$utf8::hint_bits = 0x00800000;
-our $VERSION = '1.02';
+our $VERSION = '1.03';
sub import {
$^H |= $utf8::hint_bits;
use utf8;
no utf8;
+ # Convert a Perl scalar to/from UTF-8.
$num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string);
$success = utf8::downgrade($string[, FAIL_OK]);
+ # Change the native bytes of a Perl scalar to/from UTF-8 bytes.
utf8::encode($string);
utf8::decode($string);
- $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING);
+ $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING); # since Perl 5.8.1
$flag = utf8::valid(STRING);
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This pragma is primarily a compatibility device. Perl versions
earlier than 5.6 allowed arbitrary bytes in source code, whereas
in future we would like to standardize on the UTF-8 encoding for
-source text. Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source
-text, this pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8 in the source.
-When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this pragma will
-effectively become a no-op. For convenience in what follows the
-term I<UTF-X> is used to refer to UTF-8 on ASCII and ISO Latin based
-platforms and UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC based platforms.
+source text.
+
+B<Do not use this pragma for anything else than telling Perl that your
+script is written in UTF-8.> The utility functions described below are
+useful for their own purposes, but they are not really part of the
+"pragmatic" effect.
+
+Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source text, either this
+pragma or the L</encoding> pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8
+in the source. When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this
+pragma will effectively become a no-op. For convenience in what
+follows the term I<UTF-X> is used to refer to UTF-8 on ASCII and ISO
+Latin based platforms and UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC based platforms.
+
+See also the effects of the C<-C> switch and its cousin, the
+C<$ENV{PERL_UNICODE}>, in L<perlrun>.
Enabling the C<utf8> pragma has the following effect:
UTF-8. If you want to have such bytes and use utf8, you can disable
utf8 until the end the block (or file, if at top level) by C<no utf8;>.
+If you want to automatically upgrade your 8-bit legacy bytes to UTF-8,
+use the L</encoding> pragma instead of this pragma. For example, if
+you want to implicitly upgrade your ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) bytes to UTF-8
+as used in e.g. C<chr()> and C<\x{...}>, try this:
+
+ use encoding "latin-1";
+ my $c = chr(0xc4);
+ my $x = "\x{c5}";
+
+In case you are wondering: yes, C<use encoding 'utf8';> works much
+the same as C<use utf8;>.
+
=head2 Utility functions
The following functions are defined in the C<utf8::> package by the
Perl core. You do not need to say C<use utf8> to use these and in fact
-you should not unless you really want to have UTF-8 source code.
+you should not say that unless you really want to have UTF-8 source code.
=over 4
=item * utf8::encode($string)
-Converts (in-place) I<$string> from logical characters to octet
-sequence representing it in Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding. Returns
-nothing. Same as Encode::encode_utf8(). Note that this should not be
-used to convert a legacy byte encoding to Unicode: use Encode for
-that.
+Converts in-place the octets of the I<$string> to the octet sequence
+in Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding. Returns nothing. B<Note that this does
+not change the "type" of I<$string> to UTF-8>, and that this handles
+only ISO 8859-1 (or EBCDIC) as the source character set. Therefore
+this should not be used to convert a legacy 8-bit encoding to Unicode:
+use Encode::decode() for that. In the very limited case of wanting to
+handle just ISO 8859-1 (or EBCDIC), you could use utf8::upgrade().
=item * utf8::decode($string)
Attempts to convert I<$string> in-place from Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding
-into logical characters. Returns nothing. Same as Encode::decode_utf8().
-Note that this should not be used to convert Unicode back to a legacy
-byte encoding: use Encode for that.
+into octets. Returns nothing. B<Note that this does not change the
+"type" of <$string> from UTF-8>, and that this handles only ISO 8859-1
+(or EBCDIC) as the destination character set. Therefore this should
+not be used to convert Unicode back to a legacy 8-bit encoding:
+use Encode::encode() for that. In the very limited case of wanting
+to handle just ISO 8859-1 (or EBCDIC), you could use utf8::downgrade().
=item * $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING)
-Test whether STRING is in UTF-8. Same as Encode::is_utf8().
+(Since Perl 5.8.1) Test whether STRING is in UTF-8. Functionally
+the same as Encode::is_utf8().
=item * $flag = utf8::valid(STRING)
functions C<sv_utf8_upgrade>, C<sv_utf8_downgrade>, C<sv_utf8_encode>,
and C<sv_utf8_decode>, which are wrapped by the Perl functions
C<utf8::upgrade>, C<utf8::downgrade>, C<utf8::encode> and
-C<utf8::decode>. Note that in the Perl 5.8.0 implementation the
-functions utf8::is_utf8, utf8::valid, utf8::encode, utf8::decode,
+C<utf8::decode>. Note that in the Perl 5.8.0 and 5.8.1 implementation
+the functions utf8::is_utf8, utf8::valid, utf8::encode, utf8::decode,
utf8::upgrade, and utf8::downgrade are always available, without a
C<require utf8> statement-- this may change in future releases.
=head1 SEE ALSO
-L<perlunicode>, L<bytes>
+L<perluniintro>, L<encoding>, L<perlrun>, L<bytes>, L<perlunicode>
=cut