Class-AutoDB

This class works closely with Class::AutoClass to provide almost
transparent object persistence.  You can declare any class to be
persistent and can easily store any objects of a persistent class.
You can retrieve a stored object explicitly through a query
mechansism, or implicitly by following a reference pointing to the
object.  The persistence mechanism preserves the structure of the
object network: if objects A and B pointed to C when they were stored,
the retrieval process will reconstruct this relationship.

This class presently works only with MySQL. 

CAUTION: This module is old. We use it internally, and while it works
well for our purposes, we urge new users to heed the warnings in the
documentation.  This release brings the CPAN version of the module
up-to-date relative to our internal version, something we should have
done long ago.  

We are resuming active development of the code and expect to release
improved versions over the next several months.  See the "Roadmap"
section in the main documentation.

The 't' directory includes separate 'user' and 'developer' test
suites.  The installation procedure below runs the user test suite.
See t/README for more information.

The 'docs' directory contains additional documentation.  All of this
is presently for internal classes.

INSTALLATION

To install this module, run the following commands:

	perl Build.PL
	./Build
	./Build test
	./Build install

The first step, 'perl Build.PL', makes sure that MySQL is available
and that the preson doing the installation has sufficient privileges
to run the test suite. If this check fails, Build.PL does not generate
the Build script and exits with a 0 return code. This is the idiom
recommended for automated CPAN testing but may be too severe for
normal installs.

The module includes a modified version of Data::Dumper, renamed
Class::AutoDB::Dumper.  We include both the pure Perl and much faster
C (.xs) implementations. Build automatically compiles the C
implementation if your system has a C compiler. We see a few compiler
warnings when Build does this. These seem benign and can be
ignored. The Data::Dumper docs claim that the code will fall back to
the pure Perl implementation if the C version is not available.  We
haven't checked this claim.

SUPPORT AND DOCUMENTATION

After installing, you can find documentation for this module with the
perldoc command.

    perldoc Class::AutoDB

You can also look for information at:

    RT, CPAN's request tracker
        http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Class-AutoDB

    AnnoCPAN, Annotated CPAN documentation
        http://annocpan.org/dist/Class-AutoDB

    CPAN Ratings
        http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Class-AutoDB

    Search CPAN
        http://search.cpan.org/dist/Class-AutoDB/


COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Copyright (C) 2009 Nat Goodman

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.

