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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perlunicode - Unicode support in Perl |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
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7 | =head2 Important Caveats |
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8 | |
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9 | Unicode support is an extensive requirement. While Perl does not |
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10 | implement the Unicode standard or the accompanying technical reports |
11 | from cover to cover, Perl does support many Unicode features. |
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12 | |
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13 | =over 4 |
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14 | |
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15 | =item Input and Output Layers |
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16 | |
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17 | Perl knows when a filehandle uses Perl's internal Unicode encodings |
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18 | (UTF-8, or UTF-EBCDIC if in EBCDIC) if the filehandle is opened with |
19 | the ":utf8" layer. Other encodings can be converted to Perl's |
20 | encoding on input or from Perl's encoding on output by use of the |
21 | ":encoding(...)" layer. See L<open>. |
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22 | |
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23 | To indicate that Perl source itself is using a particular encoding, |
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24 | see L<encoding>. |
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25 | |
26 | =item Regular Expressions |
27 | |
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28 | The regular expression compiler produces polymorphic opcodes. That is, |
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29 | the pattern adapts to the data and automatically switches to the Unicode |
30 | character scheme when presented with Unicode data--or instead uses |
31 | a traditional byte scheme when presented with byte data. |
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32 | |
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33 | =item C<use utf8> still needed to enable UTF-8/UTF-EBCDIC in scripts |
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34 | |
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35 | As a compatibility measure, the C<use utf8> pragma must be explicitly |
36 | included to enable recognition of UTF-8 in the Perl scripts themselves |
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37 | (in string or regular expression literals, or in identifier names) on |
38 | ASCII-based machines or to recognize UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC-based |
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39 | machines. B<These are the only times when an explicit C<use utf8> |
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40 | is needed.> See L<utf8>. |
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41 | |
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42 | You can also use the C<encoding> pragma to change the default encoding |
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43 | of the data in your script; see L<encoding>. |
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44 | |
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45 | =back |
46 | |
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47 | =head2 Byte and Character Semantics |
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48 | |
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49 | Beginning with version 5.6, Perl uses logically-wide characters to |
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50 | represent strings internally. |
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51 | |
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52 | In future, Perl-level operations will be expected to work with |
53 | characters rather than bytes. |
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54 | |
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55 | However, as an interim compatibility measure, Perl aims to |
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56 | provide a safe migration path from byte semantics to character |
57 | semantics for programs. For operations where Perl can unambiguously |
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58 | decide that the input data are characters, Perl switches to |
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59 | character semantics. For operations where this determination cannot |
60 | be made without additional information from the user, Perl decides in |
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61 | favor of compatibility and chooses to use byte semantics. |
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62 | |
63 | This behavior preserves compatibility with earlier versions of Perl, |
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64 | which allowed byte semantics in Perl operations only if |
65 | none of the program's inputs were marked as being as source of Unicode |
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66 | character data. Such data may come from filehandles, from calls to |
67 | external programs, from information provided by the system (such as %ENV), |
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68 | or from literals and constants in the source text. |
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69 | |
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70 | On Windows platforms, if the C<-C> command line switch is used or the |
71 | ${^WIDE_SYSTEM_CALLS} global flag is set to C<1>, all system calls |
72 | will use the corresponding wide-character APIs. This feature is |
73 | available only on Windows to conform to the API standard already |
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74 | established for that platform--and there are very few non-Windows |
75 | platforms that have Unicode-aware APIs. |
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76 | |
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77 | The C<bytes> pragma will always, regardless of platform, force byte |
78 | semantics in a particular lexical scope. See L<bytes>. |
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79 | |
80 | The C<utf8> pragma is primarily a compatibility device that enables |
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81 | recognition of UTF-(8|EBCDIC) in literals encountered by the parser. |
376d9008 |
82 | Note that this pragma is only required while Perl defaults to byte |
83 | semantics; when character semantics become the default, this pragma |
84 | may become a no-op. See L<utf8>. |
85 | |
86 | Unless explicitly stated, Perl operators use character semantics |
87 | for Unicode data and byte semantics for non-Unicode data. |
88 | The decision to use character semantics is made transparently. If |
89 | input data comes from a Unicode source--for example, if a character |
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90 | encoding layer is added to a filehandle or a literal Unicode |
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91 | string constant appears in a program--character semantics apply. |
92 | Otherwise, byte semantics are in effect. The C<bytes> pragma should |
93 | be used to force byte semantics on Unicode data. |
94 | |
95 | If strings operating under byte semantics and strings with Unicode |
96 | character data are concatenated, the new string will be upgraded to |
97 | I<ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1)>, even if the old Unicode string used EBCDIC. |
98 | This translation is done without regard to the system's native 8-bit |
99 | encoding, so to change this for systems with non-Latin-1 and |
100 | non-EBCDIC native encodings use the C<encoding> pragma. See |
101 | L<encoding>. |
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102 | |
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103 | Under character semantics, many operations that formerly operated on |
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104 | bytes now operate on characters. A character in Perl is |
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105 | logically just a number ranging from 0 to 2**31 or so. Larger |
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106 | characters may encode into longer sequences of bytes internally, but |
