DumpXML(3pm)						User Contributed Perl Documentation					      DumpXML(3pm)

NAME

       Data::DumpXML - Dump arbitrary data structures as XML

SYNOPSIS

	use Data::DumpXML qw(dump_xml);
	$xml = dump_xml(@list)

DESCRIPTION

       This module provides a single function called dump_xml() that takes a list of Perl values as its argument and produces a string as its
       result.	The string returned is an XML document that represents any Perl data structures passed to the function.  Reference loops are han-
       dled correctly.

       The following data model is used:

	  data : scalar*
	  scalar = undef | str | ref | alias
	  ref : scalar | array | hash | glob | code
	  array: scalar*
	  hash: (key scalar)*

       The distribution comes with an XML schema and a DTD that more formally describe this structure.

       As an example of the XML documents produced, the following call:

	 $a = bless [1,2], "Foo";
	 dump_xml($a);

       produces:

	 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?>
	 <data xmlns="http://www.cpan.org/.../Data-DumpXML.xsd">
	  <ref>
	   <array class="Foo">
	    <str>1</str>
	    <str>2</str>
	   </array>
	  </ref>
	 </data>

       If dump_xml() is called in a void context, then the dump is printed on STDERR automatically.  For compatibility with "Data::Dump", there is
       also an alias for dump_xml() called simply dump().

       "Data::DumpXML::Parser" is a class that can restore data structures dumped by dump_xml().

       Configuration variables

       The generated XML is influenced by a set of configuration variables.  If you modify them, then it is a good idea to localize the effect.
       For example:

	 sub my_dump_xml {
	     local $Data::DumpXML::INDENT = "";
	     local $Data::DumpXML::XML_DECL = 0;
	     local $Data::DumpXML::DTD_LOCATION = "";
	     local $Data::DumpXML::NS_PREFIX = "dumpxml";

	     return dump_xml(@_);
	 }

       The variables are:

       $Data::DumpXML::INDENT
	   You can set the variable $Data::DumpXML::INDENT to control the amount of indenting.	The variable contains the whitespace you want to
	   be used for each level of indenting.  The default is a single space.  To suppress indenting, set it to "".

       $Data::DumpXML::INDENT_STYLE
	   This variable controls where end element are placed.  If you set this variable to the value "Lisp" then end tags are not prefixed by
	   NL.	This give a more compact output.

       $Data::DumpXML::XML_DECL
	   This boolean variable controls whether an XML declaration should be prefixed to the output.	The XML declaration is the <?xml ...?>
	   thingy.  The default is 1.  Set this value to 0 to suppress the declaration.

       $Data::DumpXML::NAMESPACE
	   This variable contains the namespace used for the XML elements.  The default is to let this be a URI that actually resolve to the XML
	   schema on CPAN.  Set it to "" to disable use of namespaces.

       $Data::DumpXML::NS_PREFIX
	   This variable contains the namespace prefix to use on the elements.	The default is "", which means that a default namespace will be
	   declared.

       $Data::DumpXML::SCHEMA_LOCATION
	   This variable contains the location of the XML schema.  If this variable is non-empty, then an "xsi:schemaLocation" attribute is added
	   to the top level "data" element.  The default is not to include this, as the location can be inferred from the default XML namespace
	   used.

       $Data::DumpXML::DTD_LOCATION
	   This variable contains the location of the DTD.  If this variable is non-empty, then a <!DOCTYPE ...> is included in the output.  The
	   default is to point to the DTD on CPAN.  Set it to "" to suppress the <!DOCTYPE ...> line.

BUGS

       Class names with 8-bit characters are dumped as Latin-1, but converted to UTF-8 when restored by the Data::DumpXML::Parser.

       The content of globs and subroutines are not dumped.  They are restored as the strings "** glob **" and "** code **".

       LVALUE and IO objects are not dumped at all.  They simply disappear from the restored data structure.

SEE ALSO

       Data::DumpXML::Parser, XML::Parser, XML::Dumper, Data::Dump

AUTHORS

       The "Data::DumpXML" module is written by Gisle Aas <gisle@aas.no>, based on "Data::Dump".

       The "Data::Dump" module was written by Gisle Aas, based on "Data::Dumper" by Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@umich.edu>.

	Copyright 1998-2003 Gisle Aas.
	Copyright 1996-1998 Gurusamy Sarathy.

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

perl v5.8.8							    2006-04-08							      DumpXML(3pm)