This would be useful for printing warnings, or data and regex dumping,
not_a_number(), and so on.
-Requirements: should handle both byte and UTF8 strings. isPRINT()
+Requirements: should handle both byte and UTF-8 strings. isPRINT()
characters printed as-is, character less than 256 as \xHH, Unicode
characters as \x{HHH}. Don't assume ASCII-like, either, get somebody
on EBCDIC to test the output.
- append a "..." to the produced string if the maximum length is exceeded
- really fancy: print unicode characters as \N{...}
-NOTE: pv_display(), pv_uni_display(), sv_uni_display() are doing
-something like the above.
+NOTE: pv_display(), pv_uni_display(), sv_uni_display() are already
+doing something like the above.
=head2 Overloadable regex assertions
Case Mappings? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21/
-lc(), uc(), lcfirst(), and ucfirst() work only for some of the
-simplest cases, where the mapping goes from a single Unicode character
-to another single Unicode character. See lib/unicore/SpecCase.txt
-(and CaseFold.txt).
+Mostly implemented (all of 1:1, 1:N, N:1), only the "final sigma"
+and locale-specific rules of SpecCase are not implemented.
=item *
-They have some tricks Perl doesn't yet implement like character
-class subtraction.
+UTF-8 identifier names should probably be canonicalized: NFC?
- http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr18/
+=item *
+
+UTF-8 in package names and sub names? The first is problematic
+because of the mapping to pathnames, ditto for the second one if
+one does autosplitting, for example. Some of this works already
+in 5.8.0, but essentially it is unsupported. Constructs to consider,
+at the very least:
+
+ use utf8;
+ package UnicodePackage;
+ sub new { bless {}, shift };
+ sub UnicodeMethod1 { ... $_[0]->UnicodeMethod2(...) ... }
+ sub UnicodeMethod2 { ... } # in here caller(0) should contain Unicode
+ ...
+ package main;
+ my $x = UnicodePackage->new;
+ print ref $x, "\n"; # should be Unicode
+ $x->UnicodeMethod1(...);
+ my $y = UnicodeMethod3 UnicodePackage ...;
+
+In the above all I<UnicodeXxx> contain (identifier-worthy) characters
+beyond the code point 255, for example 256. Wherever package/class or
+subroutine names can be returned needs to be checked for Unicodeness.
=back
See L<perlunicode/UNICODE REGULAR EXPRESSION SUPPORT LEVEL> for what's
there and what's missing. Almost all of Levels 2 and 3 is missing,
and as of 5.8.0 not even all of Level 1 is there.
+They have some tricks Perl doesn't yet implement, such as character
+class subtraction.
+
+ http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr18/
-=head2 use Thread for iThreads
+=head2 Work out exit/die semantics for threads
-Artur Bergman's C<iThreads> module is a start on this, but needs to
-be more mature.
+There are some suggestions to use for example something like this:
+default to "(thread exiting first will) wait for the other threads
+until up to 60 seconds". Other possibilities:
-=head2 make perl_clone optionally clone ops
+ use threads wait => 0;
-So that pseudoforking, mod_perl, iThreads and nvi will work properly
-(but not as efficiently) until the regex engine is fixed to be threadsafe.
+Do not wait.
-=head2 Work out exit/die semantics for threads
+ use threads wait_for => 10;
+
+Wait up to 10 seconds.
+
+ use threads wait_for => -1;
+
+Wait for ever.
+
+http://archive.develooper.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg79618.html
+
+=head2 Better support for nonpreemptive threading systems like GNU pth
+
+To better support nonpreemptive threading systems, perhaps some of the
+blocking functions internally in Perl should do a yield() before a
+blocking call. (Now certain threads tests ({basic,list,thread.t})
+simply do a yield() before they sleep() to give nonpreemptive thread
+implementations a chance).
+
+In some cases, like the GNU pth, which has replacement functions that
+are nonblocking (pth_select instead of select), maybe Perl should be
+using them instead when built for threading.