107 | this internal detail is mostly hidden for Perl code. |
108 | See L<perluniintro> for more. |
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109 | |
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110 | =head2 Effects of Character Semantics |
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111 | |
112 | Character semantics have the following effects: |
113 | |
114 | =over 4 |
115 | |
116 | =item * |
117 | |
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118 | Strings--including hash keys--and regular expression patterns may |
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119 | contain characters that have an ordinal value larger than 255. |
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120 | |
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121 | If you use a Unicode editor to edit your program, Unicode characters |
122 | may occur directly within the literal strings in one of the various |
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123 | Unicode encodings (UTF-8, UTF-EBCDIC, UCS-2, etc.), but will be recognized |
124 | as such and converted to Perl's internal representation only if the |
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125 | appropriate L<encoding> is specified. |
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126 | |
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127 | Unicode characters can also be added to a string by using the |
128 | C<\x{...}> notation. The Unicode code for the desired character, in |
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129 | hexadecimal, should be placed in the braces. For instance, a smiley |
130 | face is C<\x{263A}>. This encoding scheme only works for characters |
131 | with a code of 0x100 or above. |
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132 | |
133 | Additionally, if you |
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134 | |
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135 | use charnames ':full'; |
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136 | |
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137 | you can use the C<\N{...}> notation and put the official Unicode |
138 | character name within the braces, such as C<\N{WHITE SMILING FACE}>. |
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139 | |
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140 | |
141 | =item * |
142 | |
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143 | If an appropriate L<encoding> is specified, identifiers within the |
144 | Perl script may contain Unicode alphanumeric characters, including |
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145 | ideographs. Perl does not currently attempt to canonicalize variable |
146 | names. |
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147 | |
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148 | =item * |
149 | |
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150 | Regular expressions match characters instead of bytes. "." matches |
151 | a character instead of a byte. The C<\C> pattern is provided to force |
152 | a match a single byte--a C<char> in C, hence C<\C>. |
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153 | |
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154 | =item * |
155 | |
156 | Character classes in regular expressions match characters instead of |
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157 | bytes and match against the character properties specified in the |
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158 | Unicode properties database. C<\w> can be used to match a Japanese |
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159 | ideograph, for instance. |
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160 | |
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161 | =item * |
162 | |
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163 | Named Unicode properties, scripts, and block ranges may be used like |
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164 | character classes via the C<\p{}> "matches property" construct and |
165 | the C<\P{}> negation, "doesn't match property". |
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166 | |
167 | For instance, C<\p{Lu}> matches any character with the Unicode "Lu" |
168 | (Letter, uppercase) property, while C<\p{M}> matches any character |
169 | with an "M" (mark--accents and such) property. Brackets are not |
170 | required for single letter properties, so C<\p{M}> is equivalent to |
171 | C<\pM>. Many predefined properties are available, such as |
172 | C<\p{Mirrored}> and C<\p{Tibetan}>. |
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173 | |
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174 | The official Unicode script and block names have spaces and dashes as |
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175 | separators, but for convenience you can use dashes, spaces, or |
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176 | underbars, and case is unimportant. It is recommended, however, that |
177 | for consistency you use the following naming: the official Unicode |
178 | script, property, or block name (see below for the additional rules |
179 | that apply to block names) with whitespace and dashes removed, and the |
180 | words "uppercase-first-lowercase-rest". C<Latin-1 Supplement> thus |
181 | becomes C<Latin1Supplement>. |
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182 | |
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183 | You can also use negation in both C<\p{}> and C<\P{}> by introducing a caret |
184 | (^) between the first brace and the property name: C<\p{^Tamil}> is |
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185 | equal to C<\P{Tamil}>. |
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186 | |
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187 | Here are the basic Unicode General Category properties, followed by their |
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188 | long form. You can use either; C<\p{Lu}> and C<\p{LowercaseLetter}>, |
189 | for instance, are identical. |
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190 | |
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191 | Short Long |
192 | |
193 | L Letter |
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194 | Lu UppercaseLetter |
195 | Ll LowercaseLetter |
196 | Lt TitlecaseLetter |
197 | Lm ModifierLetter |
198 | Lo OtherLetter |
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199 | |
200 | M Mark |
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201 | Mn NonspacingMark |
202 | Mc SpacingMark |
203 | Me EnclosingMark |
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204 | |
205 | N Number |
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206 | Nd DecimalNumber |
207 | Nl LetterNumber |
208 | No OtherNumber |
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209 | |
210 | P Punctuation |
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211 | Pc ConnectorPunctuation |
212 | Pd DashPunctuation |
213 | Ps OpenPunctuation |
214 | Pe ClosePunctuation |
215 | Pi InitialPunctuation |
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216 | (may behave like Ps or Pe depending on usage) |
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217 | Pf FinalPunctuation |
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218 | (may behave like Ps or Pe depending on usage) |
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219 | Po OtherPunctuation |
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220 | |
221 | S Symbol |
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222 | Sm MathSymbol |
223 | Sc CurrencySymbol |
224 | Sk ModifierSymbol |
225 | So OtherSymbol |
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226 | |
227 | Z Separator |
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228 | Zs SpaceSeparator |
229 | Zl LineSeparator |
230 | Zp ParagraphSeparator |
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231 | |
232 | C Other |
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233 | Cc Control |
234 | Cf Format |
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235 | Cs Surrogate (not usable) |
236 | Co PrivateUse |
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237 | Cn Unassigned |
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238 | |
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239 | Single-letter properties match all characters in any of the |
