NAME

PPI::Dumper - Dumping of PDOM trees

SYNOPSIS

# Load a document
my $Module = PPI::Document->new( 'MyModule.pm' );

# Create the dumper
my $Dumper = PPI::Dumper->new( $Module );

# Dump the document
$Dumper->print;

DESCRIPTION

The PDOM trees in PPI are quite complex, and getting a dump of their structure for development and debugging purposes is important.

This module provides that functionality.

The process is relatively simple. Create a dumper object with a particular set of options, and then call one of the dump methods to generate the dump content itself.

METHODS

new $Element, param => value, ...

The new constructor creates a dumper, and takes as argument a single PPI::Element object of any type to serve as the root of the tree to be dumped, and a number of key->value parameters to control the output format of the Dumper. Details of the parameters are listed below.

Returns a new PPI::Dumper object, or undef if the constructor is not passed a correct PPI::Element root object.

memaddr

Should the dumper print the memory addresses of each PDOM element. True/false value, off by default.

indent

Should the structures being dumped be indented. This value is numeric, with the number representing the number of spaces to use when indenting the dumper output. Set to '2' by default.

class

Should the dumper print the full class for each element. True/false value, on by default.

content

Should the dumper show the content of each element. True/false value, on by defauilt.

whitespace

Should the dumper show whitespace tokens. By not showing the copious numbers of whitespace tokens the structure of the code can often be made much clearer. True/false value, on by default.

comments

Should the dumper show comment tokens. In situations where you have a lot of comments, the code can often be made clearer by ignoring comment tokens. True/value value, on by default.

print

The print method generates the dump and prints it to STDOUT.

Returns as for the internal print function.

string

The string method generates the dump and provides it as a single string.

Returns a string or undef if there is an error while generating the dump.

list

The list method generates the dump and provides it as a raw list, without trailing newlines.

Returns a list or the null list if there is an error while generation the dump.

SUPPORT

See the support section in the main module

AUTHOR

Adam Kennedy, http://ali.as/, cpan@ali.as

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2004 - 2005 Adam Kennedy. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.