Therefore one idea that strikes me is to manually set the contents of $ARGV[n] at the top of the source before any other code is run. Would this approach work?

Sure, that's fine, just make sure to only set it when you're running under the debugger, so as to not override any command line options later set by the user. There isn't really anything that magical about @ARGV, most functions and modules only read it at runtime, and you can write to it whenever you like. If in theory you had a module that accessed @ARGV when you use it, you'd need to set it in a BEGIN block before you use that module, but I haven't come across a module that does this yet.

use Data::Dump;
use Getopt::Long;

@ARGV = qw/ --foo --bar=123 --quz=Hello /;
GetOptions(\my %OPTS1, 'foo|f', 'bar|b=i', 'quz|q=s') or die;
dd \%OPTS1;

@ARGV = qw/ -q World /;
GetOptions(\my %OPTS2, 'foo|f', 'bar|b=i', 'quz|q=s') or die;
dd \%OPTS2;

__END__

{ bar => 123, foo => 1, quz => "Hello" }
{ quz => "World" }
[download]

> Any suggestions..

If with any you really mean any, you can find Modules as configuration files interesting.

I still use it if I have a lot of arguments for a perl program or, let say, find command.

L*

Many thanks guys!!! That idea of using a module to input arguments is pretty clever all on its own. I will definitely give that a shot.

Generally, learning to use the command-line debugger is a pretty slow and uncomfortable process at the moment. I aimed to work through the book 'Pro Perl Debugging' by Foley and Lester, but I found it quickly became rather confusing. However I am trying to extract the key information from the first few chapters and focus on just one or too commands--'x' to show a variable's value, 'c' to jump to the next breakpoint, 's' to step into and 'n' to step over.

It would be nice to be able to customize the debugger appearance--set it for more than 80 columns for instance and specify what information it gives me at each step/jump. That is probably material for a different thread though!

"Aure Entuluva!" - Hurin Thalion at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

I assume you might be interested to know that

• The debugger is reading a config file, you can define breakpoints there
• You can also define debugger commands like b 100 in the command line at start-up of the debugger to set a breakpoint at line 100
• You can define your own "alias" command which interactively reads and sets breakpoints.

see also perldb , perldbguts and DB ...

... and of course the h cmd:

EPIC allows you to specify the arguments to provide to the script. "With EPIC 0.4.x or 0.5.x you should create a launch configuration of type Perl Local (under Run/Run...) and enter the arguments on the Arguments tab."

read the first paragraph again