Modifiers and variables

Hey Jean-Michel et al,

I'm working on adding several new modifiers to Petal::Utils and have
come across an interesting proposal which I wanted to float with the
list.

When processing arguments passed to a modifier, there is not yet a
standard way of reading these values (at least to my knowledge). Warren
S. submitted a couple of modifiers which included a subroutine that he
devised which fetches the arguments in the following way:

  1 - if the argument is a number (decimals are OK) or contains single
  quotes, return the argument itself (i.e., plaintext)
  2 - otherwise use the argument as the key to the hash and return that
  value

I like this as it makes it really easy to pass in plain text without
having to use the string: modifier. However, I'm not sure whether this
is considered TAL compliant. What are your thoughts? I've included the
subroutine at the end.


Thanks,
William


  sub _fetch {
    my ($hash, $a) = @_;

    return undef unless defined($a);
    if($a =~ /\'/) {
      $a =~ s/\'//g;
      return $a;
    }
    elsif($a =~ /^[0-9.]+$/) {
      return $a;
    }
    else {
      return $hash->fetch($a);
    }
  }


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