package Encode;
use strict;
-our $VERSION = do { my @r = (q$Revision: 1.31 $ =~ /\d+/g); sprintf "%d."."%02d" x $#r, @r };
+our $VERSION = do { my @r = (q$Revision: 1.61 $ =~ /\d+/g); sprintf "%d."."%02d" x $#r, @r };
our $DEBUG = 0;
+use XSLoader ();
+XSLoader::load 'Encode';
-require DynaLoader;
require Exporter;
-
-our @ISA = qw(Exporter DynaLoader);
+use base qw/Exporter/;
# Public, encouraged API is exported by default
-our @EXPORT = qw (
- encode
- decode
- encode_utf8
- decode_utf8
- find_encoding
- encodings
+
+our @EXPORT = qw(
+ decode decode_utf8 encode encode_utf8
+ encodings find_encoding
);
+our @FB_FLAGS = qw(DIE_ON_ERR WARN_ON_ERR RETURN_ON_ERR LEAVE_SRC
+ PERLQQ HTMLCREF XMLCREF);
+our @FB_CONSTS = qw(FB_DEFAULT FB_CROAK FB_QUIET FB_WARN
+ FB_PERLQQ FB_HTMLCREF FB_XMLCREF);
+
our @EXPORT_OK =
- qw(
- define_encoding
- from_to
- is_utf8
- is_8bit
- is_16bit
- utf8_upgrade
- utf8_downgrade
- _utf8_on
- _utf8_off
- );
-
-bootstrap Encode ();
+ (
+ qw(
+ _utf8_off _utf8_on define_encoding from_to is_16bit is_8bit
+ is_utf8 perlio_ok resolve_alias utf8_downgrade utf8_upgrade
+ ),
+ @FB_FLAGS, @FB_CONSTS,
+ );
+
+our %EXPORT_TAGS =
+ (
+ all => [ @EXPORT, @EXPORT_OK ],
+ fallbacks => [ @FB_CONSTS ],
+ fallback_all => [ @FB_CONSTS, @FB_FLAGS ],
+ );
# Documentation moved after __END__ for speed - NI-S
# Make a %Encoding package variable to allow a certain amount of cheating
our %Encoding;
-use Encode::Config;
+our %ExtModule;
+require Encode::Config;
+eval { require Encode::ConfigLocal };
sub encodings
{
my @modules = (@_ and $_[0] eq ":all") ? values %ExtModule : @_;
for my $mod (@modules){
$mod =~ s,::,/,g or $mod = "Encode/$mod";
- $mod .= '.pm';
+ $mod .= '.pm';
$DEBUG and warn "about to require $mod;";
eval { require $mod; };
}
my %modules = map {$_ => 1} @modules;
return
- sort grep {!/^(?:Internal|Unicode)$/o} keys %Encoding;
+ sort { lc $a cmp lc $b }
+ grep {!/^(?:Internal|Unicode)$/o} keys %Encoding;
+}
+
+sub perlio_ok{
+ my $obj = ref($_[0]) ? $_[0] : find_encoding($_[0]);
+ $obj->can("perlio_ok") and return $obj->perlio_ok();
+ return 0; # safety net
}
sub define_encoding
return __PACKAGE__->getEncoding($name,$skip_external);
}
-sub encode
+sub resolve_alias {
+ my $obj = find_encoding(shift);
+ defined $obj and return $obj->name;
+ return;
+}
+
+sub encode($$;$)
{
my ($name,$string,$check) = @_;
+ $check ||=0;
my $enc = find_encoding($name);
croak("Unknown encoding '$name'") unless defined $enc;
my $octets = $enc->encode($string,$check);
return $octets;
}
-sub decode
+sub decode($$;$)
{
my ($name,$octets,$check) = @_;
+ $check ||=0;
my $enc = find_encoding($name);
croak("Unknown encoding '$name'") unless defined $enc;
my $string = $enc->decode($octets,$check);
return $string;
}
-sub from_to
+sub from_to($$$;$)
{
my ($string,$from,$to,$check) = @_;
+ $check ||=0;
my $f = find_encoding($from);
croak("Unknown encoding '$from'") unless defined $f;
my $t = find_encoding($to);
return defined($_[0] = $string) ? length($string) : undef ;
