NAME

VERSION

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

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.

You can enable it temporarily by importing functions like "warn", "croak" etc to get more informative errors during development, or even use it as:

    BEGIN { local $@; eval "use Devel::PartialDump qw(...)" }

to get DWIM formatting only if it's installed, without introducing a dependency.

SAMPLE OUTPUT

"foo"

    "foo"
    

"foo" => "bar"

    foo: "bar"
    

"foo => "bar", gorch => [ 1, "bah" ]"

    foo: "bar", gorch: [ 1, "bah" ]
    

"[ { foo => ["bar"] } ]"

    [ { foo: ARRAY(0x9b265d0) } ]
    

"[ 1 .. 10 ]"

    [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ... ]
    

"foo\nbar"

    "foo\nbar"
    

""foo" . chr(1)"

    "foo\x{1}"
    

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.

Defaults to 6.

max_depth

The maximum level of recursion.

Defaults to 2.

stringify

Whether or not to let objects stringify themselves, instead of using "StrVal" in overload to avoid side effects.

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

This module uses Sub::Exporter, so exports can be renamed, curried, etc.

warn

show

show_scalar

croak

carp

confess

cluck

dump

See the various methods for behavior documentation.

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 @blah

A wrapper for "dump" that prints strings plainly.

show @blah

show_scalar $x

Like "warn", but instead of returning the value from "warn" it returns its arguments, so it can be used in the middle of an expression.

Note that

    my $x = show foo();
    

will actually evaluate "foo" in list context, so if you only want to dump a single element and retain scalar context use

    my $x = show_scalar foo();
    

which has a prototype of "$" (as opposed to taking a list).

This is similar to the venerable Ingy's fabulous and amazing XXX module.

carp

croak

confess

cluck

Drop in replacements for Carp exports, that format their arguments like "warn".

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.

format $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.

SUPPORT

There is also a mailing list available for users of this distribution, at <http://lists.perl.org/list/moose.html>.

There is also an irc channel available for users of this distribution, at "#moose" on "irc.perl.org" <irc://irc.perl.org/#moose>.

AUTHOR

CONTRIBUTORS

• Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org>
• Florian Ragwitz <rafl@debian.org>
• Steven Lee <stevenwh.lee@gmail.com>
• Leo Lapworth <web@web-teams-computer.local>
• Jesse Luehrs <doy@tozt.net>
• David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>
• Paul Howarth <paul@city-fan.org>

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.