NAME¶
diagnostics, splain - produce verbose warning diagnostics
SYNOPSIS¶
Using the "diagnostics" pragma:
use diagnostics;
use diagnostics -verbose;
enable diagnostics;
disable diagnostics;
Using the "splain" standalone filter program:
perl program 2>diag.out
splain [-v] [-p] diag.out
Using diagnostics to get stack traces from a misbehaving script:
perl -Mdiagnostics=-traceonly my_script.pl
DESCRIPTION¶
The "diagnostics" Pragma¶
This module extends the terse diagnostics normally emitted by both the perl
compiler and the perl interpreter (from running perl with a -w switch or
"use warnings"), 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 subject(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 a la
warn() are unaffected,
allowing duplicate user messages to be displayed.
This module also adds a stack trace to the error message when perl dies. This is
useful for pinpointing what caused the death. The
-traceonly (or just
-t) flag turns off the explanations of warning messages leaving just
the stack traces. So if your script is dieing, run it again with
perl -Mdiagnostics=-traceonly my_bad_script
to see the call stack at the time of death. By supplying the
-warntrace
(or just
-w) flag, any warnings emitted will also come with a stack
trace.
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 $diagnostics::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\n";
print STDERR "\n\tThis message should be unadorned.\n";
warn "\tThis is a user warning";
print "\nDIAGNOSTIC TESTER: Please enter a <CR> here: ";
my $a, $b = scalar <STDIN>;
print "\n";
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 "\ntime for 1st bogus diags: SQUAWKINGS\n";
print BOGUS1 'nada';
print "done with 1st bogus\n";
disable diagnostics; # only turns off runtime warnings
print "\ntime for 2nd bogus: (squelched)\n";
print BOGUS2 'nada';
print "done with 2nd bogus\n";
enable diagnostics; # turns back on runtime warnings
print "\ntime for 3rd bogus: SQUAWKINGS\n";
print BOGUS3 'nada';
print "done with 3rd bogus\n";
disable diagnostics;
print "\ntime for 4th bogus: (squelched)\n";
print BOGUS4 'nada';
print "done with 4th bogus\n";
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.