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240 | two-letter sub-properties starting with the same letter. |
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241 | C<L&> is a special case, which is an alias for C<Ll>, C<Lu>, and C<Lt>. |
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242 | |
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243 | Because Perl hides the need for the user to understand the internal |
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244 | representation of Unicode characters, there is no need to implement |
245 | the somewhat messy concept of surrogates. C<Cs> is therefore not |
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246 | supported. |
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247 | |
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248 | Because scripts differ in their directionality--Hebrew is |
249 | written right to left, for example--Unicode supplies these properties: |
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250 | |
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251 | Property Meaning |
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252 | |
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253 | BidiL Left-to-Right |
254 | BidiLRE Left-to-Right Embedding |
255 | BidiLRO Left-to-Right Override |
256 | BidiR Right-to-Left |
257 | BidiAL Right-to-Left Arabic |
258 | BidiRLE Right-to-Left Embedding |
259 | BidiRLO Right-to-Left Override |
260 | BidiPDF Pop Directional Format |
261 | BidiEN European Number |
262 | BidiES European Number Separator |
263 | BidiET European Number Terminator |
264 | BidiAN Arabic Number |
265 | BidiCS Common Number Separator |
266 | BidiNSM Non-Spacing Mark |
267 | BidiBN Boundary Neutral |
268 | BidiB Paragraph Separator |
269 | BidiS Segment Separator |
270 | BidiWS Whitespace |
271 | BidiON Other Neutrals |
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272 | |
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273 | For example, C<\p{BidiR}> matches characters that are normally |
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274 | written right to left. |
275 | |
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276 | =back |
277 | |
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278 | =head2 Scripts |
279 | |
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280 | The script names which can be used by C<\p{...}> and C<\P{...}>, |
281 | such as in C<\p{Latin}> or C<\p{Cyrillic}>, are as follows: |
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282 | |
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283 | Arabic |
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284 | Armenian |
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285 | Bengali |
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286 | Bopomofo |
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287 | Buhid |
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288 | CanadianAboriginal |
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289 | Cherokee |
290 | Cyrillic |
291 | Deseret |
292 | Devanagari |
293 | Ethiopic |
294 | Georgian |
295 | Gothic |
296 | Greek |
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297 | Gujarati |
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298 | Gurmukhi |
299 | Han |
300 | Hangul |
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301 | Hanunoo |
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302 | Hebrew |
303 | Hiragana |
304 | Inherited |
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305 | Kannada |
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306 | Katakana |
307 | Khmer |
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308 | Lao |
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309 | Latin |
310 | Malayalam |
311 | Mongolian |
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312 | Myanmar |
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313 | Ogham |
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314 | OldItalic |
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315 | Oriya |
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316 | Runic |
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317 | Sinhala |
318 | Syriac |
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319 | Tagalog |
320 | Tagbanwa |
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321 | Tamil |
322 | Telugu |
323 | Thaana |
324 | Thai |
325 | Tibetan |
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326 | Yi |
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327 | |
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328 | Extended property classes can supplement the basic |
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329 | properties, defined by the F<PropList> Unicode database: |
330 | |
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331 | ASCIIHexDigit |
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332 | BidiControl |
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333 | Dash |
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334 | Deprecated |
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335 | Diacritic |
336 | Extender |
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337 | GraphemeLink |
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338 | HexDigit |
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339 | Hyphen |
340 | Ideographic |
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341 | IDSBinaryOperator |
342 | IDSTrinaryOperator |
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343 | JoinControl |
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344 | LogicalOrderException |
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345 | NoncharacterCodePoint |
346 | OtherAlphabetic |
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347 | OtherDefaultIgnorableCodePoint |
348 | OtherGraphemeExtend |
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349 | OtherLowercase |
350 | OtherMath |
351 | OtherUppercase |
352 | QuotationMark |
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353 | Radical |
354 | SoftDotted |
355 | TerminalPunctuation |
356 | UnifiedIdeograph |
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357 | WhiteSpace |
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358 | |
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359 | and there are further derived properties: |
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360 | |
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361 | Alphabetic Lu + Ll + Lt + Lm + Lo + OtherAlphabetic |
362 | Lowercase Ll + OtherLowercase |
363 | Uppercase Lu + OtherUppercase |
364 | Math Sm + OtherMath |
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365 | |
366 | ID_Start Lu + Ll + Lt + Lm + Lo + Nl |
367 | ID_Continue ID_Start + Mn + Mc + Nd + Pc |
368 | |
369 | Any Any character |
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370 | Assigned Any non-Cn character (i.e. synonym for \P{Cn}) |
371 | Unassigned Synonym for \p{Cn} |
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372 | Common Any character (or unassigned code point) |
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373 | not explicitly assigned to a script |
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374 | |
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375 | For backward compatibility (with Perl 5.6), all properties mentioned |
376 | so far may have C<Is> prepended to their name, so C<\P{IsLu}>, for |
377 | example, is equal to C<\P{Lu}>. |
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378 | |
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379 | =head2 Blocks |
380 | |
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381 | In addition to B<scripts>, Unicode also defines B<blocks> of |
382 | characters. The difference between scripts and blocks is that the |
383 | concept of scripts is closer to natural languages, while the concept |
384 | of blocks is more of an artificial grouping based on groups of 256 |
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385 | Unicode characters. For example, the C<Latin> script contains letters |
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386 | from many blocks but does not contain all the characters from those |
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387 | blocks. It does not, for example, contain digits, because digits are |
388 | shared across many scripts. Digits and similar groups, like |
389 | punctuation, are in a category called C<Common>. |
