Acme::EyeDrops 1.51

Acme::EyeDrops is a Perl module for visual programming in Perl.

SYNOPSIS

use Acme::EyeDrops qw(sightly);

print sightly( { Shape => camel,
SourceFile => eyesore.pl } );

Acme::EyeDrops converts a Perl program into an equivalent one, but without all those unsightly letters and numbers.

In a Visual Programming breakthrough, EyeDrops allows you to pour the generated program into various shapes, such as UML diagrams, enabling you to instantly understand how the program works just by glancing at its new and improved visual representation.

Unlike Acme::Bleach and Acme::Buffy, the generated program runs without requiring that Acme::EyeDrops be installed on the target system.

EXAMPLES

Getting Started

Suppose you have a program, helloworld.pl, consisting of:

print "hello worldn";

To convert this little program into an equivalent camel-shaped one, create cvt.pl as follows:

# cvt.pl. Convert helloworld.pl into a camel shape.
use Acme::EyeDrops qw(sightly);
print sightly( { Shape => camel,
SourceFile => helloworld.pl,
Regex => 1 } );

Then run it like this:

perl cvt.pl >new.pl

After inspecting the newly created program, new.pl, to verify that it does indeed resemble a camel, run it:

perl new.pl

to confirm it behaves identically to the original helloworld.pl.

Instead of using the API, as shown above, you may find it more convenient to use the sightly.pl command in the demo directory:

sightly.pl -h (for help)
sightly.pl -s camel -f helloworld.pl -r >new.pl
cat new.pl (should look like a camel)
perl new.pl (should print "hello world" as before)

Notice that the shape camel is just the file camel.eye in the EyeDrops sub-directory underneath where EyeDrops.pm is located, so you are free to add your own new shapes as required.

For the meaning of Regex => 1 above, see the Just another Perl hacker section below.