ref ($proto) || $proto patch

Message-ID: <406F7A0A.50702@yahoo.com>
(with minor reformatting)

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@22654

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/pod/perlobj.pod b/pod/perlobj.pod
index 7d7beaf477..891ebe37f2 100644
--- a/pod/perlobj.pod
+++ b/pod/perlobj.pod
@@ -97,9 +97,11 @@ so that your constructors may be inherited:
     }
 
 Or if you expect people to call not just C<< CLASS->new() >> but also
-C<< $obj->new() >>, then use something like this.  The initialize()
-method used will be of whatever $class we blessed the
-object into:
+C<< $obj->new() >>, then use something like the following.  (Note that using
+this to call new() on an instance does not automatically perform any
+copying.  If you want a shallow or deep copy of an object, you'll have to
+specifically allow for that.)  The initialize() method used will be of
+whatever $class we blessed the object into:
 
     sub new {
 	my $this = shift;
@@ -485,9 +487,8 @@ if you don't care to leak.  For example, here's a self-referential
 node such as one might use in a sophisticated tree structure:
 
     sub new_node {
-	my $self = shift;
-	my $class = ref($self) || $self;
-	my $node = {};
+	my $class = shift;
+	my $node  = {};
 	$node->{LEFT} = $node->{RIGHT} = $node;
 	$node->{DATA} = [ @_ ];
 	return bless $node => $class;