}
-sub encode_utf8
+sub encode_utf8($)
{
my ($str) = @_;
utf8::encode($str);
return $str;
}
-sub decode_utf8
+sub decode_utf8($)
{
my ($str) = @_;
return undef unless utf8::decode($str);
# This is to restore %Encoding if really needed;
#
sub predefine_encodings{
- if ($ON_EBCDIC) {
+ if ($ON_EBCDIC) {
# was in Encode::UTF_EBCDIC
package Encode::UTF_EBCDIC;
*name = sub{ shift->{'Name'} };
*new_sequence = sub{ return $_[0] };
+ *needs_lines = sub{ 0 };
+ *perlio_ok = sub {
+ eval{ require PerlIO::encoding };
+ return $@ ? 0 : 1;
+ };
*decode = sub{
my ($obj,$str,$chk) = @_;
my $res = '';
for (my $i = 0; $i < length($str); $i++) {
- $res .=
+ $res .=
chr(utf8::unicode_to_native(ord(substr($str,$i,1))));
}
$_[1] = '' if $chk;
my ($obj,$str,$chk) = @_;
my $res = '';
for (my $i = 0; $i < length($str); $i++) {
- $res .=
+ $res .=
chr(utf8::native_to_unicode(ord(substr($str,$i,1))));
}
$_[1] = '' if $chk;
return $res;
};
- $Encode::Encoding{Internal} =
+ $Encode::Encoding{Unicode} =
bless {Name => "UTF_EBCDIC"} => "Encode::UTF_EBCDIC";
- } else {
+ } else {
# was in Encode::UTF_EBCDIC
package Encode::Internal;
*name = sub{ shift->{'Name'} };
*new_sequence = sub{ return $_[0] };
+ *needs_lines = sub{ 0 };
+ *perlio_ok = sub {
+ eval{ require PerlIO::encoding };
+ return $@ ? 0 : 1;
+ };
*decode = sub{
my ($obj,$str,$chk) = @_;
utf8::upgrade($str);
return $str;
};
*encode = \&decode;
- $Encode::Encoding{Unicode} =
+ $Encode::Encoding{Unicode} =
bless {Name => "Internal"} => "Encode::Internal";
}
package Encode::utf8;
*name = sub{ shift->{'Name'} };
*new_sequence = sub{ return $_[0] };
+ *needs_lines = sub{ 0 };
+ *perlio_ok = sub {
+ eval{ require PerlIO::encoding };
+ return $@ ? 0 : 1;
+ };
*decode = sub{
my ($obj,$octets,$chk) = @_;
my $str = Encode::decode_utf8($octets);
$Encode::Encoding{utf8} =
bless {Name => "utf8"} => "Encode::utf8";
}
- # do externals if necessary
- require File::Basename;
- require File::Spec;
- for my $ext (qw()){
- my $pm =
- File::Spec->catfile(File::Basename::dirname($INC{'Encode.pm'}),
- "Encode", "$ext.pm");
- do $pm;
- }
}
-require Encode::Encoding;
-require Encode::XS;
-
1;
__END__
use Encode;
-
=head2 Table of Contents
-Encode consists of a collection of modules which details are too big
+Encode consists of a collection of modules whose details are too big
to fit in one document. This POD itself explains the top-level APIs
-and general topics at a glance. For other topics and more details,
-see the PODs below;
+and general topics at a glance. For other topics and more details,
+see the PODs below:
Name Description
--------------------------------------------------------
- Encode::Alias Alias defintions to encodings
+ Encode::Alias Alias definitions to encodings
Encode::Encoding Encode Implementation Base Class
Encode::Supported List of Supported Encodings
Encode::CN Simplified Chinese Encodings
the legacy encoding is some variant of EBCDIC rather than a super-set
of ASCII - see L<perlebcdic>).
