Data::Dumper (Programming Perl)

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32.10. Data::Dumper

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper($store);

When used on the example from Class::Struct, this prints:

$VAR1 = bless( {
             'Shoppe::owner' => 'Abdul Alhazred',
             'Shoppe::stock' => {
                                  'charms' => 3,
                                  'books' => 208,
                                  'potions' => 'none'
                                },
             'Shoppe::boss' => bless( {
                                        'Manager::name' =>
                                            'Prof L. P. Haitch',
                                        'Manager::salary' =>
                                            'madness',
                                        'Manager::started' =>
                                            'Sat Apr  1 16:18:13 2000'
                                      }, 'Manager' ),
             'Shoppe::addrs' => [
                                  'Miskatonic University',
                                  'Innsmouth, Mass.'
                                ]
           }, 'Shoppe' );

The Data::Dumper module's Dumper function takes a list of scalars (including references, which can even refer to objects) and returns a printable or evalable string that accurately reproduces an faithful copy of the original. You could use this to write out a saved version of a data structure to a regular disk file or into a DBM file, or to pass it to another process over a pipe or socket connection. This module can be used with MLDBM from CPAN and DB_File to implement a DBM file that can transparently store complex data values, not just flat strings. Other stringification (or serialization, or marshalling) modules include Storable and FreezeThaw, both available from CPAN.


32.9. Cwd		32.11. DB_File