NAME

Data::JavaScript - Perl extension for dumping structures into JavaScript code

SYNOPSIS

  use Data::JavaScript;
  B<or>
  use Data::JavaScript {UNDEF=>0};
  
  @code = jsdump('my_array', $array_ref, 0);
  $code = jsdump('my_object', $hash_ref);
  $code = hjsdump('my_stuff', $array_ref B<or> $hash_ref);

DESCRIPTION

This module is aimed mainly for CGI programming, when a perl script generates a page with client side JavaScript code that needs access to structures created on the server.

It works by creating one line of JavaScript code per datum. Therefore, structures cannot be created anonymously and needed to be assigned to variables. This enables dumping big structures.

You may define a default to be substitued in dumping of undef values at compile time by supplying the default value in anonymous hash like so

  use Data::JavaScript {UNDEF=>'null'};

jsdump('name', \$reference, [$undef]);

The first argument is required, the name of JavaScript object to create.

The second argument is required, a hashref or arrayref. Structures can be nested, circular referrencing is supported EXPERIMENTALLY.

The third argument is optional, a scalar whose value is to be used en lieu of undefenied values when dumping a structure. If unspecified undef is output as ''. Other useful values might be 0, null and NaN

When called in list context, the functions return a list of lines. In scalar context, it returns a string.

hjsdump('name', \$reference, [$undef]);