3 perltodo - Perl TO-DO List
7 This is a list of wishes for Perl. Send updates to
8 I<perl5-porters@perl.org>. If you want to work on any of these
9 projects, be sure to check the perl5-porters archives for past ideas,
10 flames, and propaganda. This will save you time and also prevent you
11 from implementing something that Larry has already vetoed. One set
12 of archives may be found at:
14 http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/
16 =head1 To do during 5.6.x
18 =head2 Support for I/O disciplines
20 C<perlio> provides this, but the interface could be a lot more
23 =head2 Autoload bytes.pm
25 When the lexer sees, for instance, C<bytes::length>, it should
26 automatically load the C<bytes> pragma.
28 =head2 Make "\u{XXXX}" et al work
30 Danger, Will Robinson! Discussing the semantics of C<"\x{F00}">,
31 C<"\xF00"> and C<"\U{F00}"> on P5P I<will> lead to a long and boring
34 =head2 Create a char *sv_pvprintify(sv, STRLEN *lenp, UV flags)
36 For displaying PVs with control characters, embedded nulls, and Unicode.
37 This would be useful for printing warnings, or data and regex dumping,
38 not_a_number(), and so on.
40 Requirements: should handle both byte and UTF8 strings. isPRINT()
41 characters printed as-is, character less than 256 as \xHH, Unicode
42 characters as \x{HHH}. Don't assume ASCII-like, either, get somebody
43 on EBCDIC to test the output.
45 Possible options, controlled by the flags:
46 - whitespace (other than ' ' of isPRINT()) printed as-is
47 - use isPRINT_LC() instead of isPRINT()
48 - print control characters like this: "\cA"
49 - print control characters like this: "^A"
50 - non-PRINTables printed as '.' instead of \xHH
51 - use \OOO instead of \xHH
52 - use the C/Perl-metacharacters like \n, \t
53 - have a maximum length for the produced string (read it from *lenp)
54 - append a "..." to the produced string if the maximum length is exceeded
55 - really fancy: print unicode characters as \N{...}
57 NOTE: pv_display(), pv_uni_display(), sv_uni_display() are already
58 doing something like the above.
60 =head2 Overloadable regex assertions
62 This may or may not be possible with the current regular expression
63 engine. The idea is that, for instance, C<\b> needs to be
64 algorithmically computed if you're dealing with Thai text. Hence, the
65 B<\b> assertion wants to be overloaded by a function.
73 Allow for long form of the General Category Properties, e.g
74 C<\p{IsOpenPunctuation}>, not just the abbreviated form, e.g.
79 Allow for the metaproperties: C<XID Start>, C<XID Continue>,
80 C<NF*_NO>, C<NF*_MAYBE> (require the DerivedCoreProperties and
81 DerviceNormalizationProperties files).
83 There are also multiple value properties still unimplemented:
84 C<Numeric Type>, C<East Asian Width>.
88 Case Mappings? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21/
90 lc(), uc(), lcfirst(), and ucfirst() work only for some of the
91 simplest cases, where the mapping goes from a single Unicode character
92 to another single Unicode character. See lib/unicore/SpecCase.txt
97 UTF-8 identifier names should probably be canonicalized: NFC?
101 UTF-8 in package names and sub names? The first is problematic
102 because of the mapping to pathnames, ditto for the second one if
103 one does autosplitting, for example.
107 See L<perlunicode/UNICODE REGULAR EXPRESSION SUPPORT LEVEL> for what's
108 there and what's missing. Almost all of Levels 2 and 3 is missing,
109 and as of 5.8.0 not even all of Level 1 is there.
