Question

package My::Module;

# $Id$

use strict;
use Carp;
use Data::Dumper;
use DBI;

$My::Module::VERSION  = '0.1';

sub new {
    my ($class, %opt) = @_;
    my $opt_count = keys %opt;

    $class->set_error('');
    #return $class->set_error("Too many arguments to initialize.") if ($opt_count > 5);
    #return $class->set_error("Missing arguments to initialize.") if ($opt_count < 2);

    my $self = bless {
                      _DRIVER_OPTIONS  => $opt{'mysql'},
                     },$class;

    if (not defined $self) {
        return $class->set_error( "new() failed: " . $class->errstr );
    }

    if ($self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{Host} ne '') {
        $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{DataSource} = 'DBI:mysql:database=' . $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{Database} . ';host=' . $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{Host};
    } else {
        $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{DataSource} = 'DBI:mysql:database=' . $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{Database} . ';';
    }
    $self->{Handle} = DBI->connect($self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{DataSource},
                                   $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{Username},
                                   $self->{_DRIVER_OPTIONS}->{Password},
                                   { RaiseError=>1, PrintError=>1, AutoCommit=>1 }
                                  );
    return $self->set_error("new(): couldn't connect to database: " . DBI->errstr) unless ($self->{Handle});
    $self->{_disconnect} = 1;

    print Dumper \$self;

    return $self;
}

sub database {
    my $self = shift;
    if (@_) { $self->{Handle} = shift }
    return $self->{Handle};
}

sub set_error {
    my $class   = shift;
    my $message = shift;
    $class = ref($class) || $class;
    no strict 'refs';
    ${ "$class\::errstr" } = sprintf($message || "", @_);
    return;
}

*error = \&errstr;
sub errstr {
    my $class = shift;
    $class = ref( $class ) || $class;

    no strict 'refs';
    return ${ "$class\::errstr" } || '';
}

sub DESTROY {
    my $self = shift;

    unless (defined $self->{Handle} && $self->{Handle}->ping) {
        $self->set_error(__PACKAGE__ . '::DESTROY(). Database handle has gone away');
        return;
    }

    unless ($self->{Handle}->{AutoCommit}) {
        $self->{Handle}->commit;
    }

    if ($self->{_disconnect}) {
        $self->{Handle}->disconnect;
    }
}

1;

1. Is that the right way so i can
   re-use the database on my code
   instead of having to open a new
   connection or that will aswell open
   a new connection every time i use it
   ?

2. Should i change anything on the
   module ? or anything i did wrong ?

Currently i am just learning and thinked of doing my own engine module so i began with this.

Simple test code (the bellow code is not to be reviewed just a sample on how to use the module):

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use lib 'path to module';
use My::Module;

my $session = My::Module->new(mysql     => {
                                            Database =>'module',
                                            Host     =>'10.0.0.2',
                                            Username =>'module',
                                            Password =>'module'
                                           }) or die My::Module->errstr;

my $dbh = $session->database();
my $sth = $dbh->prepare(q{
             SELECT session_id
             FROM sessions
          });
   $sth->execute() || die print($dbh->errstr);
my $ref = $sth->fetchall_arrayref({});
$sth->finish;

print Dumper \$ref;

Answer 1

Other than using a CPAN module to accomplish this task, here are my practical recommendations:

1. Don’t return an error value from the constructor. Instead, throw an exception.
2. Access the internals of your class using accessors rather than using direct hash access.

3. If the user of your class did not enable AutoCommit, she chose not to enable AutoCommit for a reason. Therefore don’t do:

   unless ($self->{Handle}->{AutoCommit}) {
       $self->{Handle}->commit;
   }
   

   in DESTROY.

4. Note that bless is not going to fail so long as it is given a modifiable reference (compare this to, say, the behavior of open which can fail to open a file even though the argument to open is a valid filename and would indicate this situation by returning a false value). Therefore, checking the return value of bless does not serve any useful purpose. If you want to handle the possibility of bless failing, you will have to catch fatal runtime exceptions.