Devel::REPL::Overview(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation				Devel::REPL::Overview(3pm)

NAME

       Devel::REPL::Overview - overview of Devel::REPL.

DESCRIPTION

   What is a console? How it can assist you?
	 Most modern languages have consoles. Console is an interactive tool
       that evaluates your input while you type it.
       It gives you several advantages:

       o Quickly test some thought or tricky expression

       o Run some code bigger than one line without a temporary file

       o Play around with libraries and modules

       o You can even call a console in your script and play around in script's context

       For Ruby it would be irb, for Python is... python byitself and for perl...  and there was nothing for perl (except that ugly perl -d -e ""
       and several failed projects) until Devel::REPL was written by Matt S Trout (a.k.a. mst) from ShadowCatSystems
       <http://www.shadowcatsystems.co.uk>.

   Devel::REPL - the Perl console
       REPL stands for Read, Evaluate, Print, Loop.  Lets install and try it.

	      $ cpan Devel::REPL

       After installation you have a lot of new modules, but the most interesting things are:

       o Devel::REPL
	   A top level module.

       o re.pl
	   Wrapper script, running console.

       And a bunch of plugins (I'll describe them later).  In command line type:

	     $ re.pl

       If everything is ok you'll see a prompt (underlined $).	That's it. You can start typing expressions.

       An example session:

	 $ sub factorial {

	 > my $number = shift;

	 > return $number > 1 ? $number * factorial($number-1) : $number;

	 > }

	 $ factorial 1 # by the way, comments are allowed

	 1 # our return value

	 $ factorial 5

	 120

	 $ [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
	 $ARRAY1 = [
		     1,
		     2,
		     3, # return values are printed with Data::Dumper::Streamer.
		     4, # See Plugins section
		     5,
		     6,
		     7
		   ];

	 $ {apple=>1,fruit=>'apple',cart=>['apple','banana']}
	 $HASH1 = {
		   apple => 1,
		   cart  => [
			     'apple',
			     'banana'
		   ],
		   fruit => 'apple'
	 };

	 $ package MyPackage; # create a package

	 $ sub say_hi { # define a sub

	 > print "Hi!
";

	 > } # statement is evaluated only after we've finished typing block.
	     # See Plugins section.
	 > __PACKAGE__
	 MyPackage
	 > package main;

	 > __PACKAGE_
	 main
	 > MyPackage->say_hi
	 Hi!
	 1
	 $

   Control files a.k.a. I don't want to type it every time
       Devel::REPL has control files feature. Control files are evaluated on session start in the same way as you would type them manually in
       console.

       Default control file is located at `$HOME/.re.pl/repl.rc` .

       You can store there any statements you would normally type in.

       I.e. my `$HOME/.re.pl/repl.rc` has next lines:

	     use feature 'say'; # to don't write 
 all the time

	     use Data::Dumper;

	     # pretty print data structures
	     sub pp { print Data::Dumper->Dump([@_]) }

       You can have multiple control files and they can be anywhere in the file system. To make re.pl use some rc-file other than repl.rc call it
       like this:

	     $ re.pl --rcfile /path/to/your/rc.file

       If your rc-file is in `$HOME/.re.pl` directory, you can omit path:

	     $ re.pl --rcfile rc.file

       If you have rc-file with the same name in current directory and you don't want to type path, you can:

	     $ re.pl --rcfile ./rc.file

   I want it to bark, fly, jump and swim! or Plugins
       Plugins extend functionality and change behavor of Devel::REPL.	Bundled plugins are:

       o Devel::REPL::Plugin::History
	   No comments. Simply history.

       o Devel::REPL::Plugin::!LexEnv
	   Provides a lexical environment for the Devel::REPL.

       o Devel::REPL::Plugin::DDS
	   Formats return values with Data::Dump::Streamer module.

       o Devel::REPL::Plugin::Packages
	   Keeps track of which package your're in.

       o Devel::REPL::Plugin::Commands
	   Generic command creation plugin using injected functions.

       o Devel::REPL::Plugin::MultiLine::PPI
	   Makes Devel::REPL read your input until your block
	   is finished. What does this means: you can type a part of a block
	   on one line and second part on another:

		$ sub mysub {

		> print "Hello, World!
"; ## notice prompt change

		> }

		$ mysub
		Hello, World!
		1
		$

	   but this *doesn't* mean you can print sub name or identifier
	   on several lines. Don't do that! It won't work.

       There are lots of contributed plugins you can find at CPAN.

Profiles
       If plugins change and extend functionality of Devel::REPL, profiles are changing your environment (loaded plugins, constants, subs and
       etc.).

       There's only one bundled profile called `Devel::REPL::Profile::Default`, lets take a look at it:

	     package Devel::REPL::Profile::Default;

	     use Moose; ### advanced OOP system for Perl

	     ### keep those exports/imports out of our namespace
	     use namespace::clean -except => [ 'meta' ];

	     with 'Devel::REPL::Profile';  ## seem perldoc Muse

	     sub plugins { ### plugins we want to be loaded
	       qw(History LexEnv DDS Packages Commands MultiLine::PPI);
	     }

	     ### the only required sub for profile,
	     ### it is called on profile activation
	     sub apply_profile {
	       my ($self, $repl) = @_;
	       ### $self - no comments, $repl - current instance of Devel::REPL

	       $repl->load_plugin($_) for $self->plugins; ### load our plugins
	     }

	     1;

       At the moment there are no profiles on CPAN. Mostly you'll use control files.  To enable some profile use --profile switch:

	     $ re.pl --profile SomeProfile

See Also
       Devel::REPL, Devel::REPL::Plugin, Devel::REPL::Profile

perl v5.14.2							    2010-05-08						Devel::REPL::Overview(3pm)