$Id: README,v 1.2 2003/06/08 13:38:28 ian Exp $ NAME Acme::Damn - Unbless Perl objects. SYNOPSIS use Acme::Damn; my $ref = ... some reference ... my $obj = bless $ref , 'Some::Class'; ... do something with your object ... $ref = damn $obj; # recover the original reference (unblessed) ... neither $ref nor $obj are Some::Class objects ... INSTALLATION To install this module type the following: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Acme::Damn uses XS to access the internals of Perl for it's magic, and therefore must be compiled to be installed. Also, for testing, Acme::Damn relies on Test::More and Test::Exception. DESCRIPTION Acme::Damn provides a single routine, damn(), which takes a blessed reference (a Perl object), and *unblesses* it, to return the original reference. I can't think of any reason why you might want to do this, but just because it's of no use doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to do it. EXPORT By default, Acme::Damn exports the method damn() into the current namespace. Methods damn *object* damn() accepts a single blessed reference as its argument, and returns that reference unblessed. If *object* is not a blessed reference, then damn() will "die" with an error. WARNING Just as "bless" doesn't call an object's initialisation code, "damn" doesn't invoke an object's "DESTROY" method. For objects that need to be "DESTROY"ed, either don't "damn" them, or call "DESTROY" before judegment is passed. SEE ALSO bless, perlboot, perltoot, perltooc, perlbot, perlobj. AUTHOR Ian Brayshaw, COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2003 by Ian Brayshaw This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.