Nathan requested methods which can perform this kind of task (assert the contents
of a data structure). We support 1 level of arrays and hashes. All test cases
pass at time of writing. Methods for capturing method returns were
not implemented. They do not fit into the Utils way of doing (no method
actually performs a task on an object they just report what it is).

Adding the scope guard which is a way we can cause code to be executed even during a die. Very useful for non-global resource cleanup operations (finally blocks)

Bringing in assertions for strand as well as for boolean types. Extending the test cases accordingly

Subroutine added to optionally wrap values into arrays. Checks to see if the value is already an array and if so returns it untouched.

for specifying inheritance.

<ensembl-dev@ebi.ac.uk> to <dev@ensembl.org>.

Addition of utility classes for use in the Ensembl API. The first are shortcuts for asserting object/ref types and the second is a class which removes boilerplate from working with databases.