Devel::PartialDump(3)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				     Devel::PartialDump(3)

NAME

       Devel::PartialDump - Partial dumping of data structures, optimized for argument printing.

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

       This module is a data dumper optimized for logging of arbitrary parameters.

       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
bar"
	       "foo
bar"

       ""foo" . chr(1)"
	       "foox{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.

	   Defualts to 6.

       max_depth
	   The maximum level of recursion.

	   Defaults to 2.

       stringify
	   Whether or not to let objects stringify themeslves, instead of using "StrVal" in overload to avoid sideffects.

	   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

       All exports are optional, nothing is exported by default.

       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 warpper 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 evaluaate "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.

       frmat $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.

VERSION CONTROL

       This module is maintained using git. You can get the latest version from http://github.com/rafl/devel-partialdump
       <http://github.com/rafl/devel-partialdump>.

AUTHOR

       Yuval Kogman <nothingmuch@woobling.org>

COPYRIGHT

	       Copyright (c) 2008, 2009 Yuval Kogman. All rights reserved
	       This program is free software; you can redistribute
	       it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.16.2							    2011-05-05						     Devel::PartialDump(3)