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String-Dump-0.06
River stage one • 4 direct dependents • 5 total dependents
2 ++
/ String::Dump

NAME

String::Dump - Dump strings of characters or bytes for printing and debugging

VERSION

This document describes String::Dump version 0.06.

SYNOPSIS

    use String::Dump qw( dump_hex dump_oct );

    say 'hex: ', dump_hex($string);  # hex mode
    say 'oct: ', dump_oct($string);  # octal mode

DESCRIPTION

When debugging or reviewing strings containing non-ASCII or non-printing characters, String::Dump is your friend. It provides simple functions to return a dump of the characters or bytes of your string in several different formats, such as hex, octal, decimal, Unicode names, and more.

An OO interface is forthcoming with additional options and the ability to reuse them among multiple calls. Some benefits will include the ability to set the delimiter between characters, set padding for the characters, and force a string to be treated as a string of characters or a series of bytes. Don’t worry, the standard functions will remain simple.

Check out String::Dump::Debugging for tips on debugging Unicode and encoded strings with this module. Also check out the bundled command-line tool dumpstr.

FUNCTIONS

These functions all accept a single argument: the string to dump, which may either be a Perl internal string or an encoded series of bytes. Each has to be explicitly exported or they can all be exported with the :all tag.

    use String::Dump qw( :all );

dump_hex($string)

Hexadecimal (base 16) mode.

    use utf8;
    # string of 6 characters
    say dump_hex('Ĝis! ☺');  # 11C 69 73 21 20 263A

    no utf8;
    # series of 9 bytes
    say dump_hex('Ĝis! ☺');  # C4 9C 69 73 21 20 E2 98 BA

For a lowercase hex dump, simply pass the response to lc.

    say lc dump_hex('Ĝis! ☺');  # 11c 69 73 21 20 263a

dump_dec($string)

Decimal (base 10) mode.

    use utf8;
    say dump_dec('Ĝis! ☺');  # 284 105 115 33 32 9786

    no utf8;
    say dump_dec('Ĝis! ☺');  # 196 156 105 115 33 32 226 152 186

dump_oct($string)

Octal (base 8) mode.

    use utf8;
    say dump_oct('Ĝis! ☺');  # 434 151 163 41 40 23072

    no utf8;
    say dump_oct('Ĝis! ☺');  # 304 234 151 163 41 40 342 230 272

dump_bin($string)

Binary (base 2) mode.

    use utf8;
    say dump_bin('Ĝis! ☺');
    # 100011100 1101001 1110011 100001 100000 10011000111010

    no utf8;
    say dump_bin('Ĝis! ☺');
    # 11000100 10011100 1101001 1110011 100001 100000 11100010 10011000 10111010

dump_names($string)

Named Unicode character mode. Unlike the various numeral modes above, this mode uses ‘, ’ (comma, space) for the delimiter.

    use utf8;
    say dump_names('Ĝis! ☺');
    # LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH CIRCUMFLEX, LATIN SMALL LETTER I,
    # LATIN SMALL LETTER S, EXCLAMATION MARK, SPACE, WHITE SMILING FACE

This mode makes no sense for a series of bytes, but it still works if that’s what you really want!

    no utf8;
    say dump_names('Ĝis! ☺');
    # LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS, STRING TERMINATOR,
    # LATIN SMALL LETTER I, LATIN SMALL LETTER S, EXCLAMATION MARK,
    # SPACE, LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX, START OF STRING,
    # MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR

The output in the examples above has been manually split into multiple lines for the layout of this document.

CONTRIBUTIONS

This is an early release of String::Dump. Feedback is appreciated! To give suggestions or report an issue, contact mailto:patch@cpan.org or open an issue at https://github.com/patch/string-dump-pm5/issues. Pull requests are welcome at https://github.com/patch/string-dump-pm5.

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR

Nick Patch <patch@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

© 2011–2012 Nick Patch

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