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/cvs/Devel-FindRef/FindRef.pm
Revision: 1.15
Committed: Sat Jul 19 01:38:57 2008 UTC (15 years, 10 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rel-1_31
Changes since 1.14: +2 -1 lines
Log Message:
lots of fixes by paul evans

File Contents

# Content
1 package Devel::FindRef;
2
3 no warnings; # I hate warning nazis
4 use strict;
5
6 use XSLoader;
7 use Scalar::Util;
8
9 BEGIN {
10 our $VERSION = '1.31';
11 XSLoader::load __PACKAGE__, $VERSION;
12 }
13
14 =head1 NAME
15
16 Devel::FindRef - where is that reference to my variable hiding?
17
18 =head1 SYNOPSIS
19
20 use Devel::FindRef;
21
22 =head1 DESCRIPTION
23
24 Tracking down reference problems (e.g. you expect some object to be
25 destroyed, but there are still references to it that keep it alive) can be
26 very hard. Fortunately, perl keeps track of all its values, so tracking
27 references "backwards" is usually possible.
28
29 The C<track> function can help track down some of those references back to
30 the variables containing them.
31
32 For example, for this fragment:
33
34 package Test;
35
36 our $var = "hi\n";
37 my $x = \$var;
38 our %hash = (ukukey => \$var);
39 our $hash2 = {ukukey2 => \$var};
40
41 sub testsub {
42 my $local = $hash2;
43 print Devel::FindRef::track \$var;
44 }
45
46 testsub;
47
48 The output is as follows (or similar to this, in case I forget to update
49 the manpage after some changes):
50
51 SCALAR(0x814ece8) is
52 +- in the global $Test::var.
53 +- referenced by REF(0x814f9e4), which is
54 | in the lexical '$x' in CODE(0x814ed78), which is
55 | the containing scope for CODE(0x820c4b0), which is
56 | in the global &Test::testsub.
57 +- referenced by REF(0x814ed6c), which is
58 | in the member 'ukukey' of HASH(0x81da20c), which is
59 | in the global %Test::hash.
60 +- referenced by REF(0x814ec28), which is
61 | not found anywhere I looked :(
62 +- referenced by REF(0x814eb44), which is
63 in the member 'ukukey2' of HASH(0x814f99c), which is
64 +- referenced by REF(0x820c450), which is
65 | in the lexical '$local' in CODE(0x820c4b0), which was seen before.
66 +- referenced by REF(0x820c204), which is
67 in the global $Test::hash2.
68
69 It is a bit convoluted to read, but basically it says that the value
70 stored in C<$var> can be found:
71
72 =over 4
73
74 =item - in some variable C<$x> whose origin is not known (I frankly have no
75 idea why, hints accepted).
76
77 =item - in the hash element with key C<ukukey> in the hash stored in C<%Test::hash>.
78
79 =item - in the global variable named C<$Test::var>.
80
81 =item - in the hash element C<ukukey2>, in the hash in the my variable
82 C<$local> in the sub C<Test::testsub> and also in the hash referenced by
83 C<$Test::hash2>.
84
85 =back
86
87 =head1 EXPORTS
88
89 None.
90
91 =head1 FUNCTIONS
92
93 =over 4
94
95 =item $string = Devel::FindRef::track $ref[, $depth]
96
97 Track the perl value pointed to by C<$ref> up to a depth of C<$depth> and
98 return a descriptive string. C<$ref> can point at any perl value, be it
99 anonymous sub, hash, array, scalar etc.
100
101 This is the function you most often use.
102
103 =cut
104
105 sub find($);
106
107 sub track {
108 my ($ref, $depth) = @_;
109 @_ = ();
110
111 my $buf = "";
112 my %seen;
113
114 Scalar::Util::weaken $ref;
115
116 my $track; $track = sub {
117 my ($refref, $depth, $indent) = @_;
118
119 if ($depth) {
120 my (@about) = find $$refref;
121 if (@about) {
122 for my $about (@about) {
123 $buf .= "$indent" . (@about > 1 ? "+- " : " ") . $about->[0];
124 if (@$about > 1) {
125 if ($seen{ref2ptr $about->[1]}++) {
126 $buf .= " $about->[1], which was seen before.\n";
127 } else {
128 $buf .= " $about->[1], which is\n";
129 $track->(\$about->[1], $depth - 1, $about == $about[-1] ? "$indent " : "$indent| ");
130 }
131 } else {
132 $buf .= ".\n";
133 }
134 }
135 } else {
136 $buf .= "$indent not found anywhere I looked :(\n";
137 }
138 } else {
139 $buf .= "$indent not referenced within the search depth.\n";
140 }
141 };
142
143 $buf .= "$ref is\n";
144 $track->(\$ref, $depth || $ENV{PERL_DEVEL_FINDREF_DEPTH} || 10, "");
145 $buf
146 }
147
148 =item @references = Devel::FindRef::find $ref
149
150 Return arrayrefs that contain [$message, $ref] pairs. The message
151 describes what kind of reference was found and the C<$ref> is the
152 reference itself, which can be omitted if C<find> decided to end the
153 search. The returned references are all weak references.
154
155 The C<track> function uses this to find references to the value you are
156 interested in and recurses on the returned references.
157
158 =cut
159
160 sub find($) {
161 my ($about, $excl) = &find_;
162 my %excl = map +($_ => undef), @$excl;
163 grep !exists $excl{ref2ptr $_->[1]}, @$about
164 }
165
166 =item $ref = Devel::FindRef::ptr2ref $integer
167
168 Sometimes you know (from debugging output) the address of a perl scalar
169 you are interested in (e.g. C<HASH(0x176ff70)>). This function can be used
170 to turn the address into a reference to that scalar. It is quite safe to
171 call on valid addresses, but extremely dangerous to call on invalid ones.
172
173 # we know that HASH(0x176ff70) exists, so turn it into a hashref:
174 my $ref_to_hash = Devel::FindRef::ptr2ref 0x176ff70;
175
176 =item $ref = Devel::FindRef::ref2ptr $reference
177
178 The opposite of C<ptr2ref>, above: returns the internal address of the
179 value pointed to by the passed reference. I<No checks whatsoever will be
180 done>, so don't use this.
181
182 =back
183
184 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
185
186 You can set the environment variable C<PERL_DEVEL_FINDREF_DEPTH> to an
187 integer to override the default depth in C<track>. If a call explicitly
188 specified a depth it is not overridden.
189
190 =head1 AUTHOR
191
192 Marc Lehmann <pcg@goof.com>.
193
194 =head1 BUGS
195
196 Only code values, arrays, hashes, scalars and magic are being looked at.
197
198 This is a quick hack only.
199
200 =head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
201
202 Copyright (C) 2007 by Marc Lehmann.
203
204 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
205 it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.8 or,
206 at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
207
208 =cut
209
210 1
211