Storing complex data structures using Storable

[blackadder]

Dear Monks

Any reason please as why I cannot save a complex data structure ($datacenters) to the disk?

This is the snippet of script that extracts data from vmware virtual centre and uses storable to store to disk

#! c:/perl/bin/perl.exe
#
use strict;
 
use Data::Dumper;
use Storable qw(store retrieve freeze thaw dclone);
 
use VMware::VILib;
use VMware::VIRuntime;

    my $datacenter_views = Vim::find_entity_views( view_type=> 'Datace
+nter');
    
    foreach my $DataCenter (@$datacenter_views)
    {
        store(\$DataCenter, 'c:/DCDump') or die "Can't store %a in DCD
+ump!\n";
    }


    my $colref = retrieve('c:/DCDump'); 
    die "Unable to retrieve from DCDump!\n" unless defined $colref;
    
    print Dumper $colref;

However, the error I get is this:

Can't store CODE items at blib\lib\Storable.pm (autosplit into blib\li
+b\auto\Storable\_store.al) line 264, <DATA> line 1, at C:\Scripts\sto
+re7.pl line 48

Any help please? Thanks in advance

[kennethk]

The error says precisely why you cannot store the data structure - it contains a code reference (perlref). The Storable documentation explains how to store coderefs, but with the caveat that this has significant possible security implications.

[MidLifeXis]

Try the suggestion at Storable's section on code references [Note: perldoc.perl.org was down when I posted this. I hope I have the right reference. --MLX ].

[BioLion]

I had a similar problem a while back and pople had some really helpful suggestions : Storable Objects. HTH.