110 They have some tricks Perl doesn't yet implement, such as character
113 http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr18/
115 =head2 Work out exit/die semantics for threads
117 There are some suggestions to use for example something like this:
118 default to "(thread exiting first will) wait for the other threads
119 until up to 60 seconds". Other possibilities:
121 use threads wait => 0;
125 use threads wait_for => 10;
127 Wait up to 10 seconds.
129 use threads wait_for => -1;
133 http://archive.develooper.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg79618.html
135 =head2 Better support for nonpreemptive threading systems like GNU pth
137 To better support nonpreemptive threading systems, perhaps some of the
138 blocking functions internally in Perl should do a yield() before a
139 blocking call. (Now certain threads tests ({basic,list,thread.t})
140 simply do a yield() before they sleep() to give nonpreemptive thread
141 implementations a chance).
143 In some cases, like the GNU pth, which has replacement functions that
144 are nonblocking (pth_select instead of select), maybe Perl should be
145 using them instead when built for threading.
147 =head2 Typed lexicals for compiler
149 =head2 Compiler workarounds for Win32
151 =head2 AUTOLOADing in the compiler
153 =head2 Fixing comppadlist when compiling
155 =head2 Cleaning up exported namespace
157 =head2 Complete signal handling
159 Add C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK> to opcodes which loop; replace C<sigsetjmp> with
160 C<sigjmp>; check C<wait> for signal safety.
162 =head2 Out-of-source builds
164 This was done for 5.6.0, but needs reworking for 5.7.x
166 =head2 POSIX realtime support
168 POSIX 1003.1 1996 Edition support--realtime stuff: POSIX semaphores,
169 message queues, shared memory, realtime clocks, timers, signals (the
170 metaconfig units mostly already exist for these)
172 =head2 UNIX98 support
174 Reader-writer locks, realtime/asynchronous IO
178 There are non-core modules, such as C<Socket6>, but these will need
179 integrating when IPv6 actually starts to really happen. See RFC 2292
182 =head2 Long double conversion
184 Floating point formatting is still causing some weird test failures.
188 Locales and Unicode interact with each other in unpleasant ways.
189 One possible solution would be to adopt/support ICU:
191 http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/project/
193 =head2 Arithmetic on non-Arabic numerals
195 C<[1234567890]> aren't the only numerals any more.
197 =head2 POSIX Unicode character classes
199 (C<[=a=]> for equivalence classes, C<[.ch.]> for collation.)
200 These are dependent on Unicode normalization and collation.
202 =head2 Factoring out common suffices/prefices in regexps (trie optimization)
204 Currently, the user has to optimize C<foo|far> and C<foo|goo> into
205 C<f(?:oo|ar)> and C<[fg]oo> by hand; this could be done automatically.
207 =head2 Security audit shipped utilities
209 All the code we ship with Perl needs to be sensible about temporary file
210 handling, locking, input validation, and so on.
212 =head2 Sort out the uid-setting mess
214 Currently there are several problems with the setting of uids ($<, $>
215 for the real and effective uids). Firstly, what exactly setuid() call
216 gets invoked in which platform is simply a big mess that needs to be
217 untangled. Secondly, the effects are apparently not standard across
218 platforms, (if you first set $< and then $>, or vice versa, being
219 uid == euid == zero, or just euid == zero, or as a normal user, what are
220 the results?). The test suite not (usually) being run as root means
221 that these things do not get much testing. Thirdly, there's quite
222 often a third uid called saved uid, and Perl has no knowledge of that
223 feature in any way. (If one has the saved uid of zero, one can get
224 back any real and effective uids.) As an example, to change also the
225 saved uid, one needs to set the real and effective uids B<twice>-- in
226 most systems, that is: in HP-UX that doesn't seem to work.
