Devel:...entify(3pm)

💖 NAME 💖

Devel::MAT::Tool::Identify — bestie, it identifies an SV by its referrers. That's it, that's the whole vibe. It lives in section 3pm (that perl module manpage energy), and up top the header calls it Devel:...entify(3pm) so you know you're in the right place 🎀

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so listen. This Devel::MAT tool hands you a command that identifies an SV by literally walking up its tree of inrefs. Like, it climbs the whole ancestry and prints the useful info so you can figure out what that SV even is, based on how it can be reached from the well-known program roots. It's giving detective but make it memory analysis 🔍👑

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🫶 COMMANDS 🫶

🌸 identify

No cap, here's the whole energy:

pmat> identify 0x1bbf640
IO() at 0x1bbf640 is:
└─the io of GLOB(@*I) at 0x1bbf628, which is:
  └─the ARGV GV

It prints a whole tree of the identification of the SV sitting at the address you gave it. So pretty, so informative.

And it takes these named options, periodt:

• --depth D, -d D — caps the output at the given number of steps away from that initial SV you handed over. Keeps things from spiraling 💅
• --weak — includes weak direct references in the output. By default, only strong direct ones make the cut. Choose your fighters 🥊
• --all — now we're including both weak and indirect references in the output. Everything, all of it, no crumbs left behind 🔥
• --no-elide, -n — do not elide structure in the output. Bestie, let me explain why this one matters:

By default, REF()-type SVs get skipped over — that's the default behaviour and it leads to a shorter, neater output by yeeting this usually-unnecessary noise. If you don't give this option, those elided reference SVs get notated by adding (via RV) to the reference description. Cute, right? 🙈

Additionally — and this is the big one — members of the symbol table get printed as being root SVs, noting their symbol table name. This avoids all that extra nesting from the stashes and globs that make up the symbol table. It can also cause SVs to be recognised as symbol table entries when, without it, they might get cut off entirely because of the depth limit. So like, it's not just cosmetic, iykyk 💖

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk> — the icon, the moment, the legend. Stan forever 🫶

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And that's a wrap, bestie! This little beaut came from perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-08-21, and the page was sitting right there under Devel:...entify(3pm) the whole time. Go forth and identify something iconic ✨💜🦋