Tired of scrambling around @INC when you want to see a module's code? Let Perl find it!

Save this in a file in your search path (I called it vipm -- guess what editor I use). Then you can just say 

vipm Apache::Registry CGI
#or
vipm Apache/Registry.pm CGI.pm

[download]
or whatever.

Arguments starting with - are passed through. There's not a lot of error checking; give it stupid arguments, it'll probably do stupid things.

Share and enjoy.

#! /usr/bin/perl -w
#
# Find a module and edit it. Arguments should be either
# "Perl" style:     Apache::Registry
# or "path" style:  Apache/Registry.pm
#
# Any arguments starting with - are passed to editor unchanged.
#
foreach (@ARGV)
{
    next if /^-/;
    s|/|::|g if s/\.pm$//;
    eval "require $_" or die "Module $_ didn't load\n";
    s|::|/|g;
}
exec $ENV{EDITOR} || '/bin/vi', map {/^-/? $_ : $INC{$_ . '.pm'} } @AR
+GV;

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Find and edit module
by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 28, 2001 at 03:47 UTC
    That'll do nasty things if the requiring of the code executes something! Perhaps a static search of @INC is more in order.

    I think there's something in TC's pmtools that does this, if you wanna steal from somewhere.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]

      I mostly use this for things I install from CPAN, which are (usually!) well-behaved. But your point is well taken. It also won't work if the module has any sort of error in it.

      I found a copy of pmtools here in perl.org and I think you're referring to the pmpath program in it; to get the same effect as this, you would do vi `pmpath What::Ever`. But pmpath also has the same issue in that it does a require of the module.

      So here's a variation that walks down your @INC statically until it finds a file fitting the description: 

      #!/usr/bin/perl -w
ARG:
foreach (@ARGV)
{
    next if /^-/;
    s|::|/|g;
    $_ .= '.pm' unless /\.pm$/;
    foreach my $d (@INC)
    {
        $_ = "$d/$_", next ARG if -f "$d/$_" and -r _;
    }
    die "Can't find a module named $_\n";
}
exec $ENV{EDITOR} || '/bin/vi', @ARGV;

      [download]
      Arguments starting with - are still passed through unchanged, and it still doesn't do a lot of error checking.

      Props to merlyn for pushing me to improve the code. ;-)

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(dkubb) Re: (1) Find and edit module
by dkubb (Deacon) on Sep 29, 2001 at 13:07 UTC

    perldoc has an -m switch, which will bring up your default editor, displaying most module's full source code:

    perldoc -m CGI
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[select]
      I believe Perldoc's -m switch runs the full source code through the pager, but not into an editor. However, localizing the Perldoc pager environment variable for a single command, like so:

      $ PERLDOC_PAGER=/bin/vi perldoc -m CGI

      works on my system (Cygwin32).
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Re: Find and edit module
by Jenda (Abbot) on May 29, 2004 at 17:03 UTC

    I use this (via a Doskey macro) under Windows: 

    perl -e "map{s#/|::|-#\\#g;$_.='.pm'}@ARGV;for$m(@ARGV){for(@INC){die 
+`start $_\\$m`.qq{\n} if -e qq{$_\\$m}}}" $*

    [download]
    It assumes you have the .pm extension mapped to your favourite editor, but it should be no problem to change this for other OSes and call it via a shell script or something.

    Jenda
    Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
       -- Rick Osborne

    Edit by castaway: Closed small tag in signature

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