NAME

Devel::PartialDump - Partial dumping of data structures, optimized for argument printing.

SYNOPSIS

        use Devel::PartialDump;

        sub foo {
                print "foo called with args: " . Devel::PartialDump->new->dump(@_);
        }

        use Devel::PartialDump qw(warn);

        # warn is overloaded to create a concise dump instead of stringifying $some_bad_data
        warn "this made a boo boo: ", $some_bad_data

DESCRIPTION

This module is a data dumper optimized for logging of arbitrary parameters.

It attempts to truncate overly verbose data, in a way that is hopefully more useful for diagnostics warnings than

        warn Dumper(@stuff);

Unlike other data dumping modules there are no attempts at correctness or cross referencing, this is only meant to provide a slightly deeper look into the data in question.

There is a default recursion limit, and a default truncation of long lists, and the dump is formatted on one line (new lines in strings are escaped), to aid in readability.

ATTRIBUTES

max_length

The maximum character length of the dump.

Anything bigger than this will be truncated.

Not defined by default.

max_elements

The maximum number of elements (array elements or pairs in a hash) to print.

Defualts to 6.

max_depth

The maximum level of recursion.

Defaults to 2.

stringify

Whether or not to let objects stringify themeslves, instead of using "StrVal" in overload to avoid sideffects.

Defaults to false (no overloading).

pairs

Whether or not to autodetect named args as pairs in the main dump function. If this attribute is true, and the top level value list is even sized, and every odd element is not a reference, then it will dumped as pairs instead of a list.

EXPORTS

All exports are optional, nothing is exported by default.

warn

dump

See the warn and dump methods.

These methods will use $Devel::PartialDump::default_dumper as the invocant if the first argument is not blessed and isa Devel::PartialDump, so they can be used as functions too.

Particularly warn can be used as a drop in replacement for the built in warn:

        warn "blah blah: ", $some_data;

by importing

        use Devel::PartialDump qw(warn);

$some_data will be have some of it's data dumped.

$default_dumper

The default dumper object to use for export style calls.

Can be assigned to to alter behavior globally.

This is generally useful when using the warn export as a drop in replacement for CORE::warn.

METHODS

warn

A warpper for dump that prints strings plainly.

dump @stuff

Returns a one line, human readable, concise dump of @stuff.

If called in void context, will warn with the dump.

Truncates the dump according to max_length if specified.

dump_as_list $depth, @stuff

dump_as_pairs $depth, @stuff

Dump @stuff using the various formatting functions.

Dump as pairs returns comma delimited pairs with => between the key and the value.

Dump as list returns a comma delimited dump of the values.

frmat $depth, $value

format_key $depth, $key

format_object $depth, $object

format_ref $depth, $Ref

format_array $depth, $array_ref

format_hash $depth, $hash_ref

format_undef $depth, undef

format_string $depth, $string

format_number $depth, $number

quote $string

The various formatting methods.

You can override these to provide a custom format.

format_array and format_hash recurse with $depth + 1 into dump_as_list and dump_as_pairs respectively.

format_ref delegates to format_array and format_hash and does the max_depth tracking. It will simply stringify the ref if the recursion limit has been reached.

VERSION CONTROL

This module is maintained using Darcs. You can get the latest version from http://nothingmuch.woobling.org/code, and use darcs send to commit changes.

AUTHOR

Yuval Kogman <nothingmuch@woobling.org>

COPYRIGHT

        Copyright (c) 2008 Yuval Kogman. All rights reserved
        This program is free software; you can redistribute
        it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.