1Devel::StringInfo(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Devel::StringInfo(3)
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6 Devel::StringInfo - Gather information about strings
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9 my $string = get_string_from_somewhere();
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11 use Devel::StringInfo qw(string_info);
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13 # warn()s a YAML dump in void context
14 string_info($string);
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18 # the above is actually shorthand for:
19 Devel::StringInfo->new->dump_info($string);
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22 # you can also customize with options:
23 my $d = Devel::StringInfo->new(
24 guess_encoding => 0,
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28 # and collect data instead of formatting it as a string
29 my %hash = $d->gather_data( $string );
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31 warn "it's a utf8 string" if $hash{is_utf8};
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34 This module is a debugging aid that helps figure out more information
35 about strings.
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37 Perl has two main "types" of strings, unicode strings ("utf8::is_utf8"
38 returns true), and octet strings (just a bunch of bytes).
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40 Depending on the source of the data, what data it interacted with, as
41 well as the fact that Perl may implicitly upgrade octet streams which
42 represent strings in the native encoding to unicode strings, it's
43 sometimes hard to know what exactly is going on with a string.
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45 This module clumps together a bunch of checks you can perform on a
46 string to figure out what's in it.
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49 This module optionally exports a "string_info" subroutine. It uses
50 Sub::Exporter, so you can pass any options to the import routine, and
51 they will be used to construct the dumper for your exported sub:
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53 use Devel::StringInfo string_info => { guess_encoding => 0 };
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56 guess_encoding
57 Whether or not to use Encode::Guess to guess the encoding of the
58 data if it's not a unicode string.
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60 encoding_suspects
61 The list of suspect encodings. See Encode::Guess. Defaults to the
62 empty list, which is a special case for Encode::Guess.
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64 include_value_info
65 Include some information about the string value (does it contain
66 0x00 chars, is it alphanumeric, does it have newlines, etc).
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68 include_decoded
69 Whether to include a recursive dump of the decoded versions of a
70 non unicode string.
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72 include_hex
73 Whether to include a Data::HexDump::XXD dump in "dump_info".
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75 include_raw
76 Whether to include a simple interpolation of the string in
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80 dump_info $string, %extra_fields
81 Use YAML to dump information about $string.
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83 In void context prints, in other contexts returns the dump string.
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85 If "include_raw" is set then a "raw" version (no escaping of the
86 string) is appended with some boundry markings. This can help
87 understand what's going on if YAML's escaping is confusing.
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89 If "include_hex" is set then Data::HexDump::XXD will be required
90 and used to dump the value as well.
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92 gather_data $string, %opts
93 Gathers information about the string.
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95 Calls various other "gather_" methods internally.
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97 Used by "dump_info" to dump the results.
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99 In scalar context returns a hash reference, in list context key
100 value pairs.
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102 All hash references are tied to Tie::IxHash in order to be layed
103 out logically in the dump.
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105 %opts is not yet used but may be in the future.
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108 Yuval Kogman <nothingmuch@woobling.org>
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111 Copyright (c) 2007 Yuval Kogman. All rights reserved
112 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
113 under the terms of the MIT license or the same terms as Perl itself.
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117perl v5.28.0 2009-05-14 Devel::StringInfo(3)