What are Object and Class in Perl?

There are three main terms, explained from the point of view of how Perl handles objects. The terms are object, class, and method.

• An object within Perl is merely a reference to a data type that knows what class it belongs to. The object is stored as a reference in a scalar variable. Because a scalar only contains a reference to the object, the same scalar can hold different objects in different classes.
• A class within Perl is a package that contains the corresponding methods required to create and manipulate objects.
• A method within Perl is a subroutine, defined with the package. The first argument to the method is an object reference or a package name, depending on whether the method affects the current object or the class.

Perl provides a bless() function, which is used to return a reference which ultimately becomes an object.

Defining a Class

It is very simple to define a class in Perl. A class is corresponding to a Perl Package in its simplest form. To create a class in Perl, we first build a package.

A package is a self-contained unit of user-defined variables and subroutines, which can be re-used over and over again.

Perl Packages provide a separate namespace within a Perl program which keeps subroutines and variables independent from conflicting with those in other packages.

To declare a class named Person in Perl we do −

package Person;

The scope of the package definition extends to the end of the file, or until another package keyword is encountered.