4 $utf8::hint_bits = 0x00800000;
9 $^H |= $utf8::hint_bits;
10 $enc{caller()} = $_[1] if $_[1];
14 $^H &= ~$utf8::hint_bits;
18 require "utf8_heavy.pl";
19 goto &$AUTOLOAD if defined &$AUTOLOAD;
20 Carp::croak("Undefined subroutine $AUTOLOAD called");
28 utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 in source code
37 WARNING: The implementation of Unicode support in Perl is incomplete.
38 See L<perlunicode> for the exact details.
40 The C<use utf8> pragma tells the Perl parser to allow UTF-8 in the
41 program text in the current lexical scope. The C<no utf8> pragma
42 tells Perl to switch back to treating the source text as literal
43 bytes in the current lexical scope.
45 This pragma is primarily a compatibility device. Perl versions
46 earlier than 5.6 allowed arbitrary bytes in source code, whereas
47 in future we would like to standardize on the UTF-8 encoding for
48 source text. Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source
49 text, this pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8 in the source.
50 When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this pragma will
51 effectively become a no-op. This pragma already is a no-op on
52 EBCDIC platforms (where it is alright to code perl in EBCDIC
55 Enabling the C<utf8> pragma has the following effects:
61 Bytes in the source text that have their high-bit set will be treated
62 as being part of a literal UTF-8 character. This includes most literals
63 such as identifiers, string constants, constant regular expression patterns
68 In the absence of inputs marked as UTF-8, regular expressions within the
69 scope of this pragma will default to using character semantics instead
72 @bytes_or_chars = split //, $data; # may split to bytes if data
75 use utf8; # force char semantics
76 @chars = split //, $data; # splits characters
81 =head2 Utility functions
83 The following functions are defined in the C<utf8::> package by the perl core.
87 =item * $num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string);
89 Converts internal representation of string to the perls internal UTF-X form.
90 Returns the number of octets necessary to represent the string as UTF-X.
92 =item * utf8::downgrade($string[, CHECK])
94 Converts internal representation of string to be un-encoded bytes.
96 =item * utf8::encode($string)
98 Converts (in-place) I<$string> from logical characters to octet sequence
99 representing it in perl's UTF-X encoding.
101 =item * $flag = utf8::decode($string)
103 Attempts to converts I<$string> in-place from perl's UTF-X encoding into logical characters.
109 L<perlunicode>, L<bytes>