It's possible to write something tremendously clever that does it all in a subroutine, but if you're debugging like that, just create a line like 
  print __FILE__ . " (" . __LINE__ . "): " .
    "(your variable names and values here)\n";

[download]
and copy it willy nilly, wherever needed. When you're tired of it, just comment it out .. you may end up needing it again.

This presumes that you can't use the Perl debugger to track down your problem. The debugger is a little intimidating, but it's a little cleaner and neater (not to mention way more flexible) to use when tracking down problems.

--t. alex

"Nyahhh (munch, munch) What's up, Doc?" --Bugs Bunny

Update Abigail's suggestion is much cooler -- it gets Perl to take care of the file name and line numbering detail.

It's really a preference between commenting out code that's no longer needed and just disabling it with the $debug flag. Your choice.

In reply to Re: Nervously....How do I access the Name of a Perl variable? by talexb
in thread Nervously....How do I access the Name of a Perl variable? by Anonymous Monk

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