NAME
    Data::Vitals - The Perl "Vital Statistics" Library

DESCRIPTION
    The world of clothing and fashion works to an annoyingly anacronistic
    and complicated set of measurements. The Perl "Vital Statistics" Library
    is an attempt to create a comprehensive set of classes, object and
    algorithms for working with human-describing data such as height, body
    measurements, shoe, bra and other clothing sizes.

    It is not intended to be the end to a means, or the solution to a
    specific problem, but rather a general package that can be used to build
    more specific packages. It is intended that the library should be
    extremely flexible, highly extendible, support locales in some form, and
    be heavily unit tested to ensure that packages built on top of
    Data::Vitals have a reliable base.

    Data::Vitals measurement objects are useful for both male and female
    measurements.

  Implementation Style
    As is generally the case with complex and twisty subjects (such as
    DateTime) this library is implemented in a highly object-orientated
    form.

    For the sake of completeness we take this to rather extreme levels. For
    example, a Data::Vitals::Waist object specifically refers for a
    measurement of the circumference of the torso taken at a waist.

  Metric and Imperial
    Please note that all measurements are stored and stringified into metric
    values (although they can be input in various forms). This is for
    forward compability with the long term worldwide trend towards
    metrification. For now, locales that use imperial values should
    explicitly call the various "->as_imperial" methods.

  Class List
    Data::Vitals::Height - Height measurement

    Data::Vitals::Circumference - General circumference measurement

    Data::Vitals::Hips - Measurement of the circumference around the hips

    Data::Vitals::Waist - Measurement of the circumference around the waist

    Data::Vitals::Frame - The "Frame" measurement. Circumference around the
    chest, just below the breasts.

    Data::Vitals::Chest - Measurement of the circumference around the chest

    Data::Vitals::Underarm - Measurement of the circumference around the
    torso at a position under the arms.

STATUS
    This contains an implementation of Height measurements, plus a number of
    measurements of the circumference of the torso at various points. i.e.
    Hips/Waist/Chest/etc

    Unit testing and documentation is up to date.

    Please note that nothing that produces an error (by returning "undef")
    sets an error message in any form. This will be resolved in a later
    version.

    Please note that the measurement ranges are very large by default. The
    maximum allowable values exceed by a small percentage the world records
    for the various measurements (at the time of writing).

    However, the minimums of the range may be unsuitable for newborn or
    premature babies. The ability to customise these ranges will be added in
    a later version.

METHODS
  height $height
    The "height" method creates and returns a height object. It takes as
    argument a "height string".

    Returns a new Data::Vitals::Height object on success, or "undef" on
    error.

  hips $circumference
    The "hips" method creates and returns a hip measurement object.

    It takes as argument a "circumference string" (see
    Data::Vitals::Circumference for details)

    Returns a new Data::Vitals::Hips object, or "undef" on error.

  waist $circumference
    The "waist" method creates and returns a waist measurement object.

    It takes as argument a "circumference string" (see
    Data::Vitals::Circumference for details)

    Returns a new Data::Vitals::Waist object, or "undef" on error.

  frame $circumference
    The "frame" method creates and returns a "frame" measurement object.
    Mainly used for women, the frame is the circumference of the torso over
    the rib cage, immediately below the breasts and specifically not
    included any breast material.

    It takes as argument a "circumference string" (see
    Data::Vitals::Circumference for details)

    Returns a new Data::Vitals::Frame object, or "undef" on error.

  chest $circumference
    The "chest" method creates and returns a chest measurement object. For
    women, this is also known as a "bust" measurement.

    It takes as argument a "circumference string" (see
    Data::Vitals::Circumference for details)

    Returns a new Data::Vitals::Chest object on success, or "undef" on
    error.

  bust $circumference
    The "bust" method is an alias for the chest method.

  underarm $circumference
    The "underarm" method creates and returns an underarm measurement
    object, which is the circumference of the torso under the arms and above
    (for women) the breasts.

    It takes as argument a "circumference string" (see
    Data::Vitals::Circumference for details)

    Returns a new Data::Vitals::Underarm object, or "undef" on error.

TO DO
    - Allow for per-measurement ranges, that can be tweaked if needed in
    special cases.

    - Add Data::Vitals::Weight

    - Add Data::Vitals::Bra

    - Add Data::Vitals::Dress (in the various country standards)

    - Add Data::Vitals::Shoe (in the various country standards)

SUPPORT
    Bugs should always be reported via the CPAN bug tracker

    <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Data-Vitals>

    For other issues, contact the maintainer.

    As the author is no longer working in the fashion/modelling industry,
    volunteers for taking over maintenance would be gratefully accepted.

AUTHORS
    Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
    Thank you to Phase N (<http://phase-n.com/>) for permitting the open
    sourcing and release of this distribution.

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 2004 - 2008 Adam Kennedy.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

    The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included
    with this module.

