=item *
-Implement L</_ prototype character>
-
-=item *
-
Review smart match semantics in light of Perl 6 developments.
=item *
=head2 Parallel testing
-(This probably impacts much more than the core, but the Test::Harness
+(This probably impacts much more than the core: also the Test::Harness
and TAP::* modules on CPAN.)
The core regression test suite is getting ever more comprehensive, which has
It would be good to teach C<embed.pl> to understand the conditional
compilation, and hence remove the duplication, and the mistakes it has caused.
-
-
-
-
-
=head1 Tasks that need a little sysadmin-type knowledge
Or if you prefer, tasks that you would learn from, and broaden your skills
assumed then to be copied to TARGET machine and used as a replacement of full
C<perl> executable.
-This should be done litle differently. Namely C<miniperl> should be built for
+This could be done little differently. Namely C<miniperl> should be built for
HOST and then full C<perl> with extensions should be compiled for TARGET.
-
-
+This, however, might require extra trickery for %Config: we have one config
+first for HOST and then another for TARGET.
=head1 Tasks that need a little C knowledge
want to determine what ops I<really> are the most commonly used. And in turn
suggest evictions and promotions to achieve a better F<pp_hot.c>.
-=head2 Shrink struct context
+=head2 Allocate OPs from arenas
+
+Currently all new OP structures are individually malloc()ed and free()d.
+All C<malloc> implementations have space overheads, and are now as fast as
+custom allocates so it would both use less memory and less CPU to allocate
+the various OP structures from arenas. The SV arena code can probably be
+re-used for this.
+
+=head2 Improve win32/wince.c
+
+Currently, numerous functions look virtually, if not completely,
+identical in both C<win32/wince.c> and C<win32/win32.c> files, which can't
+be good.
+
+=head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of XS
+
+These tasks would need C knowledge, and roughly the level of knowledge of
+the perl API that comes from writing modules that use XS to interface to
+C.
+
+=head2 shrink C<PVBM>s
+
+By removing unused elements and careful re-ordering, the structures for C<AV>s,
+C<HV>s, C<CV>s and C<GV>s have recently been shrunk considerably. C<PVIO>s
+probably aren't worth it, as typical programs don't use more than 8, and
+(at least) C<Filter::Util::Call> uses C<SvPVX>/C<SvCUR>/C<SvLEN> on a C<PVIO>,
+so it would mean code changes to modules on CPAN. C<PVBM>s might have some
+savings to win.
+
+=head2 autovivification
+
+Make all autovivification consistent w.r.t LVALUE/RVALUE and strict/no strict;
+
+This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help.
+
+=head2 Unicode in Filenames
+
+chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open,
+opendir, qx, readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen,
+system, truncate, unlink, utime, -X. All these could potentially accept
+Unicode filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system
+and qx Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell).
+Whether a filesystem - an operating system pair understands Unicode in
+filenames varies.
+
+Known combinations that have some level of understanding include
+Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS+ (In Mac OS 9 and X) and Apple UFS (in Mac
+OS X), NFS v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to
+create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used
+(UCS-2, UTF-16, UTF-8), what (if any) is the normalization form used,
+and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl
+requires some thought. Remember that an OS does not implicate a
+filesystem.
+
+(The Windows -C command flag "wide API support" has been at least
+temporarily retired in 5.8.1, and the -C has been repurposed, see
+L<perlrun>.)
+
+=head2 Unicode in %ENV
+
+Currently the %ENV entries are always byte strings.
+
+=head2 use less 'memory'
+
+Investigate trade offs to switch out perl's choices on memory usage.
+Particularly perl should be able to give memory back.
+
+This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help.
+
+=head2 Re-implement C<:unique> in a way that is actually thread-safe
+
+The old implementation made bad assumptions on several levels. A good 90%
+solution might be just to make C<:unique> work to share the string buffer
+of SvPVs. That way large constant strings can be shared between ithreads,
+such as the configuration information in F<Config>.
+
+=head2 Make tainting consistent
-In F<cop.h>, we have
+Tainting would be easier to use if it didn't take documented shortcuts and
+allow taint to "leak" everywhere within an expression.
+
+=head2 readpipe(LIST)
+
+system() accepts a LIST syntax (and a PROGRAM LIST syntax) to avoid
+running a shell. readpipe() (the function behind qx//) could be similarly
+extended.
- struct context {
- U32 cx_type; /* what kind of context this is */
- union {
- struct block cx_blk;
- struct subst cx_subst;
- } cx_u;
- };
+=head2 strcat(), strcpy(), strncat(), strncpy(), sprintf(), vsprintf()
+
+Maybe create a utility that checks after each libperl.a creation that
+none of the above (nor sprintf(), vsprintf(), or *SHUDDER* gets())
+ever creep back to libperl.a.