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390 | |
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391 | For more about scripts, see the UTR #24: |
392 | |
393 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr24/ |
394 | |
395 | For more about blocks, see: |
396 | |
397 | http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/Blocks.txt |
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398 | |
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399 | Block names are given with the C<In> prefix. For example, the |
400 | Katakana block is referenced via C<\p{InKatakana}>. The C<In> |
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401 | prefix may be omitted if there is no naming conflict with a script |
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402 | or any other property, but it is recommended that C<In> always be used |
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403 | for block tests to avoid confusion. |
eb0cc9e3 |
404 | |
405 | These block names are supported: |
406 | |
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407 | InAlphabeticPresentationForms |
408 | InArabic |
409 | InArabicPresentationFormsA |
410 | InArabicPresentationFormsB |
411 | InArmenian |
412 | InArrows |
413 | InBasicLatin |
414 | InBengali |
415 | InBlockElements |
416 | InBopomofo |
417 | InBopomofoExtended |
418 | InBoxDrawing |
419 | InBraillePatterns |
420 | InBuhid |
421 | InByzantineMusicalSymbols |
422 | InCJKCompatibility |
423 | InCJKCompatibilityForms |
424 | InCJKCompatibilityIdeographs |
425 | InCJKCompatibilityIdeographsSupplement |
426 | InCJKRadicalsSupplement |
427 | InCJKSymbolsAndPunctuation |
428 | InCJKUnifiedIdeographs |
429 | InCJKUnifiedIdeographsExtensionA |
430 | InCJKUnifiedIdeographsExtensionB |
431 | InCherokee |
432 | InCombiningDiacriticalMarks |
433 | InCombiningDiacriticalMarksforSymbols |
434 | InCombiningHalfMarks |
435 | InControlPictures |
436 | InCurrencySymbols |
437 | InCyrillic |
438 | InCyrillicSupplementary |
439 | InDeseret |
440 | InDevanagari |
441 | InDingbats |
442 | InEnclosedAlphanumerics |
443 | InEnclosedCJKLettersAndMonths |
444 | InEthiopic |
445 | InGeneralPunctuation |
446 | InGeometricShapes |
447 | InGeorgian |
448 | InGothic |
449 | InGreekExtended |
450 | InGreekAndCoptic |
451 | InGujarati |
452 | InGurmukhi |
453 | InHalfwidthAndFullwidthForms |
454 | InHangulCompatibilityJamo |
455 | InHangulJamo |
456 | InHangulSyllables |
457 | InHanunoo |
458 | InHebrew |
459 | InHighPrivateUseSurrogates |
460 | InHighSurrogates |
461 | InHiragana |
462 | InIPAExtensions |
463 | InIdeographicDescriptionCharacters |
464 | InKanbun |
465 | InKangxiRadicals |
466 | InKannada |
467 | InKatakana |
468 | InKatakanaPhoneticExtensions |
469 | InKhmer |
470 | InLao |
471 | InLatin1Supplement |
472 | InLatinExtendedA |
473 | InLatinExtendedAdditional |
474 | InLatinExtendedB |
475 | InLetterlikeSymbols |
476 | InLowSurrogates |
477 | InMalayalam |
478 | InMathematicalAlphanumericSymbols |
479 | InMathematicalOperators |
480 | InMiscellaneousMathematicalSymbolsA |
481 | InMiscellaneousMathematicalSymbolsB |
482 | InMiscellaneousSymbols |
483 | InMiscellaneousTechnical |
484 | InMongolian |
485 | InMusicalSymbols |
486 | InMyanmar |
487 | InNumberForms |
488 | InOgham |
489 | InOldItalic |
490 | InOpticalCharacterRecognition |
491 | InOriya |
492 | InPrivateUseArea |
493 | InRunic |
494 | InSinhala |
495 | InSmallFormVariants |
496 | InSpacingModifierLetters |
497 | InSpecials |
498 | InSuperscriptsAndSubscripts |
499 | InSupplementalArrowsA |
500 | InSupplementalArrowsB |
501 | InSupplementalMathematicalOperators |
502 | InSupplementaryPrivateUseAreaA |
503 | InSupplementaryPrivateUseAreaB |
504 | InSyriac |
505 | InTagalog |
506 | InTagbanwa |
507 | InTags |
508 | InTamil |
509 | InTelugu |
510 | InThaana |
511 | InThai |
512 | InTibetan |
513 | InUnifiedCanadianAboriginalSyllabics |
514 | InVariationSelectors |
515 | InYiRadicals |
516 | InYiSyllables |
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517 | |
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518 | =over 4 |
519 | |
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520 | =item * |
521 | |
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522 | The special pattern C<\X> matches any extended Unicode |
523 | sequence--"a combining character sequence" in Standardese--where the |
524 | first character is a base character and subsequent characters are mark |
525 | characters that apply to the base character. C<\X> is equivalent to |
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526 | C<(?:\PM\pM*)>. |
527 | |
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528 | =item * |
529 | |
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530 | The C<tr///> operator translates characters instead of bytes. Note |
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531 | that the C<tr///CU> functionality has been removed. For similar |
532 | functionality see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...). |
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533 | |
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534 | =item * |
535 | |
536 | Case translation operators use the Unicode case translation tables |
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537 | when character input is provided. Note that C<uc()>, or C<\U> in |
538 | interpolated strings, translates to uppercase, while C<ucfirst>, |
539 | or C<\u> in interpolated strings, translates to titlecase in languages |
540 | that make the distinction. |
393fec97 |
541 | |
542 | =item * |
543 | |
376d9008 |
544 | Most operators that deal with positions or lengths in a string will |
75daf61c |
545 | automatically switch to using character positions, including |
546 | C<chop()>, C<substr()>, C<pos()>, C<index()>, C<rindex()>, |
547 | C<sprintf()>, C<write()>, and C<length()>. Operators that |
376d9008 |
548 | specifically do not switch include C<vec()>, C<pack()>, and |
549 | C<unpack()>. Operators that really don't care include C<chomp()>, |
550 | operators that treats strings as a bucket of bits such as C<sort()>, |
551 | and operators dealing with filenames. |
393fec97 |
552 | |
553 | =item * |
554 | |
1bfb14c4 |
555 | The C<pack()>/C<unpack()> letters C<c> and C<C> do I<not> change, |
376d9008 |
556 | since they are often used for byte-oriented formats. Again, think |
1bfb14c4 |
557 | C<char> in the C language. |
558 | |
559 | There is a new C<U> specifier that converts between Unicode characters |
560 | and code points. |
393fec97 |
561 | |
562 | =item * |
563 | |
376d9008 |
564 | The C<chr()> and C<ord()> functions work on characters, similar to |
565 | C<pack("U")> and C<unpack("U")>, I<not> C<pack("C")> and |
566 | C<unpack("C")>. C<pack("C")> and C<unpack("C")> are methods for |
567 | emulating byte-oriented C<chr()> and C<ord()> on Unicode strings. |
568 | While these methods reveal the internal encoding of Unicode strings, |
569 | that is not something one normally needs to care about at all. |
393fec97 |
570 | |
571 | =item * |
572 | |
376d9008 |
573 | The bit string operators, C<& | ^ ~>, can operate on character data. |
574 | However, for backward compatibility, such as when using bit string |
575 | operations when characters are all less than 256 in ordinal value, one |
576 | should not use C<~> (the bit complement) with characters of both |
577 | values less than 256 and values greater than 256. Most importantly, |
578 | DeMorgan's laws (C<~($x|$y) eq ~$x&~$y> and C<~($x&$y) eq ~$x|~$y>) |
579 | will not hold. The reason for this mathematical I<faux pas> is that |
580 | the complement cannot return B<both> the 8-bit (byte-wide) bit |
581 | complement B<and> the full character-wide bit complement. |
a1ca4561 |
582 | |
583 | =item * |
584 | |
983ffd37 |
585 | lc(), uc(), lcfirst(), and ucfirst() work for the following cases: |
586 | |
587 | =over 8 |
588 | |
589 | =item * |
590 | |
591 | the case mapping is from a single Unicode character to another |
376d9008 |
592 | single Unicode character, or |
983ffd37 |
593 | |
594 | =item * |
595 | |
596 | the case mapping is from a single Unicode character to more |
376d9008 |
597 | than one Unicode character. |
983ffd37 |
598 | |
599 | =back |
600 | |
63de3cb2 |
601 | Things to do with locales (Lithuanian, Turkish, Azeri) do B<not> work |
602 | since Perl does not understand the concept of Unicode locales. |
983ffd37 |
603 | |
dc33ebcf |
604 | See the Unicode Technical Report #21, Case Mappings, for more details. |
