Class resolution

Every factory needs a class to instantiate. ORM::Factory tries to infer it from the factory name, but you can override the inference explicitly, or disable it entirely.

Inference from factory name#

The factory name is camelized and looked up in GLOBAL. Both kebab- and snake-case names are supported:

factory name	inferred class name
'user'	User
'super-admin'	SuperAdmin
'team_lead'	TeamLead
'top-level_mix'	TopLevelMix

If the corresponding class is present in GLOBAL, the factory binds to it:

class User { has Str $.fname; }

define {
  .factory: 'user', { ; };
};

ORM::Factory.factory-by-name('user').class;        # User
ORM::Factory.factory-by-name('user').class-name;   # 'User'

Explicit :class override#

Pass :class(...) to bind a factory to a specific class regardless of name:

define {
  .factory: 'super-admin', :class(Admin), { ; };
};

ORM::Factory.factory-by-name('super-admin').class;        # Admin
ORM::Factory.factory-by-name('super-admin').class-name;   # 'SuperAdmin' (still inferred)

The inferred class-name is preserved for introspection even when :class is explicit.

Disabling inference#

When you do not want ORM::Factory to touch GLOBAL — for example, in a spec that exercises only attribute capture — set the lookup toggle off before defining:

ORM::Factory.set-allow-class-lookup(False);

define {
  .factory: 'user', { ; };
};

ORM::Factory.factory-by-name('user').class.defined;   # False

The toggle defaults to True and is reset by reload only in the sense that the registry is cleared — the toggle itself is sticky, so flip it back on (set-allow-class-lookup(True)) when you are done.

Missing classes#

If the inferred class cannot be found and you ask for it through lookup-class, the factory raises X::ORM::Factory::UnknownClass with a message that names the factory and the class it was looking for. The error text points to the three available fixes: declare the class, pass :class explicitly, or disable lookup.