Dumpvalue(3perl) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Dumpvalue(3perl)
NAME
Dumpvalue - provides screen dump of Perl data.
SYNOPSIS
use Dumpvalue;
my $dumper = Dumpvalue->new;
$dumper->set(globPrint => 1);
$dumper->dumpValue(\*::);
$dumper->dumpvars('main');
my $dump = $dumper->stringify($some_value);
DESCRIPTION
Creation
A new dumper is created by a call
$d = Dumpvalue->new(option1 => value1, option2 => value2)
Recognized options:
"arrayDepth", "hashDepth"
Print only first N elements of arrays and hashes. If false, prints
all the elements.
"compactDump", "veryCompact"
Change style of array and hash dump. If true, short array may be
printed on one line.
"globPrint"
Whether to print contents of globs.
"dumpDBFiles"
Dump arrays holding contents of debugged files.
"dumpPackages"
Dump symbol tables of packages.
"dumpReused"
Dump contents of "reused" addresses.
"tick", "quoteHighBit", "printUndef"
Change style of string dump. Default value of "tick" is "auto", one
can enable either double-quotish dump, or single-quotish by setting
it to """ or "'". By default, characters with high bit set are
printed as is. If "quoteHighBit" is set, they will be quoted.
"usageOnly"
rudimentary per-package memory usage dump. If set, "dumpvars"
calculates total size of strings in variables in the package.
unctrl
Changes the style of printout of strings. Possible values are
"unctrl" and "quote".
subdump
Whether to try to find the subroutine name given the reference.
bareStringify
Whether to write the non-overloaded form of the stringify-overloaded
objects.
quoteHighBit
Whether to print chars with high bit set in binary or "as is".
stopDbSignal
Whether to abort printing if debugger signal flag is raised.
Later in the life of the object the methods may be queries with get()
method and set() method (which accept multiple arguments).
Methods
dumpValue
$dumper->dumpValue($value);
$dumper->dumpValue([$value1, $value2]);
Prints a dump to the currently selected filehandle.
dumpValues
$dumper->dumpValues($value1, $value2);
Same as "$dumper->dumpValue([$value1, $value2]);".
stringify
my $dump = $dumper->stringify($value [,$noticks] );
Returns the dump of a single scalar without printing. If the second
argument is true, the return value does not contain enclosing ticks.
Does not handle data structures.
dumpvars
$dumper->dumpvars('my_package');
$dumper->dumpvars('my_package', 'foo', '~bar$', '!......');
The optional arguments are considered as literal strings unless they
start with "~" or "!", in which case they are interpreted as regular
expressions (possibly negated).
The second example prints entries with names "foo", and also entries
with names which ends on "bar", or are shorter than 5 chars.
set_quote
$d->set_quote('"');
Sets "tick" and "unctrl" options to suitable values for printout
with the given quote char. Possible values are "auto", "'" and """.
set_unctrl
$d->set_unctrl('unctrl');
Sets "unctrl" option with checking for an invalid argument.
Possible values are "unctrl" and "quote".
compactDump
$d->compactDump(1);
Sets "compactDump" option. If the value is 1, sets to a reasonable
big number.
veryCompact
$d->veryCompact(1);
Sets "compactDump" and "veryCompact" options simultaneously.
set
$d->set(option1 => value1, option2 => value2);
get
@values = $d->get('option1', 'option2');
perl v5.40.1 2026-08-30 Dumpvalue(3perl)
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