Returns a string containing a Perl expression. If you pass this string to Perl’s built-in eval() function it should return a copy of the arguments you passed to dump().

didn't encourage me a lot, wrapping all in evals is not what I really wanted.

But maybe I'm wrong, can you show me example code?

eval() is needed only when you want a deep copy.

use Data::Dump qw( pp dd );

my $ref = [ 'foo', 'bar', { asd => 1, qwe => 2 } ];

# pp() called in void context prints to STDERR
pp $ref;
# prints: ["foo", "bar", { asd => 1, qwe => 2 }]

# dd() called in void context prints to STDOUT
dd $ref;

# named printing is still not DRY, but much better than:
# print Data::Dumper->Dump( [$ref], ['*ref'] );
print '$ref = ', pp($ref), "\n";
# prints: $ref = ["foo", "bar", { asd => 1, qwe => 2 }]

# eval() for a deep copy
my $deep_copy = eval pp($ref);
pp $deep_copy;
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The printing format is a lot more readable than Data::Dumper's default. However beware that Data::Dump is not among the core modules.

# named printing is still not DRY, but much better than:
# print Data::Dumper->Dump( [$ref], ['*ref'] );
print '$ref = ', pp($ref), "\n";
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yeah but thats core...

use Data::Dumper qw/Dumper/;
print '$ref = ', Dumper($ref), "\n";
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So really a big gain if it's not DRY?

Cheers Rolf

Same goes for Data::Dumper. If you want to reify the structure, you need to use eval. As far as I'm concerned, they are debugging tools, not storage tools.