# $File: //member/autrijus/Class-PseudoHash/README $ $Author: autrijus $
# $Revision: #1 $ $Change: 1 $ $DateTime: 2002/06/11 08:35:12 $

This is the README file for Class::PseudoHash, a module to
emulate pseudo-hash behaviour via overload.

* Installation

Class::PseudoHash uses the standard perl module install process:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

* Copyright

Copyright 2001, 2002 by Autrijus Tang <autrijus@autrijus.org>,

All rights reserved.  You can redistribute and/or modify
this bundle under the same terms as Perl itself.

See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>.

* Introduction

Due to its impact on overall performance of ordinary hashes, pseudo-hashes
are deprecated in perl v5.8, and will cease to exist in perl v5.10.  By then,
the 'fields' pragma is supposed to change to use a different implementation.

Although 'perlref/Pseudo-hashes: Using an array as a hash' recommends
against depending on the underlying implementation (i.e. using the first
array element as hash indice), there are undoubtly many brave souls still
writing such code, and fearing that the elimination of pseudo-hashes will
require a massive rewrite of their programs.

As one of the primary victims, I tried to devise a drop-in solution that 
could emulate exactly the same semantic of pseudo-hashes, thus keeping 
all my legacy code intact.  So 'Class::PseudoHash' was born.

Please refer to the POD text for synopsis and usage details.