputs: jeff: age = 22 lang = Perl brothers = 3 sisters = 4 kristin: age = 22 lang = Latin brothers = 1 sisters = 0 You can see that the keys of %hash are returned in the order in which they were created, *as well* as the keys of the sub-hashes. BUGS * A non-autotied layer It only works if each layer is being autotied. As soon as there's a layer that is not being autotied, all layers inside it will also be ignored: use Tie::Autotie 'Tie::IxHash'; tie my(%hash), 'Tie::IxHash'; $hash{a}{b} = 1; # %{ $hash{a} } is autotied $hash{a}{c} = 2; # so keys %{ $hash{a} } returns ('b', 'c') $hash{d}[0]{a}{y} = 3; # %{ $hash{d} } is autotied, but Tie::IxHash has $hash{d}[0]{a}{x} = 4; # no control over $hash{d}[0], so $hash{d}[0]{a} # is not autotied At the moment, there's no way to get around this. Please stick to using data structures that your tying module can handle. * Assigning a reference In the Tie::IxHash example, you cannot do: $hash{jeff} = { age => 22, lang => 'Perl', brothers => 3, sisters => 4, }; because that creates a hash reference, not an object of Tie::IxHash. This hash reference ends up being destroyed anyway, and replaced with a Tie::IxHash object that points to an empty hash. AUTHOR Jeff "japhy" Pinyan, COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright (C) 2004 by japhy This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.3 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.