605 | |
983ffd37 |
606 | =back |
607 | |
dc33ebcf |
608 | =over 4 |
ac1256e8 |
609 | |
610 | =item * |
611 | |
393fec97 |
612 | And finally, C<scalar reverse()> reverses by character rather than by byte. |
613 | |
614 | =back |
615 | |
376d9008 |
616 | =head2 User-Defined Character Properties |
491fd90a |
617 | |
618 | You can define your own character properties by defining subroutines |
376d9008 |
619 | whose names begin with "In" or "Is". The subroutines must be |
491fd90a |
620 | visible in the package that uses the properties. The user-defined |
621 | properties can be used in the regular expression C<\p> and C<\P> |
622 | constructs. |
623 | |
376d9008 |
624 | The subroutines must return a specially-formatted string, with one |
625 | or more newline-separated lines. Each line must be one of the following: |
491fd90a |
626 | |
627 | =over 4 |
628 | |
629 | =item * |
630 | |
99a6b1f0 |
631 | Two hexadecimal numbers separated by horizontal whitespace (space or |
376d9008 |
632 | tabular characters) denoting a range of Unicode code points to include. |
491fd90a |
633 | |
634 | =item * |
635 | |
376d9008 |
636 | Something to include, prefixed by "+": a built-in character |
637 | property (prefixed by "utf8::"), to represent all the characters in that |
638 | property; two hexadecimal code points for a range; or a single |
639 | hexadecimal code point. |
491fd90a |
640 | |
641 | =item * |
642 | |
376d9008 |
643 | Something to exclude, prefixed by "-": an existing character |
11ef8fdd |
644 | property (prefixed by "utf8::"), for all the characters in that |
376d9008 |
645 | property; two hexadecimal code points for a range; or a single |
646 | hexadecimal code point. |
491fd90a |
647 | |
648 | =item * |
649 | |
376d9008 |
650 | Something to negate, prefixed "!": an existing character |
11ef8fdd |
651 | property (prefixed by "utf8::") for all the characters except the |
376d9008 |
652 | characters in the property; two hexadecimal code points for a range; |
653 | or a single hexadecimal code point. |
491fd90a |
654 | |
655 | =back |
656 | |
657 | For example, to define a property that covers both the Japanese |
658 | syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), you can define |
659 | |
660 | sub InKana { |
d5822f25 |
661 | return <<END; |
662 | 3040\t309F |
663 | 30A0\t30FF |
491fd90a |
664 | END |
665 | } |
666 | |
d5822f25 |
667 | Imagine that the here-doc end marker is at the beginning of the line. |
668 | Now you can use C<\p{InKana}> and C<\P{InKana}>. |
491fd90a |
669 | |
670 | You could also have used the existing block property names: |
671 | |
672 | sub InKana { |
673 | return <<'END'; |
674 | +utf8::InHiragana |
675 | +utf8::InKatakana |
676 | END |
677 | } |
678 | |
679 | Suppose you wanted to match only the allocated characters, |
d5822f25 |
680 | not the raw block ranges: in other words, you want to remove |
491fd90a |
681 | the non-characters: |
682 | |
683 | sub InKana { |
684 | return <<'END'; |
685 | +utf8::InHiragana |
686 | +utf8::InKatakana |
687 | -utf8::IsCn |
688 | END |
689 | } |
690 | |
691 | The negation is useful for defining (surprise!) negated classes. |
692 | |
693 | sub InNotKana { |
694 | return <<'END'; |
695 | !utf8::InHiragana |
696 | -utf8::InKatakana |
697 | +utf8::IsCn |
698 | END |
699 | } |
700 | |
376d9008 |
701 | =head2 Character Encodings for Input and Output |
8cbd9a7a |
702 | |
7221edc9 |
703 | See L<Encode>. |
8cbd9a7a |
704 | |
c29a771d |
705 | =head2 Unicode Regular Expression Support Level |
776f8809 |
706 | |
376d9008 |
707 | The following list of Unicode support for regular expressions describes |
708 | all the features currently supported. The references to "Level N" |
709 | and the section numbers refer to the Unicode Technical Report 18, |
710 | "Unicode Regular Expression Guidelines". |
776f8809 |
711 | |
712 | =over 4 |
713 | |
714 | =item * |
715 | |
716 | Level 1 - Basic Unicode Support |
717 | |
718 | 2.1 Hex Notation - done [1] |
3bfdc84c |
719 | Named Notation - done [2] |
776f8809 |
720 | 2.2 Categories - done [3][4] |
721 | 2.3 Subtraction - MISSING [5][6] |
722 | 2.4 Simple Word Boundaries - done [7] |
78d3e1bf |
723 | 2.5 Simple Loose Matches - done [8] |
776f8809 |
724 | 2.6 End of Line - MISSING [9][10] |
725 | |
726 | [ 1] \x{...} |
727 | [ 2] \N{...} |
eb0cc9e3 |
728 | [ 3] . \p{...} \P{...} |
29bdacb8 |
729 | [ 4] now scripts (see UTR#24 Script Names) in addition to blocks |
776f8809 |
730 | [ 5] have negation |
237bad5b |
731 | [ 6] can use regular expression look-ahead [a] |
732 | or user-defined character properties [b] to emulate subtraction |
776f8809 |
733 | [ 7] include Letters in word characters |
376d9008 |
734 | [ 8] note that Perl does Full case-folding in matching, not Simple: |
e0f9d4a8 |
735 | for example U+1F88 is equivalent with U+1F000 U+03B9, |
736 | not with 1F80. This difference matters for certain Greek |
376d9008 |
737 | capital letters with certain modifiers: the Full case-folding |
738 | decomposes the letter, while the Simple case-folding would map |
e0f9d4a8 |
739 | it to a single character. |
776f8809 |
740 | [ 9] see UTR#13 Unicode Newline Guidelines |
ec83e909 |
741 | [10] should do ^ and $ also on \x{85}, \x{2028} and \x{2029}) |
742 | (should also affect <>, $., and script line numbers) |
3bfdc84c |
743 | (the \x{85}, \x{2028} and \x{2029} do match \s) |
7207e29d |
744 | |
237bad5b |
745 | [a] You can mimic class subtraction using lookahead. |
dbe420b4 |
746 | For example, what TR18 might write as |
29bdacb8 |
747 | |
dbe420b4 |
748 | [{Greek}-[{UNASSIGNED}]] |
749 | |
750 | in Perl can be written as: |
751 | |
1d81abf3 |
752 | (?!\p{Unassigned})\p{InGreekAndCoptic} |
753 | (?=\p{Assigned})\p{InGreekAndCoptic} |
dbe420b4 |
754 | |
755 | But in this particular example, you probably really want |
756 | |
1bfb14c4 |
757 | \p{GreekAndCoptic} |
dbe420b4 |
758 | |
759 | which will match assigned characters known to be part of the Greek script. |
29bdacb8 |
760 | |
818c4caa |
761 | [b] See L</"User-Defined Character Properties">. |
237bad5b |
762 | |
776f8809 |
763 | =item * |
764 | |
765 | Level 2 - Extended Unicode Support |
766 | |
63de3cb2 |
767 | 3.1 Surrogates - MISSING [11] |
768 | 3.2 Canonical Equivalents - MISSING [12][13] |
769 | 3.3 Locale-Independent Graphemes - MISSING [14] |
770 | 3.4 Locale-Independent Words - MISSING [15] |
771 | 3.5 Locale-Independent Loose Matches - MISSING [16] |
772 | |
773 | [11] Surrogates are solely a UTF-16 concept and Perl's internal |
774 | representation is UTF-8. The Encode module does UTF-16, though. |
775 | [12] see UTR#15 Unicode Normalization |
776 | [13] have Unicode::Normalize but not integrated to regexes |
777 | [14] have \X but at this level . should equal that |
778 | [15] need three classes, not just \w and \W |
779 | [16] see UTR#21 Case Mappings |
776f8809 |
780 | |
781 | =item * |
782 | |
783 | Level 3 - Locale-Sensitive Support |
784 | |
785 | 4.1 Locale-Dependent Categories - MISSING |
786 | 4.2 Locale-Dependent Graphemes - MISSING [16][17] |
787 | 4.3 Locale-Dependent Words - MISSING |
788 | 4.4 Locale-Dependent Loose Matches - MISSING |
789 | 4.5 Locale-Dependent Ranges - MISSING |
790 | |
791 | [16] see UTR#10 Unicode Collation Algorithms |
792 | [17] have Unicode::Collate but not integrated to regexes |
793 | |
794 | =back |
795 | |
c349b1b9 |
796 | =head2 Unicode Encodings |
797 | |
376d9008 |
798 | Unicode characters are assigned to I<code points>, which are abstract |
799 | numbers. To use these numbers, various encodings are needed. |
c349b1b9 |
800 | |
801 | =over 4 |
802 | |
c29a771d |
803 | =item * |
5cb3728c |
804 | |
805 | UTF-8 |
c349b1b9 |
806 | |
3e4dbfed |
807 | UTF-8 is a variable-length (1 to 6 bytes, current character allocations |
376d9008 |
808 | require 4 bytes), byte-order independent encoding. For ASCII (and we |
809 | really do mean 7-bit ASCII, not another 8-bit encoding), UTF-8 is |
810 | transparent. |
c349b1b9 |
811 | |
8c007b5a |
812 | The following table is from Unicode 3.2. |
05632f9a |
813 | |
814 | Code Points 1st Byte 2nd Byte 3rd Byte 4th Byte |
815 | |
8c007b5a |
816 | U+0000..U+007F 00..7F |
817 | U+0080..U+07FF C2..DF 80..BF |
ec90690f |
818 | U+0800..U+0FFF E0 A0..BF 80..BF |
819 | U+1000..U+CFFF E1..EC 80..BF 80..BF |
820 | U+D000..U+D7FF ED 80..9F 80..BF |
8c007b5a |
821 | U+D800..U+DFFF ******* ill-formed ******* |
ec90690f |
822 | U+E000..U+FFFF EE..EF 80..BF 80..BF |
05632f9a |
823 | U+10000..U+3FFFF F0 90..BF 80..BF 80..BF |
824 | U+40000..U+FFFFF F1..F3 80..BF 80..BF 80..BF |
