User::Identity(3)

NAME
User::Identity - maintain info about a physical person

INHERITANCE
 User::Identity
   is a User::Identity::Item

SYNOPSIS
  use User::Identity;
  my $me = User::Identity->new(
    'john',
    firstname => 'John',
    surname   => 'Doe'
   );
  print $me->fullName  # prints "John Doe"
  print $me;           # same

DESCRIPTION
The "User-Identity" distribution is created to maintain a set of informational objects which are related to one user. The "User::Identity" module tries to be smart providing defaults, conversions and often required combinations.

Be aware: This module versions 4.0 and up is not fully compatible with older releases: mainly the exception handling has changed. When you need to upgrade, please read the wiki <https://github.com/markov2/perl5-Mail-Box/wiki/>. Version 3 is still maintained and may see new releases as well.

The identities are not implementing any kind of storage, and can therefore be created by any simple or complex Perl program. This way, it is more flexible than an XML file to store the data. For instance, you can decide to store the data with Data::Dumper, Storable, DBI, AddressBook or whatever. Extension to simplify this task are still to be developed.

If you need more kinds of user information, then please contact the module author.

Extends "DESCRIPTION" in User::Identity::Item.

OVERLOADED

overload: "" stringification
    When an "User::Identity" is used as string, it is automatically translated into the fullName() of the user involved.

    » example:

      my $me = User::Identity->new(...)
      print $me;          # same as  print $me->fullName
      print "I am $me\n"; # also stringification

METHODS
Extends "METHODS" in User::Identity::Item.

  Constructors
Extends "Constructors" in User::Identity::Item.

$class->new( [$name], %options )
    Create a new user identity, which will contain all data related to a single physical human being. Most user data can only be specified at object construction, because they should never change. A $name may be specified as first argument, but also as option, one way or the other is required.

     -Option     --Defined in          --Default
      birth                              undef
      charset                            $ENV{LC_CTYPE}
      courtesy                           undef
      description  User::Identity::Item  undef
      firstname                          undef
      formal_name                        undef
      full_name                          undef
      gender                             undef
      initials                           undef
      language                           'en'
      name         User::Identity::Item  <required>
      nickname                           undef
      parent       User::Identity::Item  undef
      prefix                             undef
      surname                            undef
      titles                             undef

    birth => DATE
    charset => STRING
    courtesy => STRING
    description => STRING
    firstname => STRING
    formal_name => STRING
    full_name => STRING
    gender => STRING
    initials => STRING
    language => STRING
    name => STRING
    nickname => STRING
    parent => OBJECT
    prefix => STRING
    surname => STRING
    titles => STRING

  Attributes
Extends "Attributes" in User::Identity::Item.

$obj->age()
    Calcuted from the datge of birth to the current moment, as integer. On the birthday, the number is incremented already.

$obj->birth()
    Returns the date in standardized format: YYYYMMDD, easy to sort and select. This may return "undef", even if the dateOfBirth() contains a value, simply because the format is not understood. Month or day may contain '00' to indicate that those values are not known.

$obj->charset()
    The user's preferred character set, which defaults to the value of LC_CTYPE environment variable.

$obj->courtesy()
    The courtesy is used to address people in a very formal way. Values are like "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Sir", "Frau", "Heer", "de heer", "mevrouw". This often provides a way to find the gender of someone addressed.

$obj->dateOfBirth()
    Returns the date of birth, as specified during instantiation.

$obj->description()
    Inherited, see "Attributes" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->firstname()
    Returns the first name of the user. If it is not defined explicitly, it is derived from the nickname, and than capitalized if needed.

$obj->formalName()
    Returns a formal name for the user. If not defined as instantiation parameter (see new()), it is constructed from other available information, which may result in an incorrect or an incomplete name. The result is built from "courtesy initials prefix surname title".

$obj->fullName()
    If this is not specified as value during object construction, it is guessed based on other known values like "firstname prefix surname". If a surname is provided without firstname, the nickname is taken as firstname. When a firstname is provided without surname, the nickname is taken as surname. If both are not provided, then the nickname is used as fullname.

$obj->gender()
    Returns the specified gender of the person, as specified during instantiation, which could be like 'Male', 'm', 'homme', 'man'. There is no smart behavior on this: the exact specified value is returned. Methods isMale(), isFemale(), and courtesy() are smart.

$obj->initials()
    The initials, which may be derived from the first letters of the firstname.

$obj->isFemale()
    See isMale(): return "true" if we are sure the user is a woman.

$obj->isMale()
    Returns "true" if we are sure that the user is male. This is specified as gender at instantiation, or derived from the courtesy value. Methods isMale and isFemale are not complementatory: they can both return "false" for the same user, in which case the gender is undertermined.

$obj->language()
    Can contain a list or a single language name, as defined by the RFC Examples are 'en', 'en-GB', 'nl-BE'. The default language is 'en' (English).

$obj->name( [$newname] )
    Inherited, see "Attributes" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->nickname()
    Returns the user's nickname, which could be used as username, e-mail alias, or such. When no nickname was explicitly specified, the name is used.

$obj->prefix()
    The words which are between the firstname (or initials) and the surname.

$obj->surname()
    Returns the surname of person, or "undef" if that is not known.

$obj->titles()
    The titles, degrees in education or of other kind. If these are complex, you may need to specify the formal name of the users as well, because smart formatting probably failes.

  Collections
Extends "Collections" in User::Identity::Item.

$obj->add($collection, $role)
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->addCollection( $object | <[$type], %options> )
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->collection($name)
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->parent( [$parent] )
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->removeCollection($object|$name)
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

$any->type()
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

$obj->user()
    Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

  Searching
Extends "Searching" in User::Identity::Item.

$obj->find($collection, $role)
    Inherited, see "Searching" in User::Identity::Item

DIAGNOSTICS

Error: cannot load collection module for $type ($class): $@
    Either the specified $type does not exist, or that module named $class returns compilation errors. If the type as specified in the warning is not the name of a package, you specified a nickname which was not defined. Maybe you forgot the 'require' the package which defines the nickname. Cast by addCollection()

Error: nvalid collection $name.
    The collection with $name does not exist and can not be created. Cast by add()

Error: this $object is not a collection.
    Cast by addCollection()

SEE ALSO
This module is part of User-Identity version 4.00, built on December 12, 2025. Website: http://perl.overmeer.net/CPAN/

LICENSE
For contributors see file ChangeLog.

This software is copyright (c) 2003-2025 by Mark Overmeer.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.