228 =head2 Custom opcodes
230 Have a way to introduce user-defined opcodes without the subroutine call
231 overhead of an XSUB; the user should be able to create PP code. Simon
232 Cozens has some ideas on this.
234 =head2 DLL Versioning
236 Windows needs a way to know what version of an XS or C<libperl> DLL it's
239 =head2 Introduce @( and @)
241 C<$(> may return "foo bar baz". Unfortunately, since groups can
242 theoretically have spaces in their names, this could be one, two or
245 =head2 Floating point handling
247 C<NaN> and C<inf> support is particularly troublesome.
248 (fp_classify(), fp_class(), fp_class_d(), class(), isinf(),
249 isfinite(), finite(), isnormal(), unordered(), <ieeefp.h>,
250 <fp_class.h> (there are metaconfig units for all these) (I think),
251 fp_setmask(), fp_getmask(), fp_setround(), fp_getround()
252 (no metaconfig units yet for these). Don't forget finitel(), fp_classl(),
253 fp_class_l(), (yes, both do, unfortunately, exist), and unorderedl().)
255 As of Perl 5.6.1, there is a Perl macro, Perl_isnan().
257 =head2 IV/UV preservation
259 Nicholas Clark has done a lot of work on this, but work is continuing.
260 C<+>, C<-> and C<*> work, but guards need to be in place for C<%>, C</>,
261 C<&>, C<oct>, C<hex> and C<pack>.
263 =head2 Replace pod2html with something using Pod::Parser
265 The CPAN module C<Marek::Pod::Html> may be a more suitable basis for a
266 C<pod2html> converter; the current one duplicates the functionality
267 abstracted in C<Pod::Parser>, which makes updating the POD language
270 =head2 Automate module testing on CPAN
272 When a new Perl is being beta tested, porters have to manually grab
273 their favourite CPAN modules and test them - this should be done
276 =head2 sendmsg and recvmsg
278 We have all the other BSD socket functions but these. There are
279 metaconfig units for these functions which can be added. To avoid these
280 being new opcodes, a solution similar to the way C<sockatmark> was added
281 would be preferable. (Autoload the C<IO::whatever> module.)
283 =head2 Rewrite perlre documentation
285 The new-style patterns need full documentation, and the whole document
286 needs to be a lot clearer.
288 =head2 Convert example code to IO::Handle filehandles
290 =head2 Document Win32 choices
292 =head2 Check new modules
294 =head2 Make roffitall find pods and libs itself
296 Simon Cozens has done some work on this but it needs a rethink.
298 =head1 To do at some point
300 These are ideas that have been regularly tossed around, that most
301 people believe should be done maybe during 5.8.x
303 =head2 Remove regular expression recursion
305 Because the regular expression engine is recursive, badly designed
306 expressions can lead to lots of recursion filling up the stack. Ilya
307 claims that it is easy to convert the engine to being iterative, but
308 this has still not yet been done. There may be a regular expression
309 engine hit squad meeting at TPC5.
311 =head2 Memory leaks after failed eval
313 Perl will leak memory if you C<eval "hlagh hlagh hlagh hlagh">. This is
314 partially because it attempts to build up an op tree for that code and
315 doesn't properly free it. The same goes for non-syntactically-correct
316 regular expressions. Hugo looked into this, but decided it needed a
317 mark-and-sweep GC implementation.
319 Alan notes that: The basic idea was to extend the parser token stack
320 (C<YYSTYPE>) to include a type field so we knew what sort of thing each
321 element of the stack was. The F<perly.c> code would then have to be
322 postprocessed to record the type of each entry on the stack as it was
323 created, and the parser patched so that it could unroll the stack
326 This is possible to do, but would be pretty messy to implement, as it
327 would rely on even more sed hackery in F<perly.fixer>.
329 =head2 bitfields in pack
331 =head2 Cross compilation
333 Make Perl buildable with a cross-compiler. This will play havoc with
334 Configure, which needs to know how the target system will respond to
335 its tests; maybe C<microperl> will be a good starting point here.
336 (Indeed, Bart Schuller reports that he compiled up C<microperl> for
337 the Agenda PDA and it works fine.) A really big spanner in the works
338 is the bootstrapping build process of Perl: if the filesystem the
339 target systems sees is not the same what the build host sees, various
340 input, output, and (Perl) library files need to be copied back and forth.
342 As of 5.8.0 Configure mostly works for cross-compilation
343 (used successfully for iPAQ Linux), miniperl gets built,
344 but then building DynaLoader (and other extensions) fails
345 since MakeMaker knows nothing of cross-compilation.
