NAME¶
forks::Devel::Symdump - dump symbol names or the symbol table
SYNOPSIS¶
# Constructor
require forks::Devel::Symdump;
@packs = qw(some_package another_package);
$obj = forks::Devel::Symdump->new(@packs); # no recursion
$obj = forks::Devel::Symdump->rnew(@packs); # with recursion
# Methods
@array = $obj->packages;
@array = $obj->scalars;
@array = $obj->arrays;
@array = $obj->hashes;
@array = $obj->functions;
@array = $obj->filehandles; # deprecated, use ios instead
@array = $obj->dirhandles; # deprecated, use ios instead
@array = $obj->ios;
@array = $obj->unknowns; # only perl version < 5.003 had some
$string = $obj->as_string;
$string = $obj->as_HTML;
$string = $obj1->diff($obj2);
$string = forks::Devel::Symdump->isa_tree; # or $obj->isa_tree
$string = forks::Devel::Symdump->inh_tree; # or $obj->inh_tree
# Methods with autogenerated objects
# all of those call new(@packs) internally
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->packages(@packs);
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->scalars(@packs);
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->arrays(@packs);
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->hashes(@packs);
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->functions(@packs);
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->ios(@packs);
@array = forks::Devel::Symdump->unknowns(@packs);
DESCRIPTION¶
This little package serves to access the symbol table of perl.
- "forks::Devel::Symdump->rnew(@packages)"
- returns a symbol table object for all subtrees below @packages. Nested
Modules are analyzed recursively. If no package is given as argument, it
defaults to "main". That means to get the whole symbol table,
just do a "rnew" without arguments.
The global variable $forks::Devel::Symdump::MAX_RECURSION limits the
recursion to prevent contention. The default value is set to 97, just low
enough to survive the test suite without a warning about deep
recursion.
- "forks::Devel::Symdump->new(@packages)"
- does not go into recursion and only analyzes the packages that are given
as arguments.
- packages, scalars, arrays, hashes, functions, ios
- The methods packages(), scalars(), arrays(),
hashes(), functions(), ios(), and (for older perls)
unknowns() each return an array of fully qualified symbols of the
specified type in all packages that are held within a
forks::Devel::Symdump object, but without the leading "$",
"@" or "%". In a scalar context, they will return the
number of such symbols. Unknown symbols are usually either formats or
variables that haven't yet got a defined value.
- as_string
- as_HTML
- As_string() and as_HTML() return a simple string/HTML
representations of the object.
- diff
- Diff() prints the difference between two forks::Devel::Symdump
objects in human readable form. The format is similar to the one used by
the as_string method.
- isa_tree
- inh_tree
- Isa_tree() and inh_tree() both return a simple string
representation of the current inheritance tree. The difference between the
two methods is the direction from which the tree is viewed: top-down or
bottom-up. As I'm sure, many users will have different expectation about
what is top and what is bottom, I'll provide an example what happens when
the Socket module is loaded:
- % print forks::Devel::Symdump->inh_tree
-
AutoLoader
DynaLoader
Socket
DynaLoader
Socket
Exporter
Carp
Config
Socket
The inh_tree method shows on the left hand side a package name and indented
to the right the packages that use the former.
- % print forks::Devel::Symdump->isa_tree
-
Carp
Exporter
Config
Exporter
DynaLoader
AutoLoader
Socket
Exporter
DynaLoader
AutoLoader
The isa_tree method displays from left to right ISA relationships, so Socket
IS A DynaLoader and DynaLoader IS A AutoLoader. (Actually, they were at
the time this manpage was written)
You may call both methods,
isa_tree() and
inh_tree(), with an
object. If you do that, the object will store the output and retrieve it when
you call the same method again later. The typical usage would be to use them
as class methods directly though.
SUBCLASSING¶
The design of this package is intentionally primitive and allows it to be
subclassed easily. An example of a (maybe) useful subclass is
forks::Devel::Symdump::Export, a package which exports all methods of the
forks::Devel::Symdump package and turns them into functions.
AUTHORS¶
Andreas Koenig
<andk@cpan.org> and Tom Christiansen
<tchrist@perl.com>. Based on the old
dumpvar.pl by Larry
Wall.
COPYRIGHT, LICENSE¶
This is a modified version of Devel::Symdump 2.08. It includes custom patches
for Perl 5.10 compatibility.
Original module is
Copyright (c) 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006 Andreas Koenig
"<andk@cpan.org>".
All rights reserved.
This library is free software; you may use, redistribute and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.