Data(3) 						User Contributed Perl Documentation						   Data(3)

NAME

       Gimp::Data - Set and get state data.

SYNOPSIS

	 use Gimp::Data;

	 $Gimp::Data{'value1'} = "Hello";
	 print $Gimp::Data{'value1'},", World!!
";

DESCRIPTION

       With this module, you can access plugin-specific (or global) data in Gimp, i.e. you can store and retrieve values that are stored in the
       main Gimp application.

       An example would be to save parameter values in Gimp, so that on subsequent invocations of your plug-in, the user does not have to set all
       parameter values again (Gimp::Fu does this already).

%Gimp::Data
       You can store and retrieve anything you like in this hash. It's contents will automatically be stored in Gimp, and can be accessed in later
       invocations of your plug-in. Be aware that other plug-ins store data in the same "hash", so better prefix your key with something unique,
       like your plug-in's name. As an example, the Gimp::Fu module uses "function_name/_fu_data" to store its data.

       This module might use a persistant implementation, i.e. your data might survive a restart of the Gimp application, but you cannot count on
       this.

       "Gimp::Data" will try to freeze your data when you pass in a reference. On retrieval, the data is thawed again. See Storable for more info.
       This might be implemented through either Storable or Data::Dumper, or not implemented at all (i.e. silently fail) ;)

PERSISTANCE

       "Gimp::Data" contains the following functions to ease applications where persistence for perl data structures is required:

       Gimp::Data::freeze(reference)
	   Freeze (serialize) the reference.

       Gimp::Data::thaw(data)
	   Thaw (unserialize) the dsata and return the original reference.

LIMITATIONS

       You cannot store references, and you cannot (yet) iterate through the keys (with "keys", "values" or "each").

AUTHOR

       Marc Lehmann <pcg@goof.com>

SEE ALSO

       perl(1), Gimp.

perl v5.8.0							    2001-12-06								   Data(3)