I'm not sure about your specs.

rockyb working on perl debugger Devel::Trepan, also released B::CodeLines, its not always easy/desireable to simply do it the way perl5db.pl does it :)

I apologize for not giving more background. I was afraid of boring and burying people in too much detail.

But yes, you are correct. Although I think of this as something interesting and useful in of itself, my particular interest is in adding to the %DB::subs hash that information that it would normally get if debugging were set up initially.

When one uses Enbugger or manages to call a debugger inside a running program that wasn't set for debugging at the outset, it is desirable to reconstruct the structures, possibly on demand, that would have been gathered if Perl were set to debug at the outset.

It's possible jjore will beef up Enbugger to add this information. And if he does, I have no doubt that he'll do a better or more thorough job than the approaches suggested here so far. But on the other hand, it would be good to explore and have other possibilities to create the information on demand too.

By the way, I followed that perl5db.pl link and was both in awe of it, and frankly a little repulsed by it.

There is way more stuff in perl5db when I first learned it decades ago. I think there is possibly more stuff in there than when I last looked at an apress book devoted to perl5db about a decade ago.

However I find it a mish-mash of details, many that don't make sense to me. So much so that I find myself getting lost. Is it just me?

The document starts out with an explanation or apology under "General Notes" of why the thing is so ugly — probably not the best way to lead off for most poeple who are looking for information. This is followed by coding tricks used that I doubt most people should be using normally, even if they are interested in such stuff. And if they are, they probably know this already.

Somewhere among this, are features and capabilities I really didn't know much about like debugger startup, its options, what can go in the debugger initalization file, terminal and socket handling, and how to influence what happens on restart.

Then finally after all of this other stuff, first mention of the actual commands that can be used, followed by, or rather intermixed with, API information.

I think it both amusing and fitting that the thing ends with a POD error in red.

I would offer to reorganize or rewrite it, if I weren't of the frame of mind that one should really move away from the debugger altogether.

If you don't like Devel::Trepan, then please consider Devel::Hdb. Too many people have died trying to fix up perl5db.