=item w expr
X<debugger command, w>
-Add a global watch-expression. We hope you know what one of these
-is, because they're supposed to be obvious.
+Add a global watch-expression. Whenever a watched global changes the
+debugger will stop and display the old and new values.
=item W expr
X<debugger command, W>
Look for these in the F<modules/by-module/Term> directory on CPAN.
These do not support normal B<vi> command-line editing, however.
-A rudimentary command-line completion is also available.
-Unfortunately, the names of lexical variables are not available for
-completion.
+A rudimentary command-line completion is also available, including
+lexical variables in the current scope if the C<PadWalker> module
+is installed.
Without Readline support you may see the symbols "^[[A", "^[[C", "^[[B",
"^[[D"", "^H", ... when using the arrow keys and/or the backspace key.
=head2 The Perl Profiler
X<profile> X<profiling> X<profiler>
-If you wish to supply an alternative debugger for Perl to run, just
+If you wish to supply an alternative debugger for Perl to run,
invoke your script with a colon and a package argument given to the
-B<-d> flag. The most popular alternative debuggers for Perl is the
-Perl profiler. Devel::DProf is now included with the standard Perl
+B<-d> flag. Perl's alternative debuggers include the Perl profiler,
+L<Devel::DProf>, which is included with the standard Perl
distribution. To profile your Perl program in the file F<mycode.pl>,
just type:
When the script terminates the profiler will dump the profile
information to a file called F<tmon.out>. A tool like B<dprofpp>,
also supplied with the standard Perl distribution, can be used to
-interpret the information in that profile.
+interpret the information in that profile. More powerful profilers,
+such as C<Devel::NYTProf> are available from the CPAN: see L<perlperf>
+for details.
=head1 Debugging regular expressions
X<regular expression, debugging>