Devel::Symdump(3pm)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				       Devel::Symdump(3pm)

NAME

       Devel::Symdump - dump symbol names or the symbol table

SYNOPSIS

	   # Constructor
	   require Devel::Symdump;
	   @packs = qw(some_package another_package);
	   $obj = Devel::Symdump->new(@packs);	      # no recursion
	   $obj = Devel::Symdump->rnew(@packs);       # with recursion

	   # Methods
	   @array = $obj->packages;
	   @array = $obj->scalars;
	   @array = $obj->arrays;
	   @array = $obj->hashes;
	   @array = $obj->functions;
	   @array = $obj->filehandles;	# deprecated, use ios instead
	   @array = $obj->dirhandles;	# deprecated, use ios instead
	   @array = $obj->ios;
	   @array = $obj->unknowns;	# only perl version < 5.003 had some

	   $string = $obj->as_string;
	   $string = $obj->as_HTML;
	   $string = $obj1->diff($obj2);

	   $string = Devel::Symdump->isa_tree;	  # or $obj->isa_tree
	   $string = Devel::Symdump->inh_tree;	  # or $obj->inh_tree

	   # Methods with autogenerated objects
	   # all of those call new(@packs) internally
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->packages(@packs);
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->scalars(@packs);
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->arrays(@packs);
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->hashes(@packs);
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->functions(@packs);
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->ios(@packs);
	   @array = Devel::Symdump->unknowns(@packs);

DESCRIPTION

       This little package serves to access the symbol table of perl.

       "Devel::Symdump->rnew(@packages)"
	   returns a symbol table object for all subtrees below @packages.  Nested Modules are analyzed recursively. If no package is given as
	   argument, it defaults to "main". That means to get the whole symbol table, just do a "rnew" without arguments.

	   The global variable $Devel::Symdump::MAX_RECURSION limits the recursion to prevent contention. The default value is set to 97, just low
	   enough to survive the test suite without a warning about deep recursion.

       "Devel::Symdump->new(@packages)"
	   does not go into recursion and only analyzes the packages that are given as arguments.

       packages, scalars, arrays, hashes, functions, ios
	   The methods packages(), scalars(), arrays(), hashes(), functions(), ios(), and (for older perls) unknowns() each return an array of
	   fully qualified symbols of the specified type in all packages that are held within a Devel::Symdump object, but without the leading
	   "$", "@" or "%". In a scalar context, they will return the number of such symbols. Unknown symbols are usually either formats or
	   variables that haven't yet got a defined value.

       as_string
       as_HTML
	   As_string() and as_HTML() return a simple string/HTML representations of the object.

       diff
	   Diff() prints the difference between two Devel::Symdump objects in human readable form. The format is similar to the one used by the
	   as_string method.

       isa_tree
       inh_tree
	   Isa_tree() and inh_tree() both return a simple string representation of the current inheritance tree. The difference between the two
	   methods is the direction from which the tree is viewed: top-down or bottom-up. As I'm sure, many users will have different expectation
	   about what is top and what is bottom, I'll provide an example what happens when the Socket module is loaded:

       % print Devel::Symdump->inh_tree
	       AutoLoader
		       DynaLoader
			       Socket
	       DynaLoader
		       Socket
	       Exporter
		       Carp
		       Config
		       Socket

	   The inh_tree method shows on the left hand side a package name and indented to the right the packages that use the former.

       % print Devel::Symdump->isa_tree
	       Carp
		       Exporter
	       Config
		       Exporter
	       DynaLoader
		       AutoLoader
	       Socket
		       Exporter
		       DynaLoader
			       AutoLoader

	   The isa_tree method displays from left to right ISA relationships, so Socket IS A DynaLoader and DynaLoader IS A AutoLoader. (Actually,
	   they were at the time this manpage was written)

       You may call both methods, isa_tree() and inh_tree(), with an object. If you do that, the object will store the output and retrieve it when
       you call the same method again later. The typical usage would be to use them as class methods directly though.

SUBCLASSING

       The design of this package is intentionally primitive and allows it to be subclassed easily. An example of a (maybe) useful subclass is
       Devel::Symdump::Export, a package which exports all methods of the Devel::Symdump package and turns them into functions.

AUTHORS

       Andreas Koenig <andk@cpan.org> and Tom Christiansen <tchrist@perl.com>. Based on the old dumpvar.pl by Larry Wall.

COPYRIGHT, LICENSE
       This module is

       Copyright (c) 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006 Andreas Koenig "<andk@cpan.org>".

       All rights reserved.

       This library is free software; you may use, redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.10.1							    2008-04-01						       Devel::Symdump(3pm)