NAME
    Config::Simple::App - Perl extension for managing application's
    configuration settings

SYNOPSIS
        # inside App/Config.pm
        package App::Config;
        use base qw( Config::Simple::App );

        sub _init {
            my $self = shift;

            $self->define("AppPath", "/home/sherzodr/public_html/author/");
            $self->define("AppURL", "http://author.handalak.com/");
            $self->define("CGIPath", $self->AppURL . "cgi-bin/" );
            $self->define("DBDriver");
            $self->define("DBName");
            $self->define("DBUser");
            $self->define("DBPassword");
            $self->define("DBPath", $self->AppPath . "db/");

        }

        1;

        __END__;

        # in your application:
        $config = new App::Config("config.ini");
        print $config->AppPath();
        # etc..

ABSTRACT
        Config::Simple::App is meant to be sub classed by applications' 
        configuration manager class. Relies on Config::Simple to parse
        configuration files into configuration manager instance.

DESCRIPTION
    One can, of course, use Config::Simple to manage their applications'
    configuration files. Although perfect for reading and writing
    configuration files of various formats, Config::Simple does not provide
    obvious ways for validating configuration file's attributes and for
    assigning default attribute values.

    Is that such a big deal? Consider the following:

    *   Most applications rely on predefined configuration attributes.

    *   More often than not configuration files consist of attributes that
        are rarely modified, but read frequently.

    *   All configuration attributes should not be required to be set
        explicitly. Applications must be able to derive default values for
        missing attributes, possibly by looking at other attributes.

    *   Typos in configuration files must be detected as early as possible.
        Complex validation routines may be required to validate certain
        settings (such as a path that doesn't exist, but should).

    *   Name based access is sometimes preferred

    Config::Simple::App attempts to deliver all the above features to your
    application

  EXPORT
    None.

PROGRAMMING STYLE
    Config::Simple::App is not meant to be used directly, but through sub
    classing.

    First step in creating a configuration manager class is to subclass
    Config::Simple::App.

        package App::ConfigManager;
        use base qw( Config::Simple::App );

    Config::Simple::App provides new() and define() methods to your
    configuration class. The next step is to define an "_init()" routine
    that gets called by new() after configuration file has been processed.
    You need to call define() for each attribute that a configuration file
    can have that is considered valid. This does not mean all those
    attributes must be present, but can be present.

        sub _init {
            my $self = shift;

            $self->define("Path");
            $self->define("TemplatePath", $self->Path . 'tmpl');
        }

METHODS
    new($config_file)
    define($attribute)
    define($attribute, $default_value)

SEE ALSO
    Config::Simple

AUTHOR
    Sherzod B. Ruzmetov <sherzodr@localdomain>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    Copyright 2005 by Sherzod B. Ruzmetov

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.