$utf8::hint_bits = 0x00800000;
-our $VERSION = '1.02';
+our $VERSION = '1.06';
sub import {
$^H |= $utf8::hint_bits;
sub AUTOLOAD {
require "utf8_heavy.pl";
goto &$AUTOLOAD if defined &$AUTOLOAD;
+ require Carp;
Carp::croak("Undefined subroutine $AUTOLOAD called");
}
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);
"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
+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
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
+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:
=item * $num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string)
-Converts (in-place) internal representation of string to Perl's
-internal I<UTF-X> form. Returns the number of octets necessary to
-represent the string as I<UTF-X>. Can be used to make sure that the
-UTF-8 flag is on, so that C<\w> or C<lc()> work as expected on strings
-containing characters in the range 0x80-0xFF (oon ASCII and
-derivatives). Note that this should not be used to convert a legacy
-byte encoding to Unicode: use Encode for that. Affected by the
-encoding pragma.
+Converts in-place the octet sequence in the native encoding
+(Latin-1 or EBCDIC) to the equivalent character sequence in I<UTF-X>.
+I<$string> already encoded as characters does no harm.
+Returns the number of octets necessary to represent the string as I<UTF-X>.
+Can be used to make sure that the UTF-8 flag is on,
+so that C<\w> or C<lc()> work as Unicode on strings
+containing characters in the range 0x80-0xFF (on ASCII and
+derivatives).
+
+B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
+Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
+
+Affected by the encoding pragma.
=item * $success = utf8::downgrade($string[, FAIL_OK])
-Converts (in-place) internal representation of string to be un-encoded
-bytes. Returns true on success. On failure dies or, if the value of
-FAIL_OK is true, returns false. Can be used to make sure that the
-UTF-8 flag is off, e.g. when you want to make sure that the substr()
-or length() function works with the usually faster byte algorithm.
-Note that this should not be used to convert Unicode back to a legacy
-byte encoding: use Encode for that. B<Not> affected by the encoding
-pragma.
+Converts in-place the character sequence in I<UTF-X>
+to the equivalent octet sequence in the native encoding (Latin-1 or EBCDIC).
+I<$string> already encoded as octets does no harm.
+Returns true on success. On failure dies or, if the value of
+C<FAIL_OK> is true, returns false.
+Can be used to make sure that the UTF-8 flag is off,
+e.g. when you want to make sure that the substr() or length() function
+works with the usually faster byte algorithm.
+
+B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
+Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
+
+B<Not> affected by the encoding pragma.
+
+B<NOTE:> this function is experimental and may change
+or be removed without notice.
=item * utf8::encode($string)
-Converts (in-place) I<$string> from logical characters to octet
-sequence representing it in Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding. Returns
-nothing. Same as Encode::encode_utf8(). Note that this should not be
-used to convert a legacy byte encoding to Unicode: use Encode for
-that.
+Converts in-place the character sequence to the corresponding octet sequence
+in I<UTF-X>. The UTF-8 flag is turned off. Returns nothing.
+
+B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
+Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
=item * utf8::decode($string)
-Attempts to convert I<$string> in-place from Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding
-into logical characters. Returns nothing. Same as Encode::decode_utf8().
-Note that this should not be used to convert Unicode back to a legacy
-byte encoding: use Encode for that.
+Attempts to convert in-place the octet sequence in I<UTF-X>
+to the corresponding character sequence. The UTF-8 flag is turned on
+only if the source string contains multiple-byte I<UTF-X> characters.
+If I<$string> is invalid as I<UTF-X>, returns false; otherwise returns true.
+
+B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
+Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
+
+B<NOTE:> this function is experimental and may change
+or be removed without notice.
=item * $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING)