NAME

Devel::Gladiator - Walk Perl's arena

VERSION

version 0.08

SYNOPSIS

  use Devel::Gladiator qw(walk_arena arena_ref_counts arena_table);

  my $all = walk_arena();

  foreach my $sv ( @$all ) {
      warn "live object: $sv\n";
  }

  warn arena_table(); # prints counts keyed by class

  # how to spot new entries in the arena after running some code
  use Devel::Gladiator qw(walk_arena);
  my %dump1 = map { ("$_" => $_) } @{walk_arena()};
  # do something
  my %dump2 = map { $dump1{$_} ? () : ("$_" => $_) } @{walk_arena()};
  use Devel::Peek; Dump \%dump2;

DESCRIPTION

Devel::Gladiator iterates Perl's internal memory structures and can be used to enumerate all the currently live SVs.

This can be used to hunt leaks and to profile memory usage.

EXPORTS

walk_arena

Returns an array reference containing all the live SVs. Note that this will include a reference back to itself, so you should manually clear this array (via "@$arena = ()") when you are done with it, if you don't want to create a memory leak.

arena_ref_counts

Returns a hash keyed by class and reftype of all the live SVs.

This is a convenient way to find out how many objects of a given class exist at a certain point.

arena_table

Formats a string table based on "arena_ref_counts" suitable for printing.

LIMITATIONS

This code may not work on perls 5.6.x and 5.8.x if PadWalker is installed. (Patches gratefully accepted!)

SUPPORT

Bugs may be submitted through the RT bug tracker <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Devel-Gladiator> (or bug-Devel-Gladiator@rt.cpan.org <mailto:bug-Devel-Gladiator@rt.cpan.org>).

AUTHOR

Artur Bergman <sky@apple.com>

CONTRIBUTORS

Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org>
יובל קוג'מן (Yuval Kogman) <nothingmuch@woobling.org>
Jesse Luehrs <doy@tozt.net>
Brad Fitzpatrick <brad@danga.com>
mohawk <mohawk2@users.noreply.github.com>
Curtis Brandt <curtisjbrandt@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

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