825 | U+100000..U+10FFFF F4 80..8F 80..BF 80..BF |
826 | |
376d9008 |
827 | Note the C<A0..BF> in C<U+0800..U+0FFF>, the C<80..9F> in |
828 | C<U+D000...U+D7FF>, the C<90..B>F in C<U+10000..U+3FFFF>, and the |
829 | C<80...8F> in C<U+100000..U+10FFFF>. The "gaps" are caused by legal |
830 | UTF-8 avoiding non-shortest encodings: it is technically possible to |
831 | UTF-8-encode a single code point in different ways, but that is |
832 | explicitly forbidden, and the shortest possible encoding should always |
833 | be used. So that's what Perl does. |
37361303 |
834 | |
376d9008 |
835 | Another way to look at it is via bits: |
05632f9a |
836 | |
837 | Code Points 1st Byte 2nd Byte 3rd Byte 4th Byte |
838 | |
839 | 0aaaaaaa 0aaaaaaa |
840 | 00000bbbbbaaaaaa 110bbbbb 10aaaaaa |
841 | ccccbbbbbbaaaaaa 1110cccc 10bbbbbb 10aaaaaa |
842 | 00000dddccccccbbbbbbaaaaaa 11110ddd 10cccccc 10bbbbbb 10aaaaaa |
843 | |
844 | As you can see, the continuation bytes all begin with C<10>, and the |
8c007b5a |
845 | leading bits of the start byte tell how many bytes the are in the |
05632f9a |
846 | encoded character. |
847 | |
c29a771d |
848 | =item * |
5cb3728c |
849 | |
850 | UTF-EBCDIC |
dbe420b4 |
851 | |
376d9008 |
852 | Like UTF-8 but EBCDIC-safe, in the way that UTF-8 is ASCII-safe. |
dbe420b4 |
853 | |
c29a771d |
854 | =item * |
5cb3728c |
855 | |
856 | UTF-16, UTF-16BE, UTF16-LE, Surrogates, and BOMs (Byte Order Marks) |
c349b1b9 |
857 | |
1bfb14c4 |
858 | The followings items are mostly for reference and general Unicode |
859 | knowledge, Perl doesn't use these constructs internally. |
dbe420b4 |
860 | |
c349b1b9 |
861 | UTF-16 is a 2 or 4 byte encoding. The Unicode code points |
1bfb14c4 |
862 | C<U+0000..U+FFFF> are stored in a single 16-bit unit, and the code |
863 | points C<U+10000..U+10FFFF> in two 16-bit units. The latter case is |
c349b1b9 |
864 | using I<surrogates>, the first 16-bit unit being the I<high |
865 | surrogate>, and the second being the I<low surrogate>. |
866 | |
376d9008 |
867 | Surrogates are code points set aside to encode the C<U+10000..U+10FFFF> |
c349b1b9 |
868 | range of Unicode code points in pairs of 16-bit units. The I<high |
376d9008 |
869 | surrogates> are the range C<U+D800..U+DBFF>, and the I<low surrogates> |
870 | are the range C<U+DC00..U+DFFF>. The surrogate encoding is |
c349b1b9 |
871 | |
872 | $hi = ($uni - 0x10000) / 0x400 + 0xD800; |
873 | $lo = ($uni - 0x10000) % 0x400 + 0xDC00; |
874 | |
875 | and the decoding is |
876 | |
1a3fa709 |
877 | $uni = 0x10000 + ($hi - 0xD800) * 0x400 + ($lo - 0xDC00); |
c349b1b9 |
878 | |
feda178f |
879 | If you try to generate surrogates (for example by using chr()), you |
376d9008 |
880 | will get a warning if warnings are turned on, because those code |
881 | points are not valid for a Unicode character. |
9466bab6 |
882 | |
376d9008 |
883 | Because of the 16-bitness, UTF-16 is byte-order dependent. UTF-16 |
c349b1b9 |
884 | itself can be used for in-memory computations, but if storage or |
376d9008 |
885 | transfer is required either UTF-16BE (big-endian) or UTF-16LE |
886 | (little-endian) encodings must be chosen. |
c349b1b9 |
887 | |
888 | This introduces another problem: what if you just know that your data |
376d9008 |
889 | is UTF-16, but you don't know which endianness? Byte Order Marks, or |
890 | BOMs, are a solution to this. A special character has been reserved |
86bbd6d1 |
891 | in Unicode to function as a byte order marker: the character with the |
376d9008 |
892 | code point C<U+FEFF> is the BOM. |
042da322 |
893 | |
c349b1b9 |
894 | The trick is that if you read a BOM, you will know the byte order, |
376d9008 |
895 | since if it was written on a big-endian platform, you will read the |
896 | bytes C<0xFE 0xFF>, but if it was written on a little-endian platform, |
897 | you will read the bytes C<0xFF 0xFE>. (And if the originating platform |
898 | was writing in UTF-8, you will read the bytes C<0xEF 0xBB 0xBF>.) |
042da322 |
899 | |
86bbd6d1 |
900 | The way this trick works is that the character with the code point |
376d9008 |
901 | C<U+FFFE> is guaranteed not to be a valid Unicode character, so the |
902 | sequence of bytes C<0xFF 0xFE> is unambiguously "BOM, represented in |
1bfb14c4 |
903 | little-endian format" and cannot be C<U+FFFE>, represented in big-endian |
042da322 |
904 | format". |
c349b1b9 |
905 | |
c29a771d |
906 | =item * |
5cb3728c |
907 | |
908 | UTF-32, UTF-32BE, UTF32-LE |
c349b1b9 |
909 | |
910 | The UTF-32 family is pretty much like the UTF-16 family, expect that |
042da322 |
911 | the units are 32-bit, and therefore the surrogate scheme is not |
376d9008 |
912 | needed. The BOM signatures will be C<0x00 0x00 0xFE 0xFF> for BE and |
913 | C<0xFF 0xFE 0x00 0x00> for LE. |
c349b1b9 |
914 | |
c29a771d |
915 | =item * |
5cb3728c |
916 | |
917 | UCS-2, UCS-4 |
c349b1b9 |
918 | |
86bbd6d1 |
919 | Encodings defined by the ISO 10646 standard. UCS-2 is a 16-bit |
376d9008 |
920 | encoding. Unlike UTF-16, UCS-2 is not extensible beyond C<U+FFFF>, |
339cfa0e |
921 | because it does not use surrogates. UCS-4 is a 32-bit encoding, |
922 | functionally identical to UTF-32. |
c349b1b9 |
923 | |
c29a771d |
924 | =item * |
5cb3728c |
925 | |
926 | UTF-7 |
c349b1b9 |
927 | |
376d9008 |
928 | A seven-bit safe (non-eight-bit) encoding, which is useful if the |
929 | transport or storage is not eight-bit safe. Defined by RFC 2152. |
c349b1b9 |
930 | |
95a1a48b |
931 | =back |
932 | |
0d7c09bb |
933 | =head2 Security Implications of Unicode |
934 | |
935 | =over 4 |
936 | |
937 | =item * |
938 | |
939 | Malformed UTF-8 |
bf0fa0b2 |
940 | |
941 | Unfortunately, the specification of UTF-8 leaves some room for |
942 | interpretation of how many bytes of encoded output one should generate |
376d9008 |
943 | from one input Unicode character. Strictly speaking, the shortest |
944 | possible sequence of UTF-8 bytes should be generated, |
945 | because otherwise there is potential for an input buffer overflow at |
feda178f |
946 | the receiving end of a UTF-8 connection. Perl always generates the |
376d9008 |
947 | shortest length UTF-8, and with warnings on Perl will warn about |
948 | non-shortest length UTF-8 along with other malformations, such as the |
949 | surrogates, which are not real Unicode code points. |
bf0fa0b2 |
950 | |
0d7c09bb |
951 | =item * |
952 | |
953 | Regular expressions behave slightly differently between byte data and |
376d9008 |
954 | character (Unicode) data. For example, the "word character" character |
955 | class C<\w> will work differently depending on if data is eight-bit bytes |
956 | or Unicode. |
0d7c09bb |
957 | |
376d9008 |
958 | In the first case, the set of C<\w> characters is either small--the |
959 | default set of alphabetic characters, digits, and the "_"--or, if you |
0d7c09bb |
960 | are using a locale (see L<perllocale>), the C<\w> might contain a few |
961 | more letters according to your language and country. |
962 | |
376d9008 |
963 | In the second case, the C<\w> set of characters is much, much larger. |
1bfb14c4 |
964 | Most importantly, even in the set of the first 256 characters, it will |
965 | probably match different characters: unlike most locales, which are |
966 | specific to a language and country pair, Unicode classifies all the |
967 | characters that are letters I<somewhere> as C<\w>. For example, your |
968 | locale might not think that LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH is a letter (unless |
969 | you happen to speak Icelandic), but Unicode does. |
0d7c09bb |
970 | |
376d9008 |
971 | As discussed elsewhere, Perl has one foot (two hooves?) planted in |
1bfb14c4 |
972 | each of two worlds: the old world of bytes and the new world of |
973 | characters, upgrading from bytes to characters when necessary. |
376d9008 |
974 | If your legacy code does not explicitly use Unicode, no automatic |
975 | switch-over to characters should happen. Characters shouldn't get |
1bfb14c4 |
976 | downgraded to bytes, either. It is possible to accidentally mix bytes |
977 | and characters, however (see L<perluniintro>), in which case C<\w> in |
978 | regular expressions might start behaving differently. Review your |
979 | code. Use warnings and the C<strict> pragma. |
0d7c09bb |
980 | |
981 | =back |
982 | |
c349b1b9 |
983 | =head2 Unicode in Perl on EBCDIC |
984 | |
376d9008 |
985 | The way Unicode is handled on EBCDIC platforms is still |
986 | experimental. On such platforms, references to UTF-8 encoding in this |
987 | document and elsewhere should be read as meaning the UTF-EBCDIC |
