scope¶

The "scope" method returns true if the node represents a lexical scope boundary, or false if it does not.

add_element $Element¶

The "add_element" method adds a PPI::Element object to the end of a "PPI::Node". Because Elements maintain links to their parent, an Element can only be added to a single Node.

Returns true if the PPI::Element was added. Returns "undef" if the Element was already within another Node, or the method is not passed a PPI::Element object.

elements¶

The "elements" method accesses all child elements structurally within the "PPI::Node" object. Note that in the base of the PPI::Structure classes, this "DOES" include the brace tokens at either end of the structure.

Returns a list of zero or more PPI::Element objects.

Alternatively, if called in the scalar context, the "elements" method returns a count of the number of elements.

first_element¶

The "first_element" method accesses the first element structurally within the "PPI::Node" object. As for the "elements" method, this does include the brace tokens for PPI::Structure objects.

Returns a PPI::Element object, or "undef" if for some reason the "PPI::Node" object does not contain any elements.

last_element¶

The "last_element" method accesses the last element structurally within the "PPI::Node" object. As for the "elements" method, this does include the brace tokens for PPI::Structure objects.

Returns a PPI::Element object, or "undef" if for some reason the "PPI::Node" object does not contain any elements.

children¶

The "children" method accesses all child elements lexically within the "PPI::Node" object. Note that in the case of the PPI::Structure classes, this does NOT include the brace tokens at either end of the structure.

Returns a list of zero of more PPI::Element objects.

Alternatively, if called in the scalar context, the "children" method returns a count of the number of lexical children.

schildren¶

The "schildren" method is really just a convenience, the significant-only variation of the normal "children" method.

In list context, returns a list of significant children. In scalar context, returns the number of significant children.

child $index¶

The "child" method accesses a child PPI::Element object by its position within the Node.

Returns a PPI::Element object, or "undef" if there is no child element at that node.

schild $index¶

The lexical structure of the Perl language ignores 'insignificant' items, such as whitespace and comments, while PPI treats these items as valid tokens so that it can reassemble the file at any time. Because of this, in many situations there is a need to find an Element within a Node by index, only counting lexically significant Elements.

The "schild" method returns a child Element by index, ignoring insignificant Elements. The index of a child Element is specified in the same way as for a normal array, with the first Element at index 0, and negative indexes used to identify a "from the end" position.

contains $Element¶

The "contains" method is used to determine if another PPI::Element object is logically "within" a "PPI::Node". For the special case of the brace tokens at either side of a PPI::Structure object, they are generally considered "within" a PPI::Structure object, even if they are not actually in the elements for the PPI::Structure.

Returns true if the PPI::Element is within us, false if not, or "undef" on error.

find $class | \&wanted¶

The "find" method is used to search within a code tree for PPI::Element objects that meet a particular condition.

To specify the condition, the method can be provided with either a simple class name (full or shortened), or a "CODE"/function reference.

  # Find all single quotes in a Document (which is a Node)
  $Document->find('PPI::Quote::Single');
  
  # The same thing with a shortened class name
  $Document->find('Quote::Single');
  
  # Anything more elaborate, we go with the sub
  $Document->find( sub {
        # At the top level of the file...
        $_[1]->parent == $_[0]
        and (
                # ...find all comments and POD
                $_[1]->isa('PPI::Token::Pod')
                or
                $_[1]->isa('PPI::Token::Comment')
        )
  } );

The function will be passed two arguments, the top-level "PPI::Node" you are searching in and the current PPI::Element that the condition is testing.

The anonymous function should return one of three values. Returning true indicates a condition match, defined-false (0 or '') indicates no-match, and "undef" indicates no-match and no-descend.

In the last case, the tree walker will skip over anything below the "undef"-returning element and move on to the next element at the same level.

To halt the entire search and return "undef" immediately, a condition function should throw an exception (i.e. "die").

Note that this same wanted logic is used for all methods documented to have a "\&wanted" parameter, as this one does.

The "find" method returns a reference to an array of PPI::Element objects that match the condition, false (but defined) if no Elements match the condition, or "undef" if you provide a bad condition, or an error occurs during the search process.

In the case of a bad condition, a warning will be emitted as well.

find_first $class | \&wanted¶

If the normal "find" method is like a grep, then "find_first" is equivalent to the List::Util "first" function.

Given an element class or a wanted function, it will search depth-first through a tree until it finds something that matches the condition, returning the first Element that it encounters.

See the "find" method for details on the format of the search condition.

Returns the first PPI::Element object that matches the condition, false if nothing matches the condition, or "undef" if given an invalid condition, or an error occurs.

find_any $class | \&wanted¶

The "find_any" method is a short-circuiting true/false method that behaves like the normal "find" method, but returns true as soon as it finds any Elements that match the search condition.

See the "find" method for details on the format of the search condition.

Returns true if any Elements that match the condition can be found, false if not, or "undef" if given an invalid condition, or an error occurs.

remove_child $Element¶

If passed a PPI::Element object that is a direct child of the Node, the "remove_element" method will remove the "Element" intact, along with any of its children. As such, this method acts essentially as a 'cut' function.

If successful, returns the removed element. Otherwise, returns "undef".

replace_child $Element, $Replacement¶

If successful, returns the replace element. Otherwise, returns "undef".

prune $class | \&wanted¶

The "prune" method is used to strip PPI::Element objects out of a code tree. The argument is the same as for the "find" method, either a class name, or an anonymous subroutine which returns true/false. Any Element that matches the class|wanted will be deleted from the code tree, along with any of its children.

The "prune" method returns the number of "Element" objects that matched and were removed, non-recursively. This might also be zero, so avoid a simple true/false test on the return false of the "prune" method. It returns "undef" on error, which you probably should test for.