346 (See INSTALL/Cross-compilation for the state of things.)
348 =head2 Perl preprocessor / macros
350 Source filters help with this, but do not get us all the way. For
351 instance, it should be possible to implement the C<??> operator somehow;
352 source filters don't (quite) cut it.
354 =head2 Perl lexer in Perl
356 Damian Conway is planning to work on this, but it hasn't happened yet.
358 =head2 Using POSIX calls internally
360 When faced with a BSD vs. SysV -style interface to some library or
361 system function, perl's roots show in that it typically prefers the BSD
362 interface (but falls back to the SysV one). One example is getpgrp().
363 Other examples include C<memcpy> vs. C<bcopy>. There are others, mostly in
366 Mostly, this item is a suggestion for which way to start a journey into
367 an C<#ifdef> forest. It is not primarily a suggestion to eliminate any of
368 the C<#ifdef> forests.
370 POSIX calls are perhaps more likely to be portable to unexpected
371 architectures. They are also perhaps more likely to be actively
372 maintained by a current vendor. They are also perhaps more likely to be
373 available in thread-safe versions, if appropriate.
375 =head2 -i rename file when changed
377 It's only necessary to rename a file when inplace editing when the file
378 has changed. Detecting a change is perhaps the difficult bit.
380 =head2 All ARGV input should act like E<lt>E<gt>
382 eg C<read(ARGV, ...)> doesn't currently read across multiple files.
384 =head2 Support for rerunning debugger
386 There should be a way of restarting the debugger on demand.
388 =head2 Test Suite for the Debugger
390 The debugger is a complex piece of software and fixing something
391 here may inadvertently break something else over there. To tame
392 this chaotic behaviour, a test suite is necessary.
394 =head2 my sub foo { }
396 The basic principle is sound, but there are problems with the semantics
397 of self-referential and mutually referential lexical subs: how to
400 =head2 One-pass global destruction
402 Sweeping away all the allocated memory in one go is a laudable goal, but
403 it's difficult and in most cases, it's easier to let the memory get
406 =head2 Rewrite regexp parser
408 There has been talk recently of rewriting the regular expression parser
409 to produce an optree instead of a chain of opcodes; it's unclear whether
410 or not this would be a win.
412 =head2 Cache recently used regexps
416 for my $re (@regexps) {
420 C<qr//> already gives us a way of saving compiled regexps, but it should
421 be done automatically.
423 =head2 Cross-compilation support
425 Bart Schuller reports that using C<microperl> and a cross-compiler, he
426 got Perl working on the Agenda PDA. However, one cannot build a full
427 Perl because Configure needs to get the results for the target platform,
430 =head2 Bit-shifting bitvectors
434 vec($v, 1000, 1) = 1;
436 One should be able to do
440 and have the 999'th bit set.
442 Currently if you try with shift bitvectors you shift the NV/UV, instead
443 of the bits in the PV. Not very logical.
445 =head2 debugger pragma
447 The debugger is implemented in Perl in F<perl5db.pl>; turning it into a
448 pragma should be easy, but making it work lexically might be more
449 difficult. Fiddling with C<$^P> would be necessary.
451 =head2 use less pragma
453 Identify areas where speed/memory tradeoffs can be made and have a hint
454 to switch between them.
456 =head2 switch structures
458 Although we have C<Switch.pm> in core, Larry points to the dormant
459 C<nswitch> and C<cswitch> ops in F<pp.c>; using these opcodes would be
462 =head2 Cache eval tree
466 =head2 Shrink opcode tables
468 =head2 Optimize away @_
470 Look at the "reification" code in C<av.c>
472 =head2 Prototypes versus indirect objects
474 Currently, indirect object syntax bypasses prototype checks.
478 HTML versions of the documentation need to be installed by default; a
479 call to C<installhtml> from C<installperl> may be all that's necessary.