-Traditionally computer data has been moved around in 8-bit chunks
+Traditionally, computer data has been moved around in 8-bit chunks
often called "bytes". These chunks are also known as "octets" in
networking standards. Perl is widely used to manipulate data of many
types - not only strings of characters representing human or computer
-languages but also "binary" data being the machines representation of
+languages but also "binary" data being the machine's representation of
numbers, pixels in an image - or just about anything.
-When Perl is processing "binary data" the programmer wants Perl to
+When Perl is processing "binary data", the programmer wants Perl to
process "sequences of bytes". This is not a problem for Perl - as a
-byte has 256 possible values it easily fits in Perl's much larger
+byte has 256 possible values, it easily fits in Perl's much larger
"logical character".
=head2 TERMINOLOGY
-=over 4
+=over 2
=item *
=item *
I<octet>: 8 bits of data, with ordinal values 0..255
-(Term for bytes passed to or from a non-Perl context, e.g. disk file.)
+(Term for bytes passed to or from a non-Perl context, e.g. a disk file.)
=back
=head1 PERL ENCODING API
-=over 4
+=over 2
=item $octets = encode(ENCODING, $string[, CHECK])
-Encodes string from Perl's internal form into I<ENCODING> and returns
+Encodes a string from Perl's internal form into I<ENCODING> and returns
a sequence of octets. ENCODING can be either a canonical name or
-alias. For encoding names and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">.
-For CHECK see L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
+an alias. For encoding names and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">.
+For CHECK, see L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
+
+For example, to convert (internally UTF-8 encoded) Unicode string to
+iso-8859-1 (also known as Latin1),
-For example to convert (internally UTF-8 encoded) Unicode string to
-iso-8859-1 (also known as Latin1),
+ $octets = encode("iso-8859-1", $utf8);
- $octets = encode("iso-8859-1", $unicode);
+B<CAVEAT>: When you C<$octets = encode("utf8", $utf8)>, then $octets
+B<ne> $utf8. Though they both contain the same data, the utf8 flag
+for $octets is B<always> off. When you encode anything, utf8 flag of
+the result is always off, even when it contains completely valid utf8
+string. See L</"The UTF-8 flag"> below.
=item $string = decode(ENCODING, $octets[, CHECK])
-Decode sequence of octets assumed to be in I<ENCODING> into Perl's
-internal form and returns the resulting string. as in encode(),
-ENCODING can be either a canonical name or alias. For encoding names
-and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">. For CHECK see
+Decodes a sequence of octets assumed to be in I<ENCODING> into Perl's
+internal form and returns the resulting string. As in encode(),
+ENCODING can be either a canonical name or an alias. For encoding names
+and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">. For CHECK, see
L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
-For example to convert ISO-8859-1 data to UTF-8:
+For example, to convert ISO-8859-1 data to UTF-8:
$utf8 = decode("iso-8859-1", $latin1);
-=item [$length =] from_to($string, FROM_ENCODING, TO_ENCODING [,CHECK])
+B<CAVEAT>: When you C<$utf8 = encode("utf8", $octets)>, then $utf8
+B<may not be equal to> $utf8. Though they both contain the same data,
+the utf8 flag for $utf8 is on unless $octets entirely conststs of
+ASCII data (or EBCDIC on EBCDIC machines). See L</"The UTF-8 flag">
+below.
-Convert B<in-place> the data between two encodings. How did the data
-in $string originally get to be in FROM_ENCODING? Either using
-encode() or through PerlIO: See L</"Encoding and IO">.
-For encoding names and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">.
-For CHECK see L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
+=item [$length =] from_to($string, FROM_ENC, TO_ENC [, CHECK])
-For example to convert ISO-8859-1 data to UTF-8:
+Converts B<in-place> data between two encodings. For example, to
+convert ISO-8859-1 data to UTF-8:
- from_to($data, "iso-8859-1", "utf-8");
+ from_to($data, "iso-8859-1", "utf8");
and to convert it back:
- from_to($data, "utf-8", "iso-8859-1");
+ from_to($data, "utf8", "iso-8859-1");
Note that because the conversion happens in place, the data to be
-converted cannot be a string constant, it must be a scalar variable.
