[Bioperl-l] Other object oddities

[Hilmar Lapp]

I agree, $seq->seq() could possibly be better named. Maybe $seq- 
 >seqstr()?

The thing is that having $seq->seq() return an object would be  
meaningless - it would be $self.

You can test what kind of object you have using ref() or isa():

	$seq = $obj->seq();
	# we need the sequence string
	$seq = $seq->seq() if ref($seq) && $seq->isa("Bio::PrimarySeqI");

There has been a naming consistency review, but it's been a long time.

-hilmar


On Apr 30, 2009, at 5:56 PM, Kevin Brown wrote:

> So, I'm using quite a bit of bioperl code in my own stuff and have  
> been
> seeing some oddities with the naming of methods. A good example  
> would be
> in the Bio::Seq and Bio::SeqFeature::Generic. Both have a method  
> called
> "seq" but in the latter case it returns an object (and expects an  
> object
> when doing a Set) and in the former it returns a string and expects a
> string when doing a Set.
>
> This makes for a bit of brain freeze on my part when the return from
> another object might be a Bio::Seq or Bio::SeqFeature::Generic and now
> calling the ->seq returns different things.
>
> Guess I'm just curious if anyone has done an audit of the methods of  
> the
> various objects and their return types to see how consistent they are
> across even a subsection of the codebase?
>
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: Hilmar Lapp  -:-  Durham, NC  -:-  hlapp at gmx dot net :
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