481 =head2 Prototype method calls
483 =head2 Return context prototype declarations
487 =head2 Garbage collection
489 There have been persistent mumblings about putting a mark-and-sweep
490 garbage detector into Perl; Alan Burlison has some ideas about this.
494 Mark-Jason Dominus has the beginnings of one of these.
496 =head2 Rewrite perldoc
498 There are a few suggestions for what to do with C<perldoc>: maybe a
499 full-text search, an index function, locating pages on a particular
500 high-level subject, and so on.
502 =head2 Install .3p manpages
504 This is a bone of contention; we can create C<.3p> manpages for each
505 built-in function, but should we install them by default? Tcl does this,
506 and it clutters up C<apropos>.
508 =head2 Unicode tutorial
510 Simon Cozens promises to do this before he gets old.
512 =head2 Update POSIX.pm for 1003.1-2
514 =head2 Retargetable installation
516 Allow C<@INC> to be changed after Perl is built.
518 =head2 POSIX emulation on non-POSIX systems
520 Make C<POSIX.pm> behave as POSIXly as possible everywhere, meaning we
521 have to implement POSIX equivalents for some functions if necessary.
523 =head2 Rename Win32 headers
525 =head2 Finish off lvalue functions
527 They don't work in the debugger, and they don't work for list or hash
530 =head2 Update sprintf documentation
532 Hugo van der Sanden plans to look at this.
534 =head2 Use fchown/fchmod internally
536 This has been done in places, but needs a thorough code review.
537 Also fchdir is available in some platforms.
539 =head2 Make v-strings overloaded objects
541 Instead of having to guess whether a string is a v-string and thus
542 needs to be displayed with %vd, make v-strings (readonly) objects
543 (class "vstring"?) with a stringify overload.
545 =head2 Allow restricted hash assignment
547 Currently you're not allowed to assign to a restricted hash at all,
548 even with the same keys.
550 %restricted = (foo => 42); # error
552 This should be allowed if the new keyset is a subset of the old
553 keyset. May require more extra code than we'd like in pp_aassign.
555 =head2 Should overload be inheritable?
557 Should overload be 'contagious' through @ISA so that derived classes
558 would inherit their base classes' overload definitions? What to do
559 in case of overload conflicts?
563 Should taint be stopped from affecting control flow, if ($tainted)?
564 Should tainted symbolic method calls and subref calls be stopped?
565 (Look at Ruby's $SAFE levels for inspiration?)
569 Ideas which have been discussed, and which may or may not happen.
571 =head2 ref() in list context
573 It's unclear what this should do or how to do it without breaking old
576 =head2 Make tr/// return histogram of characters in list context
578 There is a patch for this, but it may require Unicodification.
580 =head2 Compile to real threaded code
582 =head2 Structured types
584 =head2 Modifiable $1 et al.
586 ($x = "elephant") =~ /e(ph)/;
587 $1 = "g"; # $x = "elegant"
589 What happens if there are multiple (nested?) brackets? What if the
590 string changes between the match and the assignment?
592 =head2 Procedural interfaces for IO::*, etc.
594 Some core modules have been accused of being overly-OO. Adding
595 procedural interfaces could demystify them.
599 =head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program
601 With C<gdb>, you can attach the debugger to a running program if you
602 pass the process ID. It would be good to do this with the Perl debugger
603 on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be done.
607 A non-core module that would use "native" GUI to create graphical
610 =head2 foreach(reverse ...)