+converted cannot be a string constant; it must be a scalar variable.
-from_to() return the length of the converted string on success, undef
+from_to() returns the length of the converted string on success, undef
otherwise.
-=back
+B<CAVEAT>: The following operations look the same but not quite so;
+
+ from_to($data, "iso-8859-1", "utf8"); #1
+ $data = decode("iso-8859-1", $data); #2
-=head2 UTF-8 / utf8
+Both #1 and #2 makes $data consists of completely valid UTF-8 string
+but only #2 turns utf8 flag on. #1 is equivalent to
-The Unicode consortium defines the UTF-8 standard as a way of encoding
-the entire Unicode repertoire as sequences of octets. This encoding is
-expected to become very widespread. Perl can use this form internally
-to represent strings, so conversions to and from this form are
-particularly efficient (as octets in memory do not have to change,
-just the meta-data that tells Perl how to treat them).
+ $data = encode("utf8", decode("iso-8859-1", $data));
-=over 4
+See L</"The UTF-8 flag"> below.
=item $octets = encode_utf8($string);
-The characters that comprise string are encoded in Perl's superset of UTF-8
-and the resulting octets returned as a sequence of bytes. All possible
+Equivalent to C<$octets = encode("utf8", $string);> The characters
+that comprise $string are encoded in Perl's superset of UTF-8 and the
+resulting octets are returned as a sequence of bytes. All possible
characters have a UTF-8 representation so this function cannot fail.
+
=item $string = decode_utf8($octets [, CHECK]);
-The sequence of octets represented by $octets is decoded from UTF-8
-into a sequence of logical characters. Not all sequences of octets
-form valid UTF-8 encodings, so it is possible for this call to fail.
-For CHECK see L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
+equivalent to C<$string = decode("utf8", $octets [, CHECK])>.
+decode_utf8($octets [, CHECK]); The sequence of octets represented by
+$octets is decoded from UTF-8 into a sequence of logical
+characters. Not all sequences of octets form valid UTF-8 encodings, so
+it is possible for this call to fail. For CHECK, see
+L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
=back
@all_encodings = Encode->encodings(":all");
-Or you can give the name of specific module.
+Or you can give the name of a specific module.
@with_jp = Encode->encodings("Encode::JP");
@ebcdic = Encode->encodings("EBCDIC");
-To find which encodings are supported by this package in details,
+To find out in detail which encodings are supported by this package,
see L<Encode::Supported>.
=head2 Defining Aliases
-To add new alias to a given encoding, Use;
+To add a new alias to a given encoding, use:
use Encode;
use Encode::Alias;
ENCODING may be either the name of an encoding or an
I<encoding object>
-See L<Encode::Alias> on details.
+But before you do so, make sure the alias is nonexistent with
+C<resolve_alias()>, which returns the canonical name thereof.
+i.e.
-=head1 Encoding and IO
+ Encode::resolve_alias("latin1") eq "iso-8859-1" # true
+ Encode::resolve_alias("iso-8859-12") # false; nonexistent
+ Encode::resolve_alias($name) eq $name # true if $name is canonical
-It is very common to want to do encoding transformations when
-reading or writing files, network connections, pipes etc.
-If Perl is configured to use the new 'perlio' IO system then
-C<Encode> provides a "layer" (See L<perliol>) which can transform
-data as it is read or written.
+resolve_alias() does not need C<use Encode::Alias>; it can be
+exported via C<use Encode qw(resolve_alias)>.
-Here is how the blind poet would modernise the encoding:
+See L<Encode::Alias> for details.
- use Encode;
- open(my $iliad,'<:encoding(iso-8859-7)','iliad.greek');
- open(my $utf8,'>:utf8','iliad.utf8');
- my @epic = <$iliad>;
- print $utf8 @epic;
- close($utf8);
- close($illiad);
+=head1 Encoding via PerlIO
+
+If your perl supports I<PerlIO>, you can use a PerlIO layer to decode
+and encode directly via a filehandle. The following two examples
+are totally identical in their functionality.
