NAME

Tangram::Type::Dump - Handy functions for Pixie-like dumping of data

SYNOPSIS

  use Tangram::Type::Dump qw(flatten unflatten UNflatten nuke);

  use YAML qw(freeze thaw); # for instance

  my $frozen = freeze flatten($storage, $structure);

  # optional - remove circular references from flattened
  # structure so that it is freed up properly.
  nuke $frozen;

  # save frozen somewhere...

  # restore, but don't load objects straight away
  my $reconstituted = unflatten($storage, thaw $frozen);

  # restore, loading objects immediately
  my $original = UNflatten($storage, $frozen);

  # Alternative, quickly marshall a structure for saving
  my $structure;
  flatten($storage, $structure);
  # ... do something with it ...

  # restore to former glory; note that Tangram's cache will
  # prevent unnecessary DB access.
  unflatten($storage, $structure);

DESCRIPTION

This module contains functions for traversing data structures which are not Tangram-registered objects, and replacing all the Tangram objects found with `Mementos'.

When a similar data structure is fed back into the reversal function, the mementos are filled with on-demand references to the real objects.

All these functions operate in place for maximum efficiency.

FUNCTIONS

flatten($storage, $structure)

Traverses the structure $structure, and replaces all the known (ie, already inserted) Tangram objects with references to them

unflatten($storage, $structure)

Performs the logical opposite of flatten, but only insofar as a `normal' user is concerned. `Normal' users, of course, don't care that the data structure is being loaded from the database as they use it :).

BUGS

Should this module just be an extension to Tangram::Storage ?

AUTHOR

Sam Vilain, samv@cpan.org. All rights reserved. This code is free software; you can use and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.