614 foreach (reverse @_) { ... }
616 puts C<@_> on the stack, reverses it putting the reversed version on the
617 stack, then iterates forwards. Instead, it could be special-cased to put
618 C<@_> on the stack then iterate backwards.
620 =head2 Constant function cache
622 =head2 Approximate regular expression matching
626 These items B<always> need doing:
628 =head2 Update guts documentation
630 Simon Cozens tries to do this when possible, and contributions to the
631 C<perlapi> documentation is welcome.
633 =head2 Add more tests
635 Michael Schwern will donate $500 to Yet Another Society when all core
638 =head2 Update auxiliary tools
640 The code we ship with Perl should look like good Perl 5.
642 =head2 Create debugging macros
644 Debugging macros (like printsv, dump) can make debugging perl inside a
645 C debugger much easier. A good set for gdb comes with mod_perl.
646 Something similar should be distributed with perl.
648 The proper way to do this is to use and extend Devel::DebugInit.
649 Devel::DebugInit also needs to be extended to support threads.
651 See p5p archives for late May/early June 2001 for a recent discussion
654 =head2 truncate to the people
656 One can emulate ftruncate() using F_FREESP and F_CHSIZ fcntls
657 (see the UNIX FAQ for details). This needs to go somewhere near
658 pp_sys.c:pp_truncate().
660 One can emulate truncate() easily if one has ftruncate().
661 This emulation should also go near pp_sys.pp_truncate().
663 =head2 Unicode in Filenames
665 chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open, qx,
666 readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen, system,
667 truncate, unlink, utime. All these could potentially accept Unicode
668 filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system and qx
669 Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell). Whether a
670 filesystem - an operating system pair understands Unicode in filenames
673 Known combinations that have some level of understanding include
674 Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS+ (In Mac OS 9 and X) and Apple UFS (in Mac
675 OS X), NFS v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to
676 create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used
677 (UCS-2, UTF-16, UTF-8), what (if any) is the normalization form used,
678 and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl
679 requires some thought. Remember that an OS does not implicate a
682 Note that in Windows the -C command line flag already does quite
683 a bit of the above (but even there the support is not complete:
684 for example the exec/spawn are not Unicode-aware) by turning on
685 the so-called "wide API support".
687 =head1 Recently done things
689 These are things which have been on the todo lists in previous releases
690 but have recently been completed.
692 =head2 Alternative RE syntax module
694 The C<Regexp::English> module, available from the CPAN, provides this:
696 my $re = Regexp::English
698 -> literal('Flippers')
709 =head2 Safe signal handling
711 A new signal model went into 5.7.1 without much fanfare. Operations and
712 C<malloc>s are no longer interrupted by signals, which are handled
713 between opcodes. This means that C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK> now actually does
714 something. However, there are still a few things that need to be done.
718 Modules which implement arrays in terms of strings, substrings or files
719 can be found on the CPAN.
723 C<Time::HiRes> has been integrated into the core.
725 =head2 setitimer and getimiter
727 Adding C<Time::HiRes> got us this too.
729 =head2 Testing __DIE__ hook
731 Tests have been added.
733 =head2 CPP equivalent in Perl
735 A C Yardley will probably have done this by the time you can read this.
736 This allows for a generalization of the C constant detection used in
737 building C<Errno.pm>.
739 =head2 Explicit switch statements
741 C<Switch.pm> has been integrated into the core to give you all manner of
742 C<switch...case> semantics.
750 Nick Ing-Simmons has made UTF-EBCDIC (UTR13) work with Perl.
752 EBCDIC? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/
756 Although there are probably some small bugs to be rooted out, Jarkko
757 Hietaniemi has made regular expressions polymorphic between bytes and
760 =head2 perlcc to produce executable
762 C<perlcc> was recently rewritten, and can now produce standalone
765 =head2 END blocks saved in compiled output
767 =head2 Secure temporary file module
769 Tim Jenness' C<File::Temp> is now in core.
771 =head2 Integrate Time::HiRes
773 This module is now part of core.
775 =head2 Turn Cwd into XS
777 Benjamin Sugars has done this.
779 =head2 Mmap for input
781 Nick Ing-Simmons' C<perlio> supports an C<mmap> IO method.
783 =head2 Byte to/from UTF8 and UTF8 to/from local conversion
785 C<Encode> provides this.
787 =head2 Add sockatmark support
791 =head2 Mailing list archives
793 http://lists.perl.org/ , http://archive.develooper.com/
797 Richard Foley has written the bug tracking system at http://bugs.perl.org/
799 =head2 Integrate MacPerl
801 Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher have integrated the MacPerl changes
804 =head2 Web "nerve center" for Perl
806 http://use.perl.org/ is what you're looking for.