-In addition the new IO system can also be configured to read/write
-UTF-8 encoded characters (as noted above this is efficient):
+ # via PerlIO
+ open my $in, "<:encoding(shiftjis)", $infile or die;
+ open my $out, ">:encoding(euc-jp)", $outfile or die;
+ while(<>){ print; }
- open(my $fh,'>:utf8','anything');
- print $fh "Any \x{0021} string \N{SMILEY FACE}\n";
+ # via from_to
+ open my $in, "<", $infile or die;
+ open my $out, ">", $outfile or die;
+ while(<>){
+ from_to($_, "shiftjis", "euc-jp", 1);
+ }
-Either of the above forms of "layer" specifications can be made the default
-for a lexical scope with the C<use open ...> pragma. See L<open>.
+Unfortunately, there may be encodings are PerlIO-savvy. You can check
+if your encoding is supported by PerlIO by calling the C<perlio_ok>
+method.
-Once a handle is open is layers can be altered using C<binmode>.
+ Encode::perlio_ok("hz"); # False
+ find_encoding("euc-cn")->perlio_ok; # True where PerlIO is available
-Without any such configuration, or if Perl itself is built using
-system's own IO, then write operations assume that file handle accepts
-only I<bytes> and will C<die> if a character larger than 255 is
-written to the handle. When reading, each octet from the handle
-becomes a byte-in-a-character. Note that this default is the same
-behaviour as bytes-only languages (including Perl before v5.6) would
-have, and is sufficient to handle native 8-bit encodings
-e.g. iso-8859-1, EBCDIC etc. and any legacy mechanisms for handling
-other encodings and binary data.
+ use Encode qw(perlio_ok); # exported upon request
+ perlio_ok("euc-jp")
-In other cases it is the programs responsibility to transform
-characters into bytes using the API above before doing writes, and to
-transform the bytes read from a handle into characters before doing
-"character operations" (e.g. C<lc>, C</\W+/>, ...).
+Fortunately, all encodings that come with Encode core are PerlIO-savvy
+except for hz and ISO-2022-kr. See L<Encode::Encoding> for details.
-You can also use PerlIO to convert larger amounts of data you don't
-want to bring into memory. For example to convert between ISO-8859-1
-(Latin 1) and UTF-8 (or UTF-EBCDIC in EBCDIC machines):
+For gory details, see L<Encode::PerlIO>.
- open(F, "<:encoding(iso-8859-1)", "data.txt") or die $!;
- open(G, ">:utf8", "data.utf") or die $!;
- while (<F>) { print G }
+=head1 Handling Malformed Data
- # Could also do "print G <F>" but that would pull
- # the whole file into memory just to write it out again.
+=over 2
-More examples:
+The I<CHECK> argument is used as follows. When you omit it,
+the behaviour is the same as if you had passed a value of 0 for
+I<CHECK>.
- open(my $f, "<:encoding(cp1252)")
- open(my $g, ">:encoding(iso-8859-2)")
- open(my $h, ">:encoding(latin9)") # iso-8859-15
+=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_DEFAULT ( == 0)
-See L<PerlIO> for more information.
+If I<CHECK> is 0, (en|de)code will put a I<substitution character>
+in place of a malformed character. For UCM-based encodings,
+E<lt>subcharE<gt> will be used. For Unicode, "\x{FFFD}" is used.
+If the data is supposed to be UTF-8, an optional lexical warning
+(category utf8) is given.
-See also L<encoding> for how to change the default encoding of the
-data in your script.
+=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_CROAK ( == 1)
-=head1 Handling Malformed Data
+If I<CHECK> is 1, methods will die immediately with an error
+message. Therefore, when I<CHECK> is set to 1, you should trap the
+fatal error with eval{} unless you really want to let it die on error.
+
+=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_QUIET
+
+If I<CHECK> is set to Encode::FB_QUIET, (en|de)code will immediately
+return the portion of the data that has been processed so far when
+an error occurs. The data argument will be overwritten with
+everything after that point (that is, the unprocessed part of data).
