Description:

Devel::Peek contains functions which allows raw Perl datatypes to be manipulated
from a Perl script. This is used by those who do XS programming to check that the
data they are sending from C to Perl looks as they think it should look. The trick,
then, is to know what the raw datatype is supposed to look like when it gets to Perl.
This document offers some tips and hints to describe good and bad raw data.
It is very possible that this document will fall far short of being useful to the
casual reader. The reader is expected to understand the material in the first few
sections of perlguts.
Devel::Peek supplies a Dump() function which can dump a raw Perl datatype, and
mstat("marker") function to report on memory usage (if perl is compiled with
corresponding option). The function DeadCode() provides statistics on the data
"frozen" into inactive CV. Devel::Peek also supplies SvREFCNT(), SvREFCNT_inc(),
and SvREFCNT_dec() which can query, increment, and decrement reference counts on SVs.
This document will take a passive, and safe, approach to data debugging and for that
it will describe only the Dump() function.
Function DumpArray() allows dumping of multiple values (useful when you need to analize
returns of functions).
The global variable $Devel::Peek::pv_limit can be set to limit the number of character
printed in various string values. Setting it to 0 means no limit.