=head1 DESCRIPTION
-This is a list of wishes for Perl. The tasks we think are smaller or
-easier are listed first. Anyone is welcome to work on any of these,
-but it's a good idea to first contact I<perl5-porters@perl.org> to
-avoid duplication of effort, and to learn from any previous attempts.
-By all means contact a pumpking privately first if you prefer.
+This is a list of wishes for Perl. The most up to date version of this file
+is at http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/pod/perltodo.pod
+
+The tasks we think are smaller or easier are listed first. Anyone is welcome
+to work on any of these, but it's a good idea to first contact
+I<perl5-porters@perl.org> to avoid duplication of effort, and to learn from
+any previous attempts. By all means contact a pumpking privately first if you
+prefer.
Whilst patches to make the list shorter are most welcome, ideas to add to
the list are also encouraged. Check the perl5-porters archives for past
=head1 Tasks that only need Perl knowledge
-=head2 Smartmatch design issues
-
-In 5.10.0 the smartmatch operator C<~~> isn't working quite "right". But
-before we can fix the implementation, we need to define what "right" is.
-The first problem is that Robin Houston implemented the Perl 6 smart match
-spec as of February 2006, when smart match was axiomatically symmetrical:
-L<http://groups.google.com/group/perl.perl6.language/msg/bf2b486f089ad021>
-
-Since then the Perl 6 target moved, but the Perl 5 implementation did not.
-
-So it would be useful for someone to compare the Perl 6 smartmatch table
-as of February 2006 L<http://svn.perl.org/viewvc/perl6/doc/trunk/design/syn/S03.pod?view=markup&pathrev=7615>
-and the current table L<http://svn.perl.org/viewvc/perl6/doc/trunk/design/syn/S03.pod?revision=14556&view=markup>
-and tabulate the differences in Perl 6. The annotated view of changes is
-L<http://svn.perl.org/viewvc/perl6/doc/trunk/design/syn/S03.pod?view=annotate> and the diff is
-C<svn diff -r7615:14556 http://svn.perl.org/perl6/doc/trunk/design/syn/S03.pod>
--- search for C<=head1 Smart matching>. (In theory F<viewvc> can generate that,
-but in practice when I tried it hung forever, I assume "thinking")
-
-With that done and published, someone (else) can then map any changed Perl 6
-semantics back to Perl 5, based on how the existing semantics map to Perl 5:
-L<http://search.cpan.org/~rgarcia/perl-5.10.0/pod/perlsyn.pod#Smart_matching_in_detail>
-
-
-There are also some questions that need answering:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-How do you negate one? (documentation issue)
-http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2008-01/msg00071.html
-
-=item *
-
-Array behaviors
-http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2007-12/msg00799.html
+=head2 Remove macperl references from tests
-* Should smart matches be symmetrical? (Perl 6 says no)
-
-* Other differences between Perl 5 and Perl 6 smart match?
-
-=item *
-
-Objects and smart match
-http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2007-12/msg00865.html
-
-=back
+MacPerl is gone. The tests don't need to be there.
=head2 Remove duplication of test setup.
The addition of C<Pod::Simple> and its related modules may make this task
easier to complete.
+=head2 Make ExtUtils::ParseXS use strict;
+
+F<lib/ExtUtils/ParseXS.pm> contains this line
+
+ # use strict; # One of these days...
+
+Simply uncomment it, and fix all the resulting issues :-)
+
+The more practical approach, to break the task down into manageable chunks, is
+to work your way though the code from bottom to top, or if necessary adding
+extra C<{ ... }> blocks, and turning on strict within them.
+
=head2 Parallel testing
(This probably impacts much more than the core: also the Test::Harness
Although I can see that as confusing, given that C<$Config{d_link}> is true
when (hard) links are available.
+=head2 Configure Windows using PowerShell
+
+Currently, Windows uses hard-coded config files based to build the
+config.h for compiling Perl. Makefiles are also hard-coded and need to be
+hand edited prior to building Perl. While this makes it easy to create a perl.exe
+that works across multiple Windows versions, being able to accurately
+configure a perl.exe for a specific Windows versions and VS C++ would be
+a nice enhancement. With PowerShell available on Windows XP and up, this
+may now be possible. Step 1 might be to investigate whether this is possible
+and use this to clean up our current makefile situation. Step 2 would be to
+see if there would be a way to use our existing metaconfig units to configure a
+Windows Perl or whether we go in a separate direction and make it so. Of
+course, we all know what step 3 is.
