Thread::Serialize(3pm)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				    Thread::Serialize(3pm)

NAME

       Thread::Serialize - serialize data-structures between threads

SYNOPSIS

	 use Thread::Serialize;    # export freeze() and thaw()

	 use Thread::Serialize (); # must call fully qualified subs

	 my $frozen = freeze( any data structure );
	 any data structure = thaw( $frozen );

VERSION

       This documentation describes version 1.00.

DESCRIPTION

			 *** A note of CAUTION ***

	This module only functions if threading has been enabled when building
	Perl, or if the "forks" module has been installed on an unthreaded Perl.

			 *************************

       The Thread::Serialize module is a library for centralizing the routines used to serialize data-structures between threads.  Because of this
       central location, other modules such as Thread::Conveyor, Thread::Pool or Thread::Tie can benefit from the same optimilizations that may
       take place here in the future.

SUBROUTINES

       There are only two subroutines.

   freeze
	my $frozen = freeze( $scalar );

	my $frozen = freeze( @array );

       The "freeze" subroutine takes all the parameters passed to it, freezes them and returns a frozen representation of what was given.  The
       parameters can be scalar values or references to arrays or hashes.  Use the thaw subroutine to obtain the original data-structure back.

   thaw
	my $scalar = thaw( $frozen );

	my @array = thaw( $frozen );

       The "thaw" subroutine returns the data-structure that was frozen with a call to freeze.	If called in a scalar context, only the first
       element of the data-structure that was passed, will be returned.  Otherwise the entire data-structure will be returned.

       It is up to the developer to make sure that single argument calls to freeze are always matched by scalar context calls to thaw.

REQUIRED MODULES

	Storable (any)
	Test::More (0.88)

INSTALLATION

       This distribution contains two versions of the code: one maintenance version for versions of perl < 5.014 (known as 'maint'), and the
       version currently in development (known as 'blead').  The standard build for your perl version is:

	perl Makefile.PL
	make
	make test
	make install

       This will try to test and install the "blead" version of the code.  If the Perl version does not support the "blead" version, then the
       running of the Makefile.PL will *fail*.	In such a case, one can force the installing of the "maint" version of the code by doing:

	perl Makefile.PL maint

       Alternately, if you want automatic selection behavior, you can set the AUTO_SELECT_MAINT_OR_BLEAD environment variable to a true value.	On
       Unix-like systems like so:

	AUTO_SELECT_MAINT_OR_BLEAD=1 perl Makefile.PL

       If your perl does not support the "blead" version of the code, then it will automatically install the "maint" version of the code.

OPTIMIZATIONS

       To reduce memory and CPU usage, this module uses load.  This causes subroutines only to be compiled in a thread when they are actually
       needed at the expense of more CPU when they need to be compiled.  Simple benchmarks however revealed that the overhead of the compiling
       single routines is not much more (and sometimes a lot less) than the overhead of cloning a Perl interpreter with a lot of subroutines pre-
       loaded.

       To reduce the number of modules and subroutines loaded, an external Perl interpreter is started to determine the Storable signature at
       compile time.  In some situations this may cause a problem: please set the $Thread::Serialize::no_external_perl variable to a true value at
       compile time before loading Thread::Serialize if this causes a problem.

	BEGIN { $Thread::Serialize::no_external_perl= 1 }
	use Thread::Serialize;

KNOWN ISSUES

   Embedded Perls
       Philip Monsen reported that in the case of an embedded Perl interpreter (e.g.  in a C program), the use of an external executor to
       determine the Storable signature, causes problems.  This has been fixed by introducing the global variable
       $Thread::Serialize::no_external_perl (see OPTIMIZATIONS).

AUTHOR

       Elizabeth Mattijsen, <liz@dijkmat.nl>.

       Please report bugs to <perlbugs@dijkmat.nl>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012 Elizabeth Mattijsen <liz@dijkmat.nl>.  All rights reserved.  This program is free software; you
       can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

       load, Thread::Conveyor, Thread::Pool, Thread::Tie.

perl v5.14.2							    2012-06-11						    Thread::Serialize(3pm)