=head2 Typed lexicals for compiler
Locales and Unicode interact with each other in unpleasant ways.
One possible solution would be to adopt/support ICU:
- http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/project/
-
-=head2 Thread-safe regexes
-
-The regular expression engine is currently non-threadsafe.
+ http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/index.html
=head2 Arithmetic on non-Arabic numerals
=head2 POSIX Unicode character classes
-(C<[=a=]> for equivalance classes, C<[.ch.]> for collation.)
+(C<[=a=]> for equivalence classes, C<[.ch.]> for collation.)
These are dependent on Unicode normalization and collation.
=head2 Factoring out common suffices/prefices in regexps (trie optimization)
gets invoked in which platform is simply a big mess that needs to be
untangled. Secondly, the effects are apparently not standard across
platforms, (if you first set $< and then $>, or vice versa, being
-uid==euid== zero, or just euid==zero, or as a normal user, what are
+uid == euid == zero, or just euid == zero, or as a normal user, what are
the results?). The test suite not (usually) being run as root means
that these things do not get much testing. Thirdly, there's quite
often a third uid called saved uid, and Perl has no knowledge of that
back any real and effective uids.) As an example, to change also the
saved uid, one needs to set the real and effective uids B<twice>-- in
most systems, that is: in HP-UX that doesn't seem to work.
-
+
=head2 Custom opcodes
Have a way to introduce user-defined opcodes without the subroutine call
=head2 Replace pod2html with something using Pod::Parser
The CPAN module C<Marek::Pod::Html> may be a more suitable basis for a
-C<pod2html> convertor; the current one duplicates the functionality
+C<pod2html> converter; the current one duplicates the functionality
abstracted in C<Pod::Parser>, which makes updating the POD language
difficult.
This is possible to do, but would be pretty messy to implement, as it
would rely on even more sed hackery in F<perly.fixer>.
-=head2 pack "(stuff)*"
-
-That's to say, C<pack "(sI)40"> would be the same as C<pack "sI"x40>
-
=head2 bitfields in pack
=head2 Cross compilation
C<qr//> already gives us a way of saving compiled regexps, but it should
be done automatically.
-=head2 Re-entrant functions
-
-Add configure probes for C<_r> forms of system calls and fit them to the
-core. Unfortunately, calling conventions for these functions and not
-standardised.
-
=head2 Cross-compilation support
Bart Schuller reports that using C<microperl> and a cross-compiler, he
Mark-Jason Dominus has the beginnings of one of these.
-=head2 pack/unpack tutorial
-
-Simon Cozens has the beginnings of one of these.
-
=head2 Rewrite perldoc
There are a few suggestions for what to do with C<perldoc>: maybe a
needs to be displayed with %vd, make v-strings (readonly) objects
(class "vstring"?) with a stringify overload.
+=head2 Allow restricted hash assignment
+
+Currently you're not allowed to assign to a restricted hash at all,
+even with the same keys.
+
+ %restricted = (foo => 42); # error
+
+This should be allowed if the new keyset is a subset of the old
+keyset. May require more extra code than we'd like in pp_aassign.
+
+=head2 Should overload be inheritable?
+
+Should overload be 'contagious' through @ISA so that derived classes
+would inherit their base classes' overload definitions? What to do
+in case of overload conflicts?
+
+=head2 Taint rethink
+
+Should taint be stopped from affecting control flow, if ($tainted)?
+Should tainted symbolic method calls and subref calls be stopped?
+(Look at Ruby's $SAFE levels for inspiration?)
+
+=head2 Perform correctly when XSUBs call subroutines that exit via goto(LABEL) and friends
+
+If an XSUB calls a subroutine that exits using goto(LABEL),
+last(LABEL) or next(LABEL), then the interpreter will very probably crash
+with a segfault because the execution resumes in the XSUB instead of
+never returning there.