+
+=head2 decouple -g and -DDEBUGGING
+
+Currently F<Configure> automatically adds C<-DDEBUGGING> to the C compiler
+flags if it spots C<-g> in the optimiser flags. The pre-processor directive
+C<DEBUGGING> enables F<perl>'s command line <-D> options, but in the process
+makes F<perl> slower. It would be good to disentangle this logic, so that
+C-level debugging with C<-g> and Perl level debugging with C<-D> can easily
+be enabled independently.
+
=head1 Tasks that need a little C knowledge
These tasks would need a little C knowledge, but don't need any specific
the perl API that comes from writing modules that use XS to interface to
C.
+=head2 Remove the use of SVs as temporaries in dump.c
+
+F<dump.c> contains debugging routines to dump out the contains of perl data
+structures, such as C<SV>s, C<AV>s and C<HV>s. Currently, the dumping code
+B<uses> C<SV>s for its temporary buffers, which was a logical initial
+implementation choice, as they provide ready made memory handling.
+
+However, they also lead to a lot of confusion when it happens that what you're
+trying to debug is seen by the code in F<dump.c>, correctly or incorrectly, as
+a temporary scalar it can use for a temporary buffer. It's also not possible
+to dump scalars before the interpreter is properly set up, such as during
+ithreads cloning. It would be good to progressively replace the use of scalars
+as string accumulation buffers with something much simpler, directly allocated
+by C<malloc>. The F<dump.c> code is (or should be) only producing 7 bit
+US-ASCII, so output character sets are not an issue.
+
+Producing and proving an internal simple buffer allocation would make it easier
+to re-write the internals of the PerlIO subsystem to avoid using C<SV>s for
+B<its> buffers, use of which can cause problems similar to those of F<dump.c>,
+at similar times.
+
=head2 safely supporting POSIX SA_SIGINFO
Some years ago Jarkko supplied patches to provide support for the POSIX
These tasks would need C knowledge, and knowledge of how the interpreter works,
or a willingness to learn.
+=head2 truncate() prototype
+
+The prototype of truncate() is currently C<$$>. It should probably
+be C<*$> instead. (This is changed in F<opcode.pl>)
+
+=head2 decapsulation of smart match argument
+
+Currently C<$foo ~~ $object> will die with the message "Smart matching a
+non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation". It would be nice to allow
+to bypass this by using explictly the syntax C<$foo ~~ %$object> or
+C<$foo ~~ @$object>.
+
=head2 error reporting of [$a ; $b]
Using C<;> inside brackets is a syntax error, and we don't propose to change
There is no method on tied filehandles to allow them to be called back by
formats.
+=head2 Propagate compilation hints to the debugger
+
+Currently a debugger started with -dE on the command-line doesn't see the
+features enabled by -E. More generally hints (C<$^H> and C<%^H>) aren't
+propagated to the debugger. Probably it would be a good thing to propagate
+hints from the innermost non-C<DB::> scope: this would make code eval'ed
+in the debugger see the features (and strictures, etc.) currently in
+scope.
+
=head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program
The old perltodo notes "With C<gdb>, you can attach the debugger to a running
debugger on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be
done." ssh and screen do this with named pipes in /tmp. Maybe we can too.
-=head2 Optimize away empty destructors
-
-Defining an empty DESTROY method might be useful (notably in
-AUTOLOAD-enabled classes), but it's still a bit expensive to call. That
-could probably be optimized.
-
=head2 LVALUE functions for lists
The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work for list or hash
=head2 Investigate PADTMP hash pessimisation
-The peephole optimier converts constants used for hash key lookups to shared
+The peephole optimiser converts constants used for hash key lookups to shared
hash key scalars. Under ithreads, something is undoing this work.
See http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2007-09/msg00793.html
Apparently these are quite useful. Anyway, Jeffery Friedl wants them.
demerphq has this on his todo list, but right at the bottom.
+
+
+=head1 Tasks for microperl
+
+
+[ Each and every one of these may be obsolete, but they were listed
+ in the old Todo.micro file]
+
+
+=head2 make creating uconfig.sh automatic
+
+=head2 make creating Makefile.micro automatic
+
+=head2 do away with fork/exec/wait?
+
+(system, popen should be enough?)
+
+=head2 some of the uconfig.sh really needs to be probed (using cc) in buildtime:
+
+(uConfigure? :-) native datatype widths and endianness come to mind
+
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff