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                       Release of version 0.50 of NEXT
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NAME

    NEXT - Pseudo class for method redispatch


DESCRIPTION

    NEXT.pm adds a pseudoclass named C<NEXT> to any program that
    uses it. If a method C<m> calls C<$self->NEXT::m()>, the call to
    C<m> is redispatched as if the calling method had not originally
    been found.

    In other words, a call to C<$self->NEXT::m()> resumes the
    depth-first, left-to-right search of parent classes that
    resulted in the original call to C<m>.

    Note that this is not the same thing as C<$self->SUPER::m()>, which
    begins a new dispatch that is restricted to searching the ancestors
    of the current class. C<$self->NEXT::m()> can backtrack past
    the current class -- to look for a suitable method in other
    ancestors of C<$self> -- whereas C<$self->SUPER::m()> cannot.

    A particularly interesting use of redispatch is in
    C<AUTOLOAD>'ed methods. If such a method determines that it is
    not able to handle a particular call, it may choose to
    redispatch that call, in the hope that some other C<AUTOLOAD>
    (above it, or to its left) might do better.

    The module also allows you to specify that multiply inherited
    methods should only be redispatched once, and what should
    happen if no redispatch is possible.


AUTHOR

    Damian Conway ([email protected])


COPYRIGHT

	 Copyright (c) 2000-2001, Damian Conway. All Rights Reserved.
	 This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed
	    and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.


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CHANGES IN VERSION 0.50


	- Added a $VERSION (oops!)

	- Fixed handling of diamond patterns (thanks Paul)

	- Added NEXT::ACTUAL to require existence of next method (thanks Paul)

	- Added NEXT::UNSEEN to avoid calling multiply inherited
	  methods twice (thanks Paul)

	- Re-fixed setting of $AUTOLOAD in NEXT'd AUTOLOADS to be
	  consistent with more useful SUPER:: behaviour

	- Corified tests


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AVAILABILITY

NEXT has been uploaded to the CPAN
and is also available from:

	http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/CPAN/NEXT.tar.gz

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