NAME
Devel::Pointer::PP - Fiddle around with pointers, safer than Devel::Pointer
SYNOPSIS
use Devel::Pointer ':all';
my $addr = address_of( $val );
# Dereference by address
my $val2 = ${deref( $addr )};
# Dereference a reference
my $val2 = ${deref( \ $val )};
# Dereference a stringified reference
my $val2 = ${deref( "" . \ $val );
$a = unsmash_sv(0+$scalar_ref);
@a = unsmash_av(0+$array_ref);
%a = unsmash_hv(0+$hash_ref);
&a = unsmash_cv(0+$code_ref);
# Yes, you can do that. You get the idea.
$c = deref(-1); # *(-1), and the resulting segfault.DESCRIPTION
The primary purpose of this is to turn a smashed reference address back into a value. Once a reference is treated as a numeric or string value, you can't dereference it normally; although with this module, you can.
Be careful, though, to avoid dereferencing things that don't want to be dereferenced.
EXPORT
All of the above
AUTHOR
Joshua ben Jore jjore@cpan.org
Simon Cozens wrote the XS version and then some loony put an object_2svref method into perl 5.8.1's B module and enabled me to rewrite the thing in pure perl.