Viewing Data Structures

[arunhorne]

Monks

I am writing a program that has a number of complex data structures and want the be able to view them easily in a generic fashion without having to write custom code that relies upon inside knowledge of their organisation. I'm sure that I came across a module to facilitate this a while ago but have been searching CPAN for a while now in vain... its hard to know exactly what to call such a thing. Does anyone know the name of the module that can do this?

Thnaks,

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Arun

[DamnDirtyApe]

Have you looked at Data::Dumper? It's perfect for this.


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D a m n D i r t y A p e
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[Courage]

In addition to mentioned Data::Dumper I would recommend looking at Tk::ObjScanner, which will show your structures in a very friendly GUI.

Courage, the Cowardly Dog

[screamingeagle]

check out Data::Denter ... It's a nice alternative to Data::Dumper

[bronto]

If you want to check them on-the-run, and you have Tk, you can also use ptkdb. It's a full perl/tk visual debugger; you can go step by step and see your data structures on the sidebar; also, you can point a variable with a mouse and see its current value in a pop-up. At the moment, I haven't seen any better free software for the task.

Instead, when all I need is to get a dump of a data structure in a certain point and then stop, I tend to use Data::Dumper, too.

Ciao!
--bronto

# Another Perl edition of a song:
# The End, by The Beatles
END {
  $you->take($love) eq $you->made($love) ;
}