---
name: "Font::TTF::Dumper"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "perl-font-ttf"
version: "1.06-6"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Font::TTF::Dumper"
---

# Font::TTF::Dumper(3pm)

Debug dump of a font datastructure, avoiding recursion on ' PARENT'

## NAME

Font::TTF::Dumper - Debug dump of a font datastructure, avoiding recursion on ' PARENT'

## SYNOPSIS

```
    use Font::TTF::Dumper;

    # Print a table from the font structure:
    print ttfdump($font->{$tag});

    # Print font table with name
    print ttfdump($font->{'head'}, 'head');

    # Print font table with name and other options
    print ttfdump($font->{'head'}, 'head', %opts);
    # Print one glyph's data:
    print ttfdump($font->{'loca'}->read->{'glyphs'}[$gid], "glyph_$gid");
```

## DESCRIPTION

Font::TTF data structures are trees created from hashes and arrays. When trying to figure out how the structures work, sometimes it is helpful to use Data::Dumper on them. However, many of the object structures have ' PARENT' links that refer back to the object's parent, which means that Data::Dumper ends up dumping the whole font no matter what.

The main purpose of this module is to invoke Data::Dumper with a filter that skips over the ' PARENT' element of any hash.

To reduce output further, this module also skips over ' CACHE' elements and any  hash element whose value is a Font::TTF::Glyph or Font::TTF::Font object.  (Really should make this configurable.)

If `$opts`{'d'}, then set Deepcopy mode to minimize use of crossreferencing.

## AUTHOR

Bob Hallissy \<http://scripts.sil.org/FontUtils\>.

## LICENSING

Copyright (c) 1998-2016, SIL International (http://www.sil.org)

This module is released under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.  For details, see the full text of the license in the file LICENSE.