Parent method using a variable defined in a child class - perl

Question

In Python you can do:
class Binance(Exchange):
name = "Binance"
code = "binance"
and in the parent class have
class Exchange:
#classmethod
def get_name(cls):
return cls.name
Now Perl!
This is lovely. I want the same for my Perl objects.
package DWDESReader;
use base qw(DWConfigFileReader);
our $type = "DES";
and in the base class:
package DWConfigFileReader;
our $type = "";
sub new {
my ($class, %args) = #_;
$args{type} = $type;
return bless {%args}, $class;
}
sub getType {
my ($self) = #_;
return $self->{type};
}
But this doesn't work, i.e. only returns the empty string assigned in the base class. I didn't expect it to work but am unsure how it should be done.

Answer 1

I don't see why one should need it, but it's possible, if you turn off strict refs:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
{ package My::Base;
sub new { bless {}, shift }
our $name = 'Base';
sub get_name {
my ($self) = #_;
my $class = ref $self || $self;
do { no strict 'refs';
${ $class . '::name' }
}
}
}
{ package My::Child;
use parent -norequire => 'My::Base';
our $name = 'Child';
}
my $ch = 'My::Child'->new;
print $ch->get_name, ' ', 'My::Child'->get_name;
But usually, you would just define a class method holding the name:
{ package My::Base;
sub new { bless {}, shift }
sub name { 'Base' }
sub get_name { shift->name }
}
{ package My::Child;
use parent -norequire => 'My::Base';
sub name { 'Child' }
}

Answer 2

Classes don't have attributes (variables) in Perl, only methods (subs).
I recommend creating an abstract virtual class method.
package DWConfigFileReader;
use Carp qw( croak );
sub new {
my ($class, %args) = #_;
my $self = bless(\%args, $class);
return $self;
}
sub type { croak("Subclass must override \"type\"."); }
1;
package DWDESReader;
use parent 'DWConfigFileReader';
sub type { "DES" }
1;
You don't even need $self->{type} = $class->type;; just use $self->type instead of $self->{type}.

Answer 3

As has been suggested, Perl inherits methods (subs), not variables, but constants are actually subs, so you can do something similar like this.
package DWDESReader;
use base qw(DWConfigFileReader);
use constant TYPE => "DES";
Then, if you call $self->TYPE somewhere in the base class, you'll get "DES" if the object is actually a DWDESReader object.