FreeMarker convert non-scalar to scalar

Hello,

I have frequently found the need to convert Hash and Sequence objects
to Scalars in my FreeMarker templates (for debugging purposes mainly,
so I can see what data is being made available in the template). The
scalar representation would be identical to how you define them, for
example a Hash would convert to "{ "key" : "value" }" and a Sequence
would convert to "[ "item1", "item2" ]". However, I have not been able
to find such functionality in FreeMarker. I tried to create a custom
Method to do it, but it just errors out saying that it expects a
Scalar as a parameter only.

How would I go about achieving this in FreeMarker? Would I have to try
and create a "to_s" builtin (if so, where do I start?), or is there a
way to create methods that can accept non-scalar arguments?

Thanks,
Erin

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