+This is handy when you have to call decode repeatedly in the case
+where your source data may contain partial multi-byte character
+sequences, for example because you are reading with a fixed-width
+buffer. Here is some sample code that does exactly this:
+
+ my $data = '';
+ while(defined(read $fh, $buffer, 256)){
+ # buffer may end in a partial character so we append
+ $data .= $buffer;
+ $utf8 .= decode($encoding, $data, ENCODE::FB_QUIET);
+ # $data now contains the unprocessed partial character
+ }
+
+=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_WARN
+
+This is the same as above, except that it warns on error. Handy when
+you are debugging the mode above.
+
+=item perlqq mode (I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_PERLQQ)
+
+=item HTML charref mode (I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_HTMLCREF)
+
+=item XML charref mode (I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_XMLCREF)
+
+For encodings that are implemented by Encode::XS, CHECK ==
+Encode::FB_PERLQQ turns (en|de)code into C<perlqq> fallback mode.
+
+When you decode, '\xI<XX>' will be inserted for a malformed character,
+where I<XX> is the hex representation of the octet that could not be
+decoded to utf8. And when you encode, '\x{I<xxxx>}' will be inserted,
+where I<xxxx> is the Unicode ID of the character that cannot be found
+in the character repertoire of the encoding.
-If I<CHECK> is not set, (en|de)code will put I<substitution character> in
-place of the malformed character. for UCM-based encodings,
-E<lt>subcharE<gt> will be used. For Unicode, \xFFFD is used. If the
-data is supposed to be UTF-8, an optional lexical warning (category
-utf8) is given.
+HTML/XML character reference modes are about the same, in place of
+\x{I<xxxx>}, HTML uses &#I<1234>; where I<1234> is a decimal digit and
+XML uses &#xI<abcd>; where I<abcd> is the hexadecimal digit.
-If I<CHECK> is true but not a code reference, dies with an error message.
+=item The bitmask
-In future you will be able to use a code reference to a callback
+These modes are actually set via a bitmask. Here is how the FB_XX
+constants are laid out. You can import the FB_XX constants via
+C<use Encode qw(:fallbacks)>; you can import the generic bitmask
+constants via C<use Encode qw(:fallback_all)>.
+
+ FB_DEFAULT FB_CROAK FB_QUIET FB_WARN FB_PERLQQ
+ DIE_ON_ERR 0x0001 X
+ WARN_ON_ER 0x0002 X
+ RETURN_ON_ERR 0x0004 X X
+ LEAVE_SRC 0x0008
+ PERLQQ 0x0100 X
+ HTMLCREF 0x0200
+ XMLCREF 0x0400
+
+=head2 Unimplemented fallback schemes
+
+In the future, you will be able to use a code reference to a callback
function for the value of I<CHECK> but its API is still undecided.
=head1 Defining Encodings
define_encoding($object, 'canonicalName' [, alias...]);
I<canonicalName> will be associated with I<$object>. The object
-should provide the interface described in L<Encode::Encoding>
+should provide the interface described in L<Encode::Encoding>.
If more than two arguments are provided then additional
-arguments are taken as aliases for I<$object> as for C<define_alias>.
+arguments are taken as aliases for I<$object>, as for C<define_alias>.
See L<Encode::Encoding> for more details.
-=head1 Messing with Perl's Internals
+=head1 The UTF-8 flag
+
+Before the introduction of utf8 support in perl, The C<eq> operator
+just compares internal data of the scalars. Now C<eq> means internal
+data equality AND I<the utf8 flag>. To explain why we made it so, I
+will quote page 402 of C<Programming Perl, 3rd ed.>
+
+=over 2
+
+=item Goal #1:
+
+Old byte-oriented programs should not spontaneously break on the old
+byte-oriented data they used to work on.
+
+=item Goal #2:
+
+Old byte-oriented programs should magically start working on the new
+character-oriented data when appropriate.
+
+=item Goal #3:
+
+Programs should run just as fast in the new character-oriented mode
+as in the old byte-oriented mode.
