NAME

Tie::Cycle - Cycle through a list of values via a scalar.

SYNOPSIS

use v5.10;
tie my $cycle, 'Tie::Cycle', [ qw( FFFFFF 000000 FFFF00 ) ];
say $cycle; # FFFFFF
say $cycle; # 000000
say $cycle; # FFFF00
say $cycle; # FFFFFF back to the beginning
(tied $cycle)->reset; # back to the beginning

DESCRIPTION

You use Tie::Cycle to go through a list over and over again. Once you get to the end of the list, you go back to the beginning. You don't have to worry about any of this since the magic of tie does that for you.

The tie takes an array reference as its third argument. The tie should succeed unless the argument is not an array reference. Previous versions required you to use an array that had more than one element (what's the pointing of looping otherwise?), but I've removed that restriction since the number of elements you want to use may change depending on the situation.

During the tie, this module makes a shallow copy of the array reference. If the array reference contains references, and those references are changed after the tie, the elements of the cycle will change as well. See the included test.pl script for an example of this effect.

OBJECT METHODS

You can call methods on the underlying object (which you access with tied() ).

reset

Roll the iterator back to the starting position. The next access will give the first element in the list.

previous

Give the previous element. This does not affect the current position.

next

Give the next element. This does not affect the current position. You can peek at the next element if you like.

SOURCE AVAILABILITY

This module is on Github:

AUTHOR

brian d foy, <briandfoy@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright © 2000-2024, brian d foy <briandfoy@pobox.com>. All rights reserved. This software is available under the Artistic License 2.0.