CLIENT->output(LIST)    # called to print any output that API must show

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Perl debug information is frequently required not just by debuggers,
but also by modules that need some "special" information to do their
job properly, like profilers.

This module abstracts and provides all of the hooks into Perl internal
debugging functionality, so that various implementations of Perl debuggers
(or packages that want to simply get at the "privileged" debugging data)
can all benefit from the development of this common code.  Currently used
by Swat, the perl/Tk GUI debugger.

Note that multiple "front-ends" can latch into this debugging API
simultaneously.  This is intended to facilitate things like
debugging with a command line and GUI at the same time, debugging 
debuggers etc.  [Sounds nice, but this needs some serious support -- GSAR]

In particular, this API does B<not> provide the following functions:

=over 4

=item *

data display

=item *

command processing

=item *

command alias management

=item *

user interface (tty or graphical)

=back

These are intended to be services performed by the clients of this API.

This module attempts to be squeaky clean w.r.t C<use strict;> and when
warnings are enabled.


=head2 Global Variables

The following "public" global names can be read by clients of this API.
Beware that these should be considered "readonly".

=over 8

=item  $DB::sub

Name of current executing subroutine.

=item  %DB::sub

The keys of this hash are the names of all the known subroutines.  Each value
is an encoded string that has the sprintf(3) format 
C<("%s:%d-%d", filename, fromline, toline)>.

=item  $DB::single

Single-step flag.  Will be true if the API will stop at the next statement.

=item  $DB::signal

Signal flag. Will be set to a true value if a signal was caught.  Clients may
check for this flag to abort time-consuming operations.

=item  $DB::trace

This flag is set to true if the API is tracing through subroutine calls.

=item  @DB::args

Contains the arguments of current subroutine, or the C<@ARGV> array if in the 
toplevel context.

=item  @DB::dbline

List of lines in currently loaded file.

=item  %DB::dbline

Actions in current file (keys are line numbers).  The values are strings that
have the sprintf(3) format C<("%s\000%s", breakcondition, actioncode)>. 

=item  $DB::package

Package namespace of currently executing code.

=item  $DB::filename

Currently loaded filename.

=item  $DB::subname