+
+=item Goal #4:
+
+Perl should remain one language, rather than forking into a
+byte-oriented Perl and a character-oriented Perl.
+
+=back
+
+Back when C<Programming Perl, 3rd ed.> was written, not even Perl 5.6.0
+was born and many features documented in the book remained
+unimplemented. Perl 5.8 hopefully correct this and the introduction
+of UTF-8 flag is one of them. You can think this perl notion of
+byte-oriented mode (utf8 flag off) and character-oriented mode (utf8
+flag on).
+
+Here is how Encode takes care of the utf8 flag.
+
+=over2
+
+=item *
+
+When you encode, the resulting utf8 flag is always off.
+
+=item
+
+When you decode, the resuting utf8 flag is on unless you can
+unambiguously represent data. Here is the definition of
+dis-ambiguity.
+
+ After C<$utf8 = decode('foo', $octet);>,
+
+ When $octet is... The utf8 flag in $utf8 is
+ ---------------------------------------------
+ In ASCII only (or EBCDIC only) OFF
+ In ISO-8859-1 ON
+ In any other Encoding ON
+ ---------------------------------------------
+
+As you see, there is one exception, In ASCII. That way you can assue
+Goal #1. And with Encode Goal #2 is assumed but you still have to be
+careful in such cases mentioned in B<CAVEAT> paragraphs.
+
+This utf8 flag is not visible in perl scripts, exactly for the same
+reason you cannot (or you I<don't have to>) see if a scalar contains a
+string, integer, or floating point number. But you can still peek
+and poke these if you will. See the section below.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Messing with Perl's Internals
The following API uses parts of Perl's internals in the current
-implementation. As such they are efficient, but may change.
+implementation. As such, they are efficient but may change.
-=over 4
+=over 2
=item is_utf8(STRING [, CHECK])
-[INTERNAL] Test whether the UTF-8 flag is turned on in the STRING.
+[INTERNAL] Tests whether the UTF-8 flag is turned on in the STRING.
If CHECK is true, also checks the data in STRING for being well-formed
UTF-8. Returns true if successful, false otherwise.
=item _utf8_on(STRING)
-[INTERNAL] Turn on the UTF-8 flag in STRING. The data in STRING is
+[INTERNAL] Turns on the UTF-8 flag in STRING. The data in STRING is
B<not> checked for being well-formed UTF-8. Do not use unless you
B<know> that the STRING is well-formed UTF-8. Returns the previous
-state of the UTF-8 flag (so please don't test the return value as
-I<not> success or failure), or C<undef> if STRING is not a string.
+state of the UTF-8 flag (so please don't treat the return value as
+indicating success or failure), or C<undef> if STRING is not a string.
=item _utf8_off(STRING)
-[INTERNAL] Turn off the UTF-8 flag in STRING. Do not use frivolously.
-Returns the previous state of the UTF-8 flag (so please don't test the
-return value as I<not> success or failure), or C<undef> if STRING is
+[INTERNAL] Turns off the UTF-8 flag in STRING. Do not use frivolously.
+Returns the previous state of the UTF-8 flag (so please don't treat the
+return value as indicating success or failure), or C<undef> if STRING is
not a string.
=back
L<Encode::Encoding>,
L<Encode::Supported>,
-L<PerlIO>,
+L<Encode::PerlIO>,
L<encoding>,
-L<perlebcdic>,
-L<perlfunc/open>,
-L<perlunicode>,
-L<utf8>,
+L<perlebcdic>,
+L<perlfunc/open>,
+L<perlunicode>,
+L<utf8>,
the Perl Unicode Mailing List E<lt>perl-unicode@perl.orgE<gt>
+=head1 MAINTAINER
+
+This project was originated by Nick Ing-Simmons and later maintained
+by Dan Kogai E<lt>dankogai@dan.co.jpE<gt>. See AUTHORS for a full
+list of people involved. For any questions, use
+E<lt>perl-unicode@perl.orgE<gt> so we can all share share.
+
=cut