808 =head2 Regular expression tutorial
810 C<perlretut>, provided by Mark Kvale.
812 =head2 Debugging Tutorial
814 C<perldebtut>, written by Richard Foley.
816 =head2 Integrate new modules
818 Jarkko has been integrating madly into 5.7.x
820 =head2 Integrate profiler
822 C<Devel::DProf> is now a core module.
824 =head2 Y2K error detection
826 There's a configure option to detect unsafe concatenation with "19", and
827 a CPAN module. (C<D'oh::Year>)
829 =head2 Regular expression debugger
831 While not part of core, Mark-Jason Dominus has written C<Rx> and has
832 also come up with a generalised strategy for regular expression
837 That's, uh, F<podchecker>
839 =head2 "Dynamic" lexicals
841 =head2 Cache precompiled modules
843 =head1 Deprecated Wishes
845 These are items which used to be in the todo file, but have been
846 deprecated for some reason.
848 =head2 Loop control on do{}
850 This would break old code; use C<do{{ }}> instead.
852 =head2 Lexically scoped typeglobs
854 Not needed now we have lexical IO handles.
860 Damian Conway's text formatting modules seem to be the Way To Go.
862 =head2 Generalised want()/caller())
864 Robin Houston's C<Want> module does this.
866 =head2 Named prototypes
868 This seems to be delayed until Perl 6.
870 =head2 Built-in globbing
872 The C<File::Glob> module has been used to replace the C<glob> function.
874 =head2 Regression tests for suidperl
876 C<suidperl> is deprecated in favour of common sense.
878 =head2 Cached hash values
880 We have shared hash keys, which perform the same job.
882 =head2 Add compression modules
884 The compression modules are a little heavy; meanwhile, Nick Clark is
885 working on experimental pragmata to do transparent decompression on
888 =head2 Reorganise documentation into tutorials/references
890 Could not get consensus on P5P about this.
892 =head2 Remove distinction between functions and operators
894 Caution: highly flammable.
896 =head2 Make XS easier to use
898 Use C<Inline> instead, or SWIG.
900 =head2 Make embedding easier to use
906 See the Perl Power Tools. ( http://language.perl.com/ppt/ )
908 =head2 my $Package::variable
912 =head2 "or" tests defined, not truth
914 Suggesting this on P5P B<will> cause a boring and interminable flamewar.
916 =head2 "class"-based lexicals
918 Use flyweight objects, secure hashes or, dare I say it, pseudo-hashes instead.
919 (Or whatever will replace pseudohashes in 5.10.)
923 C<ByteLoader> covers this.
925 =head2 Lazy evaluation / tail recursion removal
927 C<List::Util> gives first() (a short-circuiting grep); tail recursion
928 removal is done manually, with C<goto &whoami;>. (However, MJD has
929 found that C<goto &whoami> introduces a performance penalty, so maybe
930 there should be a way to do this after all: C<sub foo {START: ... goto
933 =head2 Make "use utf8" the default
935 Because of backward compatibility this is difficult: scripts could not
936 contain B<any legacy eight-bit data> (like Latin-1) anymore, even in
937 string literals or pod. Also would introduce a measurable slowdown of
938 at least few percentages since all regular expression operations would
939 be done in full UTF-8. But if you want to try this, add
940 -DUSE_UTF8_SCRIPTS to your compilation flags.
942 =head2 Unicode collation and normalization
944 The Unicode::Collate and Unicode::Normalize modules
945 by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki have been included since 5.8.0.
947 Collation? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr10/
948 Normalization? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr15/
950 =head2 pack/unpack tutorial
952 Wolfgang Laun finished what Simon Cozens started.