Tangram::Type::Dump(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation				  Tangram::Type::Dump(3pm)

NAME

       Tangram::Type::Dump - Handy functions for Pixie-like dumping of data

SYNOPSIS

	 use Tangram::Type::Dump qw(flatten unflatten UNflatten nuke);

	 use YAML qw(freeze thaw); # for instance

	 my $frozen = freeze flatten($storage, $structure);

	 # optional - remove circular references from flattened
	 # structure so that it is freed up properly.
	 nuke $frozen;

	 # save frozen somewhere...

	 # restore, but don't load objects straight away
	 my $reconstituted = unflatten($storage, thaw $frozen);

	 # restore, loading objects immediately
	 my $original = UNflatten($storage, $frozen);

	 # Alternative, quickly marshall a structure for saving
	 my $structure;
	 flatten($storage, $structure);
	 # ... do something with it ...

	 # restore to former glory; note that Tangram's cache will
	 # prevent unnecessary DB access.
	 unflatten($storage, $structure);

DESCRIPTION

       This module contains functions for traversing data structures which are not Tangram-registered objects, and replacing all the Tangram
       objects found with `Mementos'.

       When a similar data structure is fed back into the reversal function, the mementos are filled with on-demand references to the real
       objects.

       All these functions operate in place for maximum efficiency.

FUNCTIONS

       flatten($storage, $structure)
	   Traverses the structure $structure, and replaces all the known (ie, already inserted) Tangram objects with references to them

       unflatten($storage, $structure)
	   Performs the logical opposite of flatten, but only insofar as a `normal' user is concerned.	`Normal' users, of course, don't care that
	   the data structure is being loaded from the database as they use it :).

BUGS

       Should this module just be an extension to Tangram::Storage ?

AUTHOR

       Sam Vilain, samv@cpan.org.  All rights reserved.  This code is free software; you can use and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
       itself.

perl v5.8.8							    2006-03-29						  Tangram::Type::Dump(3pm)