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 :).

AUTHOR

Sam Vilain, [email protected]. All rights reserved. This code is free software; you can use and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.