NAME
    Leyland - Plack-based framework for RESTful web applications

VERSION
    version 0.001007

SYNOPSIS
            # in app.psgi:

            #!/usr/bin/perl -w

            use strict;
            use warnings;
            use MyApp;

            my $config = {
                    app => 'MyApp',
                    views => ['Tenjin'],
                    locales => './i18n',
            };

            my $myapp = MyApp->new(config => $config);

            my $app = sub {
                    $myapp->handle(shift);
            };

DESCRIPTION
    Leyland is a Plack-based application framework for building truely
    RESTful, MVC-style web applications.

    "Another application framework?" you ask? Well yes! You see, after
    several years of Catalyst development, I grew tired of Catalyst's bloat,
    and the fact that it made it very hard (pretty much impossible if you
    ask me) to create truely RESTful applications. I then moved for a short
    while to Dancer, which had a nice syntax for defining routes and had at
    least some REST properties, but I quickly found it didn't fit my needs
    as well, and that it also made it very difficult to write truely RESTful
    applications. I also really missed Catalyst's "context object" and some
    of its other features, and simply couldn't get used to Dancer's whole
    functional syntax you're supposed to use inside your routes. While there
    were quite a few other options on CPAN, I didn't like any of them, plus
    pretty much none of them were native Plack frameworks, which for me is a
    bit of a minus (can't blame them though as most of them predate Plack),
    so I decided to create my own framework, based on Plack and designed to
    my liking. This is the mess that I've created. You will find that it
    mostly resembles Catalyst, while providing a syntax mostly similar to
    Dancer, but with a lot of crazy ideas of its own.

  FEATURES
    *   Build truely RESTful web applications - Leyland was designed from
        the ground up according to the Representational State Transfer style
        of software architecture. Leyland applications perform real HTTP
        negotiations, (can) provide different representations of the same
        resource easily, respond with proper HTTP status codes, throw real
        HTTP exceptions, etc.

    *   Automatic data (de)serialization - Leyland does by itself the boring
        task of serializing resources to representations in the format your
        client wants to receive, like JSON and XML. It will also deserialize
        JSON/XML requests to Perl data-structures automatically.

    *   Pure UTF-8 - Leyland applications are pure UTF-8. Anything your
        application receives is automatically UTF-8 decoded, and anything
        your application sends is automatically UTF-8 encoded. Leyland apps
        will not accept, nor provide, content in a different character set.
        If you want to use different/multiple encodings, then Leyland is not
        for you.

    *   Localize for the client, not the server - Pretty much every other
        application framework only concerns itself with localizing the
        application to the locale of the machine on which it is running. I
        find that this is rarely useful nor interesting to the application
        developer. Leyland localizes for the client, not the server. If the
        client wants to view your application (which may be a simple
        website) in Hebrew, and your application supports Hebrew, then you
        can easily provide him with Hebrew representations. Leyland uses
        Locale::Wolowitz for this purpose.

    *   Easy deployment and middleware support via Plack - Leyland doesn't
        support Plack, it is dependant on it. Leyland's entire session
        support, for example, depends on Plack's Session middleware. Use the
        full power of Plack in your Leyland application.

    *   Less code, better programs - One thing I really hated about Catalyst
        was that I had to create stupid pointless classes that don't do
        anything but wrap a base class, just so I can have a new view class
        or something. While not as lightweight as Dancer, Leyland does a lot
        of the boring work for you, so you can concentrate more on your
        application.

    *   Flexible, extensible, unbreakable - Well, it's not unbreakable, but
        Leyland was designed to be as flexible and as extensible as possible
        - where flexibility matters, and strict - where constistency and
        convention are appropriate. Leyland goes to great lengths to give
        you the ability to do things the way you want to, and more
        importantly - the way your end-users want to. Your applications
        listen to your users' preferences and automatically decide on a
        suitable course of action. Leyland is also Moose based, making it
        easy to extend and tweak its behavior.

    *   Doesn't have a pony - You don't really need a pony, do you?

  STATUS
    Development of Leyland began August 2010. I have been using it
    extensively for several projects, some of them already in production.
    Therefore, the API has somewhat stabilized and I do not consider it in
    alpha status. That said, Leyland still is immature, and I cannot
    guarantee that API changes won't be made, nor that it is bug free or
    even secure enough. If you're thinking of using Leyland for a production
    project, please test it thoroughly beforehand.

