SPLAIN(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide SPLAIN(1)
NAME
diagnostics - Perl compiler pragma to force verbose warning diagnostics
splain - standalone program to do the same thing
SYNOPSIS
As a pragma:
use diagnostics;
use diagnostics -verbose;
enable diagnostics;
disable diagnostics;
Aa a program:
perl program 2>diag.out
splain [-v] [-p] diag.out
DESCRIPTION
The "diagnostics" Pragma
This module extends the terse diagnostics normally emitted by both the perl compiler and the perl interpreter, augmenting them with the
more explicative and endearing descriptions found in perldiag. Like the other pragmata, it affects the compilation phase of your program
rather than merely the execution phase.
To use in your program as a pragma, merely invoke
use diagnostics;
at the start (or near the start) of your program. (Note that this does enable perl's -w flag.) Your whole compilation will then be sub-
ject(ed :-) to the enhanced diagnostics. These still go out STDERR.
Due to the interaction between runtime and compiletime issues, and because it's probably not a very good idea anyway, you may not use "no
diagnostics" to turn them off at compiletime. However, you may control their behaviour at runtime using the disable() and enable() methods
to turn them off and on respectively.
The -verbose flag first prints out the perldiag introduction before any other diagnostics. The $diagnostics::PRETTY variable can generate
nicer escape sequences for pagers.
Warnings dispatched from perl itself (or more accurately, those that match descriptions found in perldiag) are only displayed once (no
duplicate descriptions). User code generated warnings ala warn() are unaffected, allowing duplicate user messages to be displayed.
The splain Program
While apparently a whole nuther program, splain is actually nothing more than a link to the (executable) diagnostics.pm module, as well as
a link to the diagnostics.pod documentation. The -v flag is like the "use diagnostics -verbose" directive. The -p flag is like the $diag-
nostics::PRETTY variable. Since you're post-processing with splain, there's no sense in being able to enable() or disable() processing.
Output from splain is directed to STDOUT, unlike the pragma.
EXAMPLES
The following file is certain to trigger a few errors at both runtime and compiletime:
use diagnostics;
print NOWHERE "nothing
";
print STDERR "
This message should be unadorned.
";
warn " This is a user warning";
print "
DIAGNOSTIC TESTER: Please enter a <CR> here: ";
my $a, $b = scalar <STDIN>;
print "
";
print $x/$y;
If you prefer to run your program first and look at its problem afterwards, do this:
perl -w test.pl 2>test.out
./splain < test.out
Note that this is not in general possible in shells of more dubious heritage, as the theoretical
(perl -w test.pl >/dev/tty) >& test.out
./splain < test.out
Because you just moved the existing stdout to somewhere else.
If you don't want to modify your source code, but still have on-the-fly warnings, do this:
exec 3>&1; perl -w test.pl 2>&1 1>&3 3>&- | splain 1>&2 3>&-
Nifty, eh?
If you want to control warnings on the fly, do something like this. Make sure you do the "use" first, or you won't be able to get at the
enable() or disable() methods.
use diagnostics; # checks entire compilation phase
print "
time for 1st bogus diags: SQUAWKINGS
";
print BOGUS1 'nada';
print "done with 1st bogus
";
disable diagnostics; # only turns off runtime warnings
print "
time for 2nd bogus: (squelched)
";
print BOGUS2 'nada';
print "done with 2nd bogus
";
enable diagnostics; # turns back on runtime warnings
print "
time for 3rd bogus: SQUAWKINGS
";
print BOGUS3 'nada';
print "done with 3rd bogus
";
disable diagnostics;
print "
time for 4th bogus: (squelched)
";
print BOGUS4 'nada';
print "done with 4th bogus
";
INTERNALS
Diagnostic messages derive from the perldiag.pod file when available at runtime. Otherwise, they may be embedded in the file itself when
the splain package is built. See the Makefile for details.
If an extant $SIG{__WARN__} handler is discovered, it will continue to be honored, but only after the diagnostics::splainthis() function
(the module's $SIG{__WARN__} interceptor) has had its way with your warnings.
There is a $diagnostics::DEBUG variable you may set if you're desperately curious what sorts of things are being intercepted.
BEGIN { $diagnostics::DEBUG = 1 }
BUGS
Not being able to say "no diagnostics" is annoying, but may not be insurmountable.
The "-pretty" directive is called too late to affect matters. You have to do this instead, and before you load the module.
BEGIN { $diagnostics::PRETTY = 1 }
I could start up faster by delaying compilation until it should be needed, but this gets a "panic: top_level" when using the pragma form in
Perl 5.001e.
While it's true that this documentation is somewhat subserious, if you use a program named splain, you should expect a bit of whimsy.
AUTHOR
Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>, 25 June 1995.
perl v5.8.0 2003-02-18 SPLAIN(1)