+
+ nm libperl.a | ./miniperl -alne '$o = $F[0] if /:$/; print "$o $F[1]" if $F[0] eq "U" && $F[1] =~ /^(?:strn?c(?:at|py)|v?sprintf|gets)$/'
+
+Note, of course, that this will only tell whether B<your> platform
+is using those naughty interfaces.
+
+=head2 Audit the code for destruction ordering assumptions
+
+Change 25773 notes
-There are less than 256 values for C<cx_type>, and the constituent parts
-C<struct block> and C<struct subst> both contain some C<U8> and C<U16> fields,
-so it should be possible to move them to the first word, and share space with
-a C<U8> C<cx_type>, saving 1 word.
=head2 Allocate OPs from arenas
running a shell. readpipe() (the function behind qx//) could be similarly
extended.
+=head2 strcat(), strcpy(), strncat(), strncpy(), sprintf(), vsprintf()
+
+Maybe create a utility that checks after each libperl.a creation that
+none of the above (nor sprintf(), vsprintf(), or *SHUDDER* gets())
+ever creep back to libperl.a.
+
+ nm libperl.a | ./miniperl -alne '$o = $F[0] if /:$/; print "$o $F[1]" if $F[0] eq "U" && $F[1] =~ /^(?:strn?c(?:at|py)|v?sprintf|gets)$/'
+
+Note, of course, that this will only tell whether B<your> platform
+is using those naughty interfaces.
+=head2 Audit the code for destruction ordering assumptions
+Change 25773 notes
+ /* Need to check SvMAGICAL, as during global destruction it may be that
+ AvARYLEN(av) has been freed before av, and hence the SvANY() pointer
+ is now part of the linked list of SV heads, rather than pointing to
+ the original body. */
+ /* FIXME - audit the code for other bugs like this one. */
+
+adding the C<SvMAGICAL> check to
+
+ if (AvARYLEN(av) && SvMAGICAL(AvARYLEN(av))) {
+ MAGIC *mg = mg_find (AvARYLEN(av), PERL_MAGIC_arylen);
+
+Go through the core and look for similar assumptions that SVs have particular
+types, as all bets are off during global destruction.
=head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of the interpreter
The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work in the debugger. This
would be good to fix.
-=head2 _ prototype character
-
-Study the possibility of adding a new prototype character, C<_>, meaning
-"this argument defaults to $_".
-
=head2 regexp optimiser optional
The regexp optimiser is not optional. It should configurable to be, to allow
its performance to be measured, and its bugs to be easily demonstrated.
-=head2 UNITCHECK
-
-Introduce a new special block, UNITCHECK, which is run at the end of a
-compilation unit (module, file, eval(STRING) block). This will correspond to
-the Perl 6 CHECK. Perl 5's CHECK cannot be changed or removed because the
-O.pm/B.pm backend framework depends on it.
-
=head2 delete &function
Allow to delete functions. One can already undef them, but they're still
tokeniser ignores the UTF-8-ness of C<PL_rsfp>, or any SVs returned from
source filters. All this could be fixed.
-=head2 Integrate Russ Allbery's strlcat/strlcpy implementation
-
-And remove the last remaining uses of strcat() and strcpy(). Also, add
-my_strlcat() and my_strlcpy() to Devel::PPPort so previous versions of Perl can
-use these APIs.
-
=head1 Big projects
Tasks that will get your name mentioned in the description of the "Highlights
This will allow the use of a regex from inside (?{ }), (??{ }) and
(?(?{ })|) constructs.
+
+=head2 Add (?YES) (?NO) to regexp enigne
+
+YES/NO would allow a subpattern to be passed/failed but allow backtracking.
+Basically a more efficient (?=), (?!).
+
+demerphq has this on his todo list
+
+=head2 Add (?SUCCEED) (?FAIL) to regexp engine
+
+SUCCEED/FAIL would allow a pattern to be passed/failed but without backtracking.
+Thus you could signal that a pattern has matched or not, and return (regardless
+that there is more pattern following).
+
+demerphq has this on his todo list
+
+=head2 Add (?CUT) (?COMMIT) to regexp engine
+
+CUT would allow a pattern to say "do not backtrack beyond here".
+COMMIT would say match from here or don't, but don't try the pattern from
+another starting pattern.
+
+These correspond to the \v and \V that Jeffrey Friedl mentions in
+Mastering Regular Expressions 2nd edition.
+
+demerphq has this on his todo list
+
+=head2 Add class set operations to regexp engine
+
+Apparently these are quite useful. Anyway, Jeffery Friedl wants them.
+
+demerphq has this on his todo list, but right at the bottom.
+
+
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff