2 Copyright (c) 1995-2000, Raphael Manfredi
4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
6 it under the terms of the Artistic License, a copy of which can be
9 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
10 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
11 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
12 Artistic License for more details.
13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
15 *** This is beta software -- use at your own risks ***
17 +=======================================================================
18 | PLEASE NOTE CAREFULLY
20 | The serialization format changed between 0.5 and 0.6, and the module
21 | is NOT backward compatible. Think about it when upgrading from a
22 | pre-0.5@9 version -- images from versions 0.5@9 could still be read
23 | by 0.6, but have not been tested with 0.7.
25 | The next release (0.8 or 1.0) will DROP support for pre-0.6 format.
27 | The serialization format changed between 0.6 and 0.7, and the module
28 | is fully backward compatible, meaning 0.7 can read binary images from
29 | 0.6, although it only generates new ones. If you encounter a situation
30 | where it is not AND can duplicate it via a small test case, please
31 | send it to me, along with a patch to fix the problem if you can.
32 +=======================================================================
34 The Storable extension brings persistency to your data.
36 You may recursively store to disk any data structure, no matter how
37 complex and circular it is, provided it contains only SCALAR, ARRAY,
38 HASH (possibly tied) and references (possibly blessed) to those items.
40 At a later stage, or in another program, you may retrieve data from
41 the stored file and recreate the same hiearchy in memory. If you
42 had blessed references, the retrieved references are blessed into
43 the same package, so you must make sure you have access to the
44 same perl class than the one used to create the relevant objects.
46 There is also a dclone() routine which performs an optimized mirroring
47 of any data structure, preserving its topology.
49 Objects (blessed references) may also redefine the way storage and
50 retrieval is performed, and/or what deep cloning should do on those
53 To compile this extension, run:
55 perl Makefile.PL [PERL_SRC=...where you put perl sources...]
59 There is an embeded POD manual page in Storable.pm.
61 Raphael Manfredi <Raphael_Manfredi@pobox.com>
63 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
66 Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>
67 Ulrich Pfeifer <pfeifer@charly.informatik.uni-dortmund.de>
68 Benjamin A. Holzman <bah@ecnvantage.com>
69 Andrew Ford <A.Ford@ford-mason.co.uk>
70 Gisle Aas <gisle@aas.no>
71 Jeff Gresham <gresham_jeffrey@jpmorgan.com>
72 Murray Nesbitt <murray@activestate.com>
73 Albert N. Micheev <Albert.N.Micheev@f80.n5049.z2.fidonet.org>
74 Marc Lehmann <pcg@opengroup.org>
76 for their contributions.
78 There is a Japanese translation of this man page available at
79 http://member.nifty.ne.jp/hippo2000/perltips/storable.htm,
80 courtesy of Kawai, Takanori <kawai@nippon-rad.co.jp>.
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