Subject: Devel::Symdump-1.19 fancy dump-the-symbol-table package


Devel::Symdump is a tiny, primitiv package to access perl's symbol
table in a convenient way. It allows to take snapshots of the symbol
table during execution of a program for further processing or for
immediate printout. It can be regarded of a superior successor to
dumpvar.pl.

Each snapshot is an object and can be accessed by the methods
packages(), scalars(), arrays(), hashes(), functions(), filehandles(),
dirhandles(), and unknowns(). Both a recursive walk through all
packages and dumping restricted to chosen packages is available.

WHAT'S NEW

The current version adds an as_string method that formats the whole
object in a trivial way. This is handy for quick tours through programs
and saves some typing. The formatting is not as sophisticated as it
was in early versions of this package. Nothing but an energy saver.

Other than that I have rewritten the test scripts, so they can be used
in the standard way of 'make test'.

YOU CAN GET IT FROM

<HTML>
<A HREF="ftp://franz.ww.tu-berlin.de/pub/perl/Symdump-1.19.shar">Klick here</A>
</HTML>
      (about 26k, most of it test harness)

Unpack it wherever you want, and run the commands:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make test
    make install                      # as root

See the test scripts for examples of the usage. The Module contains
its own pod.

I hope you enjoy it,
andreas koenig