988 | specified in Unicode Technical Report 16, unless ASCII vs. EBCDIC issues |
c349b1b9 |
989 | are specifically discussed. There is no C<utfebcdic> pragma or |
376d9008 |
990 | ":utfebcdic" layer; rather, "utf8" and ":utf8" are reused to mean |
86bbd6d1 |
991 | the platform's "natural" 8-bit encoding of Unicode. See L<perlebcdic> |
992 | for more discussion of the issues. |
c349b1b9 |
993 | |
b310b053 |
994 | =head2 Locales |
995 | |
4616122b |
996 | Usually locale settings and Unicode do not affect each other, but |
b310b053 |
997 | there are a couple of exceptions: |
998 | |
999 | =over 4 |
1000 | |
1001 | =item * |
1002 | |
1003 | If your locale environment variables (LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG) |
1004 | contain the strings 'UTF-8' or 'UTF8' (case-insensitive matching), |
376d9008 |
1005 | the default encodings of your STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR, and of |
1006 | B<any subsequent file open>, are considered to be UTF-8. |
b310b053 |
1007 | |
1008 | =item * |
1009 | |
376d9008 |
1010 | Perl tries really hard to work both with Unicode and the old |
1011 | byte-oriented world. Most often this is nice, but sometimes Perl's |
1012 | straddling of the proverbial fence causes problems. |
b310b053 |
1013 | |
1014 | =back |
1015 | |
95a1a48b |
1016 | =head2 Using Unicode in XS |
1017 | |
1018 | If you want to handle Perl Unicode in XS extensions, you may find |
376d9008 |
1019 | the following C APIs useful. See L<perlapi> for details. |
95a1a48b |
1020 | |
1021 | =over 4 |
1022 | |
1023 | =item * |
1024 | |
1bfb14c4 |
1025 | C<DO_UTF8(sv)> returns true if the C<UTF8> flag is on and the bytes |
1026 | pragma is not in effect. C<SvUTF8(sv)> returns true is the C<UTF8> |
1027 | flag is on; the bytes pragma is ignored. The C<UTF8> flag being on |
1028 | does B<not> mean that there are any characters of code points greater |
1029 | than 255 (or 127) in the scalar or that there are even any characters |
1030 | in the scalar. What the C<UTF8> flag means is that the sequence of |
1031 | octets in the representation of the scalar is the sequence of UTF-8 |
1032 | encoded code points of the characters of a string. The C<UTF8> flag |
1033 | being off means that each octet in this representation encodes a |
1034 | single character with code point 0..255 within the string. Perl's |
1035 | Unicode model is not to use UTF-8 until it is absolutely necessary. |
95a1a48b |
1036 | |
1037 | =item * |
1038 | |
1bfb14c4 |
1039 | C<uvuni_to_utf8(buf, chr>) writes a Unicode character code point into |
1040 | a buffer encoding the code point as UTF-8, and returns a pointer |
95a1a48b |
1041 | pointing after the UTF-8 bytes. |
1042 | |
1043 | =item * |
1044 | |
376d9008 |
1045 | C<utf8_to_uvuni(buf, lenp)> reads UTF-8 encoded bytes from a buffer and |
1046 | returns the Unicode character code point and, optionally, the length of |
1047 | the UTF-8 byte sequence. |
95a1a48b |
1048 | |
1049 | =item * |
1050 | |
376d9008 |
1051 | C<utf8_length(start, end)> returns the length of the UTF-8 encoded buffer |
1052 | in characters. C<sv_len_utf8(sv)> returns the length of the UTF-8 encoded |
95a1a48b |
1053 | scalar. |
1054 | |
1055 | =item * |
1056 | |
376d9008 |
1057 | C<sv_utf8_upgrade(sv)> converts the string of the scalar to its UTF-8 |
1058 | encoded form. C<sv_utf8_downgrade(sv)> does the opposite, if |
1059 | possible. C<sv_utf8_encode(sv)> is like sv_utf8_upgrade except that |
1060 | it does not set the C<UTF8> flag. C<sv_utf8_decode()> does the |
1061 | opposite of C<sv_utf8_encode()>. Note that none of these are to be |
1062 | used as general-purpose encoding or decoding interfaces: C<use Encode> |
1063 | for that. C<sv_utf8_upgrade()> is affected by the encoding pragma |
1064 | but C<sv_utf8_downgrade()> is not (since the encoding pragma is |
1065 | designed to be a one-way street). |
95a1a48b |
1066 | |
1067 | =item * |
1068 | |
376d9008 |
1069 | C<is_utf8_char(s)> returns true if the pointer points to a valid UTF-8 |
90f968e0 |
1070 | character. |
95a1a48b |
1071 | |
1072 | =item * |
1073 | |
376d9008 |
1074 | C<is_utf8_string(buf, len)> returns true if C<len> bytes of the buffer |
95a1a48b |
1075 | are valid UTF-8. |
1076 | |
1077 | =item * |
1078 | |
376d9008 |
1079 | C<UTF8SKIP(buf)> will return the number of bytes in the UTF-8 encoded |
1080 | character in the buffer. C<UNISKIP(chr)> will return the number of bytes |
1081 | required to UTF-8-encode the Unicode character code point. C<UTF8SKIP()> |
90f968e0 |
1082 | is useful for example for iterating over the characters of a UTF-8 |
376d9008 |
1083 | encoded buffer; C<UNISKIP()> is useful, for example, in computing |
90f968e0 |
1084 | the size required for a UTF-8 encoded buffer. |
95a1a48b |
1085 | |
1086 | =item * |
1087 | |
376d9008 |
1088 | C<utf8_distance(a, b)> will tell the distance in characters between the |
95a1a48b |
1089 | two pointers pointing to the same UTF-8 encoded buffer. |
1090 | |
1091 | =item * |
1092 | |
376d9008 |
1093 | C<utf8_hop(s, off)> will return a pointer to an UTF-8 encoded buffer |
1094 | that is C<off> (positive or negative) Unicode characters displaced |
1095 | from the UTF-8 buffer C<s>. Be careful not to overstep the buffer: |
1096 | C<utf8_hop()> will merrily run off the end or the beginning of the |
1097 | buffer if told to do so. |
95a1a48b |
1098 | |
d2cc3551 |
1099 | =item * |
1100 | |
376d9008 |
1101 | C<pv_uni_display(dsv, spv, len, pvlim, flags)> and |
1102 | C<sv_uni_display(dsv, ssv, pvlim, flags)> are useful for debugging the |
1103 | output of Unicode strings and scalars. By default they are useful |
1104 | only for debugging--they display B<all> characters as hexadecimal code |
1bfb14c4 |
1105 | points--but with the flags C<UNI_DISPLAY_ISPRINT>, |
1106 | C<UNI_DISPLAY_BACKSLASH>, and C<UNI_DISPLAY_QQ> you can make the |
1107 | output more readable. |
d2cc3551 |
1108 | |
1109 | =item * |
1110 | |
376d9008 |
1111 | C<ibcmp_utf8(s1, pe1, u1, l1, u1, s2, pe2, l2, u2)> can be used to |
1112 | compare two strings case-insensitively in Unicode. For case-sensitive |
1113 | comparisons you can just use C<memEQ()> and C<memNE()> as usual. |
d2cc3551 |
1114 | |
c349b1b9 |
1115 | =back |
1116 | |
95a1a48b |
1117 | For more information, see L<perlapi>, and F<utf8.c> and F<utf8.h> |
1118 | in the Perl source code distribution. |
1119 | |
c29a771d |
1120 | =head1 BUGS |
1121 | |
376d9008 |
1122 | =head2 Interaction with Locales |
7eabb34d |
1123 | |
376d9008 |
1124 | Use of locales with Unicode data may lead to odd results. Currently, |
1125 | Perl attempts to attach 8-bit locale info to characters in the range |
1126 | 0..255, but this technique is demonstrably incorrect for locales that |
1127 | use characters above that range when mapped into Unicode. Perl's |
1128 | Unicode support will also tend to run slower. Use of locales with |
1129 | Unicode is discouraged. |
c29a771d |
1130 | |
376d9008 |
1131 | =head2 Interaction with Extensions |
7eabb34d |
1132 | |
376d9008 |
1133 | When Perl exchanges data with an extension, the extension should be |
7eabb34d |
1134 | able to understand the UTF-8 flag and act accordingly. If the |
376d9008 |
1135 | extension doesn't know about the flag, it's likely that the extension |
1136 | will return incorrectly-flagged data. |
7eabb34d |
1137 | |
1138 | So if you're working with Unicode data, consult the documentation of |
1139 | every module you're using if there are any issues with Unicode data |
1140 | exchange. If the documentation does not talk about Unicode at all, |
a73d23f6 |
1141 | suspect the worst and probably look at the source to learn how the |
376d9008 |
1142 | module is implemented. Modules written completely in Perl shouldn't |
a73d23f6 |
1143 | cause problems. Modules that directly or indirectly access code written |
1144 | in other programming languages are at risk. |
7eabb34d |
1145 | |
376d9008 |
1146 | For affected functions, the simple strategy to avoid data corruption is |
7eabb34d |
1147 | to always make the encoding of the exchanged data explicit. Choose an |
376d9008 |
1148 | encoding that you know the extension can handle. Convert arguments passed |
7eabb34d |
1149 | to the extensions to that encoding and convert results back from that |
1150 | encoding. Write wrapper functions that do the conversions for you, so |
1151 | you can later change the functions when the extension catches up. |
1152 | |
376d9008 |
1153 | To provide an example, let's say the popular Foo::Bar::escape_html |
7eabb34d |
1154 | function doesn't deal with Unicode data yet. The wrapper function |
