The new() constructor method creates and returns a reference to a new Template::Stash object.

my $stash = Template::Stash->new();

A hash reference may be passed to provide variables and values which should be used to initialise the stash.

my $stash = Template::Stash->new({ var1 => 'value1', 
                                   var2 => 'value2' });

The get() method retrieves the variable named by the first parameter.

$value = $stash->get('var1');

Dotted compound variables can be retrieved by specifying the variable elements by reference to a list. Each node in the variable occupies two entries in the list. The first gives the name of the variable element, the second is a reference to a list of arguments for that element, or 0 if none.

[% foo.bar(10).baz(20) %]

$stash->get([ 'foo', 0, 'bar', [ 10 ], 'baz', [ 20 ] ]);

The set() method sets the variable name in the first parameter to the value specified in the second.

$stash->set('var1', 'value1');

If the third parameter evaluates to a true value, the variable is set only if it did not have a true value before.

$stash->set('var2', 'default_value', 1);

Dotted compound variables may be specified as per get() above.

[% foo.bar = 30 %]

$stash->set([ 'foo', 0, 'bar', 0 ], 30);

The magical variable 'IMPORT' can be specified whose corresponding value should be a hash reference. The contents of the hash array are copied (i.e. imported) into the current namespace.

# foo.bar = baz, foo.wiz = waz
$stash->set('foo', { 'bar' => 'baz', 'wiz' => 'waz' });

# import 'foo' into main namespace: bar = baz, wiz = waz
$stash->set('IMPORT', $stash->get('foo'));

This method can be used to set or update several variables in one go.

$stash->update({
    foo => 10,
    bar => 20,
});

This undocumented feature returns a closure which can be called to get the value of a variable. It is used to implement variable references which are evlauted lazily.

[% x = \foo.bar.baz %]          # x is a reference to foo.bar.baz
[% x %]                         # evalautes foo.bar.baz

The clone() method creates and returns a new Template::Stash object which represents a localised copy of the parent stash. Variables can be freely updated in the cloned stash and when declone() is called, the original stash is returned with all its members intact and in the same state as they were before clone() was called.

For convenience, a hash of parameters may be passed into clone() which is used to update any simple variable (i.e. those that don't contain any namespace elements like foo and bar but not foo.bar) variables while cloning the stash. For adding and updating complex variables, the set() method should be used after calling clone(). This will correctly resolve and/or create any necessary namespace hashes.

A cloned stash maintains a reference to the stash that it was copied from in its _PARENT member.

The declone() method returns the _PARENT reference and can be used to restore the state of a stash as described above.

This method can be used to define new virtual methods. The first argument should be either scalar or item to define scalar virtual method, hash to define hash virtual methods, or either array or list for list virtual methods. The second argument should be the name of the new method. The third argument should be a reference to a subroutine implementing the method. The data item on which the virtual method is called is passed to the subroutine as the first argument.

$stash->define_vmethod(
    item => ucfirst => sub {
        my $text = shift;
        return ucfirst $text
    }
);

This is the core dot operation method which evaluates elements of variables against their root.

This method is called when get() encounters an undefined value. If the STRICT|Template::Manual::Config#STRICT option is in effect then it will throw an exception indicating the use of an undefined value. Otherwise it will silently return an empty string.

The method can be redefined in a subclass to implement alternate handling of undefined values.