Bio::Factory::ObjectBuilderI - Interface for an object builder Give standard usage here An object builder is different from an object factory in that it accumulates information for the object and finally, or constantly, depending on the implementation, builds the object. It also allows for implementations that can tell the information feed in which kind of information the builder is interested in which not. In addition, the implementation may choose to filter, transform, or completely ignore certain content it is fed for certain slots. Implementations will hence be mostly used by stream-based parsers to parse only desired content, and/or skip over undesired entries.

Mailing Lists
User feedback is an integral part of the evolution of this and other Bioperl modules. Send your comments and suggestions preferably to the Bioperl mailing list. Your participation is much appreciated. bioperl-l@bioperl.org - General discussion http://bioperl.org/MailList.shtml - About the mailing lists

Reporting Bugs
Report bugs to the Bioperl bug tracking system to help us keep track of the bugs and their resolution. Bug reports can be submitted via email or the web: bioperl-bugs@bioperl.org http://bugzilla.bioperl.org/ Email hlapp at gmx.net Describe contact details here Additional contributors names and emails here The rest of the documentation details each of the object methods. Internal methods are usually preceded with a _

want_slot
Title : want_slot Usage : Function: Whether or not the object builder wants to populate the specified slot of the object to be built. The slot can be specified either as the name of the respective method, or the initialization parameter that would be otherwise passed to new() of the object to be built. Example : Returns : TRUE if the object builder wants to populate the slot, and FALSE otherwise. Args : the name of the slot (a string)

add_slot_value
Title : add_slot_value Usage : Function: Adds one or more values to the specified slot of the object to be built. Naming the slot is the same as for want_slot(). The object builder may further filter the content to be set, or even completely ignore the request. If this method reports failure, the caller should not add more values to the same slot. In addition, the caller may find it appropriate to abandon the object being built altogether. Example : Returns : TRUE on success, and FALSE otherwise Args : the name of the slot (a string) parameters determining the value to be set

want_object
Title : want_object Usage : Function: Whether or not the object builder is still interested in continuing with the object being built. If this method returns FALSE, the caller should not add any more values to slots, or otherwise risks that the builder throws an exception. In addition, make_object() is likely to return undef after this method returned FALSE. Example : Returns : TRUE if the object builder wants to continue building the present object, and FALSE otherwise. Args : none

make_object
Title : make_object Usage : Function: Get the built object. This method is allowed to return undef if no value has ever been added since the last call to make_object(), or if want_object() returned FALSE (or would have returned FALSE) before calling this method. For an implementation that allows consecutive building of objects, a caller must call this method once, and only once, between subsequent objects to be built. I.e., a call to make_object implies 'end_object.' Example : Returns : the object that was built Args : none