NAME
    Devel::Dumpvar - A pure-OO reimplementation of dumpvar.pl

SYNOPSIS
      use Devel::Dumpvar;
  
      # Dump something immediately to STDOUT
      Devel::Dumpvar->dump( [ 'foo' ], $bar' );
  
      # Create a dump handle to use repeatedly
      my $Dump = Devel::Dumpvar->new;
  
      # Dump via the handler
      $Dump->dump( 'foo', [ 'bar' ] );

DESCRIPTION
    Most perl dumping modules are focused on serializing data structures
    into a format that can be rebuilt into the original data structure. They
    do this with a variety of different focuses, such as human readability,
    the ability to execute the dumped code directly, or to minimize the size
    of the dumped data.

    Expect for the one contained in the debugger, in the file dumpvar.pl.
    This is a readily human-readable form, highly useful for debugging,
    containing a lot of extra information without the burden of needing to
    be re-assembled into the original data.

    The main downside of the dumper in the perl-debugger is that the
    dumpvar.pl script is not really a readily loadable and useable module.
    It has dedicated hooks from and to the debugger, and spans across
    multiple namespaces, including main::.

    Devel::Dumpvar is a pure object-orientated implementation of the same
    functionality. This makes it much more usable version to use for dumping
    information to debug log files or other uses where you don't need to
    reassemble the data.

METHODS
  new( option => value, ... )
    The "new" constructor creates a new dumping object. Any options can be
    passed a list of key/value pairs.

    Each option passed to the constructor is set via one of the option
    methods below.

  to( $output_destination )
    The "to" option specifies where the output is to be sent to. When
    undefined, output will go to STDOUT. The output destination can be
    either a handle object ( or anything else with a ->print method ), or
    the string 'return', which will cause the "dump" method to collect and
    return the dump results for each call, rather than printing it
    immediately to the output.

    If called without an argument, returns the current value. If called with
    an argument, returns true or dies on error.

  dump( data1, data2, ... )
    If called as an object method, dumps a number of data values or structs
    to the dumping object. If called as a class method, creates a new
    default dump object and immediately dumps to it, destroying the dumper
    afterwards.

TO DO
      - Implement options currently available in other dumpers as needed.
  
      - Currently only supports SCALAR, REF, ARRAY, HASH and Regexp.
        Add support for all possible reference types.

SUPPORT
    Bugs should be reported via the CPAN bug tracker at

      http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Devel%3ADumpvar

    For other issues, contact the author

AUTHORS
            Adam Kennedy ( maintainer )
            cpan@ali.as
            http://ali.as/

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (c) 2004 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.