1155 | would convert the argument to raw UTF-8 and convert the result back to |
376d9008 |
1156 | Perl's internal representation like so: |
7eabb34d |
1157 | |
1158 | sub my_escape_html ($) { |
1159 | my($what) = shift; |
1160 | return unless defined $what; |
1161 | Encode::decode_utf8(Foo::Bar::escape_html(Encode::encode_utf8($what))); |
1162 | } |
1163 | |
1164 | Sometimes, when the extension does not convert data but just stores |
1165 | and retrieves them, you will be in a position to use the otherwise |
1166 | dangerous Encode::_utf8_on() function. Let's say the popular |
66b79f27 |
1167 | C<Foo::Bar> extension, written in C, provides a C<param> method that |
7eabb34d |
1168 | lets you store and retrieve data according to these prototypes: |
1169 | |
1170 | $self->param($name, $value); # set a scalar |
1171 | $value = $self->param($name); # retrieve a scalar |
1172 | |
1173 | If it does not yet provide support for any encoding, one could write a |
1174 | derived class with such a C<param> method: |
1175 | |
1176 | sub param { |
1177 | my($self,$name,$value) = @_; |
1178 | utf8::upgrade($name); # make sure it is UTF-8 encoded |
1179 | if (defined $value) |
1180 | utf8::upgrade($value); # make sure it is UTF-8 encoded |
1181 | return $self->SUPER::param($name,$value); |
1182 | } else { |
1183 | my $ret = $self->SUPER::param($name); |
1184 | Encode::_utf8_on($ret); # we know, it is UTF-8 encoded |
1185 | return $ret; |
1186 | } |
1187 | } |
1188 | |
a73d23f6 |
1189 | Some extensions provide filters on data entry/exit points, such as |
1190 | DB_File::filter_store_key and family. Look out for such filters in |
66b79f27 |
1191 | the documentation of your extensions, they can make the transition to |
7eabb34d |
1192 | Unicode data much easier. |
1193 | |
376d9008 |
1194 | =head2 Speed |
7eabb34d |
1195 | |
c29a771d |
1196 | Some functions are slower when working on UTF-8 encoded strings than |
574c8022 |
1197 | on byte encoded strings. All functions that need to hop over |
c29a771d |
1198 | characters such as length(), substr() or index() can work B<much> |
1199 | faster when the underlying data are byte-encoded. Witness the |
1200 | following benchmark: |
666f95b9 |
1201 | |
c29a771d |
1202 | % perl -e ' |
1203 | use Benchmark; |
1204 | use strict; |
1205 | our $l = 10000; |
1206 | our $u = our $b = "x" x $l; |
1207 | substr($u,0,1) = "\x{100}"; |
1208 | timethese(-2,{ |
1209 | LENGTH_B => q{ length($b) }, |
1210 | LENGTH_U => q{ length($u) }, |
1211 | SUBSTR_B => q{ substr($b, $l/4, $l/2) }, |
1212 | SUBSTR_U => q{ substr($u, $l/4, $l/2) }, |
1213 | }); |
1214 | ' |
1215 | Benchmark: running LENGTH_B, LENGTH_U, SUBSTR_B, SUBSTR_U for at least 2 CPU seconds... |
1216 | LENGTH_B: 2 wallclock secs ( 2.36 usr + 0.00 sys = 2.36 CPU) @ 5649983.05/s (n=13333960) |
1217 | LENGTH_U: 2 wallclock secs ( 2.11 usr + 0.00 sys = 2.11 CPU) @ 12155.45/s (n=25648) |
1218 | SUBSTR_B: 3 wallclock secs ( 2.16 usr + 0.00 sys = 2.16 CPU) @ 374480.09/s (n=808877) |
1219 | SUBSTR_U: 2 wallclock secs ( 2.11 usr + 0.00 sys = 2.11 CPU) @ 6791.00/s (n=14329) |
666f95b9 |
1220 | |
376d9008 |
1221 | The numbers show an incredible slowness on long UTF-8 strings. You |
1222 | should carefully avoid using these functions in tight loops. If you |
1223 | want to iterate over characters, the superior coding technique would |
1224 | split the characters into an array instead of using substr, as the following |
c29a771d |
1225 | benchmark shows: |
1226 | |
1227 | % perl -e ' |
1228 | use Benchmark; |
1229 | use strict; |
1230 | our $l = 10000; |
1231 | our $u = our $b = "x" x $l; |
1232 | substr($u,0,1) = "\x{100}"; |
1233 | timethese(-5,{ |
1234 | SPLIT_B => q{ for my $c (split //, $b){} }, |
1235 | SPLIT_U => q{ for my $c (split //, $u){} }, |
1236 | SUBSTR_B => q{ for my $i (0..length($b)-1){my $c = substr($b,$i,1);} }, |
1237 | SUBSTR_U => q{ for my $i (0..length($u)-1){my $c = substr($u,$i,1);} }, |
1238 | }); |
1239 | ' |
1240 | Benchmark: running SPLIT_B, SPLIT_U, SUBSTR_B, SUBSTR_U for at least 5 CPU seconds... |
1241 | SPLIT_B: 6 wallclock secs ( 5.29 usr + 0.00 sys = 5.29 CPU) @ 56.14/s (n=297) |
1242 | SPLIT_U: 5 wallclock secs ( 5.17 usr + 0.01 sys = 5.18 CPU) @ 55.21/s (n=286) |
1243 | SUBSTR_B: 5 wallclock secs ( 5.34 usr + 0.00 sys = 5.34 CPU) @ 123.22/s (n=658) |
1244 | SUBSTR_U: 7 wallclock secs ( 6.20 usr + 0.00 sys = 6.20 CPU) @ 0.81/s (n=5) |
1245 | |
376d9008 |
1246 | Even though the algorithm based on C<substr()> is faster than |
1247 | C<split()> for byte-encoded data, it pales in comparison to the speed |
1248 | of C<split()> when used with UTF-8 data. |
666f95b9 |
1249 | |
c8d992ba |
1250 | =head2 Porting code from perl-5.6.X |
1251 | |
1252 | Perl 5.8 has a different Unicode model from 5.6. In 5.6 the programmer |
1253 | was required to use the C<utf8> pragma to declare that a given scope |
1254 | expected to deal with Unicode data and had to make sure that only |
1255 | Unicode data were reaching that scope. If you have code that is |
1256 | working with 5.6, you will need some of the following adjustments to |
1257 | your code. The examples are written such that the code will continue |
1258 | to work under 5.6, so you should be safe to try them out. |
1259 | |
1260 | =over 4 |
1261 | |
1262 | =item * |
1263 | |
1264 | A filehandle that should read or write UTF-8 |
1265 | |
1266 | if ($] > 5.007) { |
1267 | binmode $fh, ":utf8"; |
1268 | } |
1269 | |
1270 | =item * |
1271 | |
1272 | A scalar that is going to be passed to some extension |
1273 | |
1274 | Be it Compress::Zlib, Apache::Request or any extension that has no |
1275 | mention of Unicode in the manpage, you need to make sure that the |
1276 | UTF-8 flag is stripped off. Note that at the time of this writing |
1277 | (October 2002) the mentioned modules are not UTF-8-aware. Please |
1278 | check the documentation to verify if this is still true. |
1279 | |
1280 | if ($] > 5.007) { |
1281 | require Encode; |
1282 | $val = Encode::encode_utf8($val); # make octets |
1283 | } |
1284 | |
1285 | =item * |
1286 | |
1287 | A scalar we got back from an extension |
1288 | |
1289 | If you believe the scalar comes back as UTF-8, you will most likely |
1290 | want the UTF-8 flag restored: |
1291 | |
1292 | if ($] > 5.007) { |
1293 | require Encode; |
1294 | $val = Encode::decode_utf8($val); |
1295 | } |
1296 | |
1297 | =item * |
1298 | |
1299 | Same thing, if you are really sure it is UTF-8 |
1300 | |
1301 | if ($] > 5.007) { |
1302 | require Encode; |
1303 | Encode::_utf8_on($val); |
1304 | } |
1305 | |
1306 | =item * |
1307 | |
1308 | A wrapper for fetchrow_array and fetchrow_hashref |
1309 | |
1310 | When the database contains only UTF-8, a wrapper function or method is |
1311 | a convenient way to replace all your fetchrow_array and |
1312 | fetchrow_hashref calls. A wrapper function will also make it easier to |
1313 | adapt to future enhancements in your database driver. Note that at the |
1314 | time of this writing (October 2002), the DBI has no standardized way |
1315 | to deal with UTF-8 data. Please check the documentation to verify if |
1316 | that is still true. |
1317 | |
1318 | sub fetchrow { |
1319 | my($self, $sth, $what) = @_; # $what is one of fetchrow_{array,hashref} |
1320 | if ($] < 5.007) { |
1321 | return $sth->$what; |
1322 | } else { |
1323 | require Encode; |
1324 | if (wantarray) { |
1325 | my @arr = $sth->$what; |
1326 | for (@arr) { |
1327 | defined && /[^\000-\177]/ && Encode::_utf8_on($_); |
1328 | } |
1329 | return @arr; |
1330 | } else { |
1331 | my $ret = $sth->$what; |
1332 | if (ref $ret) { |
1333 | for my $k (keys %$ret) { |
1334 | defined && /[^\000-\177]/ && Encode::_utf8_on($_) for $ret->{$k}; |
1335 | } |
1336 | return $ret; |
1337 | } else { |
1338 | defined && /[^\000-\177]/ && Encode::_utf8_on($_) for $ret; |
1339 | return $ret; |
1340 | } |
1341 | } |
1342 | } |
1343 | } |
1344 | |
1345 | |
1346 | =item * |
1347 | |
1348 | A large scalar that you know can only contain ASCII |
1349 | |
1350 | Scalars that contain only ASCII and are marked as UTF-8 are sometimes |
1351 | a drag to your program. If you recognize such a situation, just remove |
1352 | the UTF-8 flag: |
1353 | |
1354 | utf8::downgrade($val) if $] > 5.007; |
1355 | |
1356 | =back |
1357 | |
393fec97 |
1358 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
1359 | |
72ff2908 |
1360 | L<perluniintro>, L<encoding>, L<Encode>, L<open>, L<utf8>, L<bytes>, |
1361 | L<perlretut>, L<perlvar/"${^WIDE_SYSTEM_CALLS}"> |
393fec97 |
1362 | |
1363 | =cut |