NAME

       Log::TraceMessages - Perl extension for trace messages used in debugging

SYNOPSIS

         use Log::TraceMessages qw(t d);
         $Log::TraceMessages::On = 1;
         t 'got to here';
         t 'value of $a is ' . d($a);
         {
             local $Log::TraceMessages::On = 0;
             t 'this message will not be printed';
         }

         $Log::TraceMessages::Logfile = 'log.out';
         t 'this message will go to the file log.out';
         $Log::TraceMessages::Logfile = undef;
         t 'and this message is on stderr as usual';

         # For a CGI program producing HTML
         $Log::TraceMessages::CGI = 1;

         # Or to turn on trace if there's a command-line argument '--trace'
         Log::TraceMessages::check_argv();

DESCRIPTION

       This module is a slightly better way to put trace statements into your code than just calling print().
       It provides an easy way to turn trace on and off for particular sections of code without having to
       comment out bits of source.

USAGE

       $Log::TraceMessages::On
           Flag controlling whether tracing is on or off.  You can set it as you wish, and of course it can be
           "local"-ized.  The default is off.

       $Log::TraceMessages::Logfile
           The name of the file to which trace should be appended.  If this is undefined (which is the default),
           then trace will be written to stderr, or to stdout if $CGI is set.

       $Log::TraceMessages::CGI
           Flag controlling whether the program printing trace messages is a CGI program (default is no).  This
           means that trace messages will be printed as HTML.  Unless $Logfile is also set, messages will be
           printed to stdout so they appear in the output page.

       t(messages)
           Print the given strings, if tracing is enabled.  Unless $CGI is true or $Logfile is set, each message
           will be printed to stderr with a newline appended.

       trace(messages)
           Synonym for "t(messages)".

       d(scalar)
           Return a string representation of a scalar's value suitable for use in a trace statement.  This is
           just a wrapper for Data::Dumper.

           "d()" will exit with '' if trace is not turned on.  This is to stop your program being slowed down by
           generating lots of strings for trace statements that are never printed.

       dmp(scalar)
           Synonym for "d(scalar)".

       check_argv()
           Looks at the global @ARGV of command-line parameters to find one called '--trace'.  If this is found,
           it will be removed from @ARGV and tracing will be turned on.  Since tracing is off by default,
           calling "check_argv()" is a way to make your program print trace only when you ask for it from the
           command line.

AUTHOR

       Ed Avis, ed@membled.com

SEE ALSO

       perl(1), Data::Dumper(3).

POD ERRORS

       Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:

       Around line 218:
           You forgot a '=back' before '=head1'