sdump

Dump a data structure to a string.

  use PDL::IO::Dumper;
  $s = sdump(<VAR>);
  ...
  <VAR> = eval $s;

sdump dumps a single complex data structure into a string. You restore the data structure by eval-ing the string. Since eval is a builtin, no convenience routine exists to use it.

fdump

Dump a data structure to a file

  use PDL::IO::Dumper;
  fdump(<VAR>,$filename);
  ...
  <VAR> = frestore($filename);

fdump dumps a single complex data structure to a file. You restore the data structure by eval-ing the perl code put in the file. A convenience routine (frestore) exists to do it for you.

I suggest using the extension '.pld' or (for non-broken OS's) '.pdld' to distinguish Dumper files. That way they are reminiscent of .pl files for perl, while still looking a little different so you can pick them out. You can certainly feed a dump file straight into perl (for syntax checking) but it will not do much for you, just build your data structure and exit.

frestore

Restore a dumped file

  use PDL::IO::Dumper;
  fdump(<VAR>,$filename);
  ...
  <VAR> = frestore($filename);

frestore() is a convenience function that just reads in the named file and executes it in an eval. It's paired with fdump().

deep_copy

Convenience function copies a complete perl data structure by the brute force method of "eval sdump".

PDL::IO::Dumper::big_PDL

Identify whether a PDL is ``big'' [Internal routine]

Internal routine takes a PDL and returns a boolean indicating whether it's small enough for direct insertion into the dump string. If 0, it can be inserted. Larger numbers yield larger scopes of PDL. 1 implies that it should be broken out but can be handled with a couple of perl commands; 2 implies full uudecode treatment.

PDLs with Astro::FITS::Header objects as headers are taken to be FITS files and are always treated as huge, regardless of size.

PDL::IO::Dumper::stringify_PDL

Turn a PDL into a 1-part perl expr [Internal routine]

Internal routine that takes a PDL and returns a perl string that evals to the PDL. It should be used with care because it doesn't dump headers and it doesn't check number of elements. The point here is that numbers are dumped with the correct precision for their storage class. Things we don't know about get stringified element-by-element by their builtin class, which is probably not a bad guess.

PDL::IO::Dumper::uudecode_PDL

Recover a PDL from a uuencoded string [Internal routine]

This routine encapsulates uudecoding of the dumped string for large ndarrays.

PDL::IO::Dumper::dump_PDL

Generate 1- or 2-part expr for a PDL [Internal routine]

Internal routine that produces commands defining a PDL. You supply (<PDL>, <name>) and get back two strings: a prepended command string and an expr that evaluates to the final PDL. PDL is the PDL you want to dump. <inline> is a flag whether dump_PDL is being called inline or before the inline dump string (0 for before; 1 for in). <name> is the name of the variable to be assigned (for medium and large PDLs, which are defined before the dump string and assigned unique IDs).

PDL::IO::Dumper::find_PDLs

Walk a data structure and dump PDLs [Internal routine]

Walks the original data structure and generates appropriate exprs for each PDL. The exprs are inserted into the Data::Dumper output string. You shouldn't call this unless you know what you're doing. (see sdump, above).