  MANUAL / TUTORIAL / GUIDE / GIBBERISH
    To learn about using Leyland, please refer to the Leyland::Manual. The
    documentation of this distribution's classes is for reference only, the
    manual is where you're most likely to find your answers. Or not.

  WHAT'S WITH THE NAME?
    Leyland is named after Mr. Bean's clunker of a car - the British Leyland
    Mini 1000. I don't know why.

ATTRIBUTES
  config
    A hash-ref of configuration options for the application. If not
    provided, a default configuration will be used.

  context_class
    The name of the class to be used as the context class for every request.
    Defaults to Leyland::Context. If provided, the class must extend
    Leyland::Context.

  name
    The package name of the application, for example "MyApp" or "My::App".
    Automatically created from the app's configuration. If config doesn't
    define a name, 'Leyland' will be used.

  log
    A logger object that "does" Leyland::Logger, providing the application
    with logging capabilities. Automatically built from the app's config,
    unless config doesn't define a logger, in which case
    Leyland::Logger::STDERR will be used.

  localizer
    If application config defines a path for localization files, this will
    hold a Leyland::Localizer object, which is based on Locale::Wolowitz.

  views
    An array refernce of all Leyland::View classes enabled in the app's
    configuration. If none defined, Tenjin is used by default.

  routes
    A Tie::IxHash object holding all routes defined in the application's
    controllers. Automatically created, not to be used directly by
    applications.

  req_counter
    An integer representing the number of requests handled by the
    application. Automatically created.

  cwe
    The plack environment in which the application is running. This is the
    "PLACK_ENV" environment variable. Defaults to "development" unless
    you've provided a specific value to "plackup" (via the "-E" switch or by
    changing "PLACK_ENV" directly).

CLASS METHODS
  new( [ %attrs ] )
    Creates a new instance of this class. None of the attributes are
    required (in fact, you shouldn't pass most of them), but you will mostly
    pass the "config" attribute, and possibly the "context_class" attribute.

OBJECT METHODS
  setup()
    Meant to be overridden by applications, this is automatically called
    right after the application has been initialized, so it is useful for
    one-time initializations your application might need to perform. If not
    overridden, this method does nothing.

  handle( \%env )
    Receives a Plack environment hash-ref of an HTTP request, creates a new
    instance of the application's context class (most probably
    Leyland::Context), performs HTTP negotiations and finds routes matching
    the request. If any are found, the first one is invoked and an HTTP
    response is generated and returned.

    You should note that requests to paths that end with a slash will
    automatically be redirected without the trailing slash.

    This method will probably be called from "app.psgi".

  has_localizer()
    Returns a true value if the application has a localizer.

  has_views()
    Returns a true value if the application has any view classes.

  has_routes()
    Returns a true value if the application has any routes defined in its
    controllers.

INTERNAL METHODS
    The following methods are only to be used internally.

  BUILD()
    Automatically called by Moose after instance creation, this method loads
    the context class, application logger, localizer, controllers and views.
    It then find all routes in the controllers, runs the application's
    setup() method, and prints a nice info table to the log.

  _handle_exception( $c, $exp )
    Receives exceptions thrown by the application (including run-time
    errors) and generates an HTTP response with the error information, in a
    format recognizable by the client.

  _default_config()
    Returns a default configuration hash-ref.

  _autolog( $msg )
    Used by "Text::SpanningTable" when printing the application's info
    table.

  _initial_debug_info()
    Prints an info table of the application after initialization.

AUTHOR
    Ido Perlmuter, "<ido at ido50.net>"

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    I wish to thank the following people:

    *   http://search.cpan.org/~sknpp/ for submitting bug fixes

    *   http://search.cpan.org/~mdorman/ for some helpful ideas

BUGS
    Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-Leyland at
    rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
    <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Leyland>. I will be
    notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your
    bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT
    You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

            perldoc Leyland

    You can also look for information at:

    *   RT: CPAN's request tracker

        <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Leyland>

    *   AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

        <http://annocpan.org/dist/Leyland>

    *   CPAN Ratings

        <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Leyland>

    *   Search CPAN

        <http://search.cpan.org/dist/Leyland/>

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 2010-2011 Ido Perlmuter.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published
    by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

    See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.