+
=head1 Vague ideas
Ideas which have been discussed, and which may or may not happen.
pass the process ID. It would be good to do this with the Perl debugger
on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be done.
-=head2 Alternative RE syntax module
-
- use Regex::Newbie;
- $re = Regex::Newbie->new
- ->start
- ->match("foo")
- ->repeat(Regex::Newbie->class("char"),3)
- ->end;
- /$re/;
-
=head2 GUI::Native
A non-core module that would use "native" GUI to create graphical
The code we ship with Perl should look like good Perl 5.
+=head2 Create debugging macros
+
+Debugging macros (like printsv, dump) can make debugging perl inside a
+C debugger much easier. A good set for gdb comes with mod_perl.
+Something similar should be distributed with perl.
+
+The proper way to do this is to use and extend Devel::DebugInit.
+Devel::DebugInit also needs to be extended to support threads.
+
+See p5p archives for late May/early June 2001 for a recent discussion
+on this topic.
+
+=head2 truncate to the people
+
+One can emulate ftruncate() using F_FREESP and F_CHSIZ fcntls
+(see the UNIX FAQ for details). This needs to go somewhere near
+pp_sys.c:pp_truncate().
+
+One can emulate truncate() easily if one has ftruncate().
+This emulation should also go near pp_sys.pp_truncate().
+
+=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>.)
+
+=head1 Unicode in %ENV
+
+Currently the %ENV entries are always byte strings.
+
=head1 Recently done things
These are things which have been on the todo lists in previous releases
but have recently been completed.
+=head2 Alternative RE syntax module
+
+The C<Regexp::English> module, available from the CPAN, provides this:
+
+ my $re = Regexp::English
+ -> start_of_line
+ -> literal('Flippers')
+ -> literal(':')
+ -> optional
+ -> whitespace_char
+ -> end
+ -> remember
+ -> multiple
+ -> digit;
+
+ /$re/;
+
=head2 Safe signal handling
A new signal model went into 5.7.1 without much fanfare. Operations and
Nick Ing-Simmons' C<perlio> supports an C<mmap> IO method.
-=head2 Byte to/from UTF8 and UTF8 to/from local conversion
+=head2 Byte to/from UTF-8 and UTF-8 to/from local conversion
C<Encode> provides this.
=head2 Mailing list archives
-http://lists.perl.org/, http://archive.develooper.com/
+http://lists.perl.org/ , http://archive.develooper.com/
=head2 Bug tracking
-Richard Foley has written the bug tracking system at http://bugs.perl.org/
+Since 5.8.0 perl uses the RT bug tracking system from Jesse Vincent,
+implemented by Robert Spier at http://bugs.perl.org/
=head2 Integrate MacPerl
=head2 Generalised want()/caller())
+Robin Houston's C<Want> module does this.
+
=head2 Named prototypes
-These both seem to be delayed until Perl 6.
+This seems to be delayed until Perl 6.
=head2 Built-in globbing
=head2 man for perl
-See the Perl Power Tools. (http://language.perl.com/ppt/)
+See the Perl Power Tools. ( http://language.perl.com/ppt/ )
=head2 my $Package::variable
Collation? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr10/
Normalization? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr15/
-=head2 Create debugging macros
-
-Debugging macros (like printsv, dump) can make debugging perl inside a
-C debugger much easier. A good set for gdb comes with mod_perl.
-Something similar should be distributed with perl.
-
-The proper way to do this is to use and extend Devel::DebugInit.
-Devel::DebugInit also needs to be extended to support threads.
-
-See p5p archives for late May/early June 2001 for a recent discussion
-on this topic.
-
-=head2 truncate to the people
+=head2 pack/unpack tutorial
-One can emulate ftruncate() using F_FREESP and F_CHSIZ fcntls
-(see the UNIX FAQ for details). This needs to go somewhere near
-pp_sys.c:pp_truncate().
+Wolfgang Laun finished what Simon Cozens started.
=cut
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