Integrate mainline some more

[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / pod / perluniintro.pod

diff --git a/pod/perluniintro.pod b/pod/perluniintro.pod
index 55f8d56..7714d13 100644 (file)
--- a/pod/perluniintro.pod
+++ b/pod/perluniintro.pod
@@ -170,11 +170,12 @@ At run-time you can use C<chr()>:
 
 Naturally, C<ord()> will do the reverse: turn a character to a code point.
 
-Note that C<\x..>, C<\x{..}> and C<chr(...)> for arguments less than
-0x100 (decimal 256) will generate an eight-bit character for backward
-compatibility with older Perls.  For arguments of 0x100 or more,
-Unicode will always be produced.  If you want UTF-8 always, use
-C<pack("U", ...)> instead of C<\x..>, C<\x{..}>, or C<chr()>.
+Note that C<\x..> (no C<{}> and only two hexadecimal digits), C<\x{...}>
+and C<chr(...)> for arguments less than 0x100 (decimal 256) will
+generate an eight-bit character for backward compatibility with older
+Perls.  For arguments of 0x100 or more, Unicode will always be
+produced.  If you want UTF-8 always, use C<pack("U", ...)> instead of
+C<\x..>, C<\x{...}>, or C<chr()>.
 
 You can also use the C<charnames> pragma to invoke characters
 by name in doublequoted strings:
@@ -187,6 +188,10 @@ characters:
 
    my $georgian_an  = pack("U", 0x10a0);
 
+Note that both C<\x{...}> and C<\N{...}> are compile-time string
+constants: you cannot use variables in them.  if you want similar
+run-time functionality, use C<chr()> and C<charnames::vianame()>.
+
 =head2 Handling Unicode
 
 Handling Unicode is for the most part transparent: just use the
@@ -680,6 +685,14 @@ the C<Unicode::UCD> module.
 
 =back
 
+=head1 UNICODE IN OLDER PERLS
+
+If you cannot upgrade your Perl to 5.8.0 or later, you can still
+do some Unicode processing by using the modules C<Unicode::String>,
+C<Unicode::Map8>, and C<Unicode::Map>, available from CPAN.
+If you have the GNU recode installed, you can also use the
+Perl frontend C<Convert::Recode> for character conversions.
+
 =head1 SEE ALSO
 
 L<perlunicode>, L<Encode>, L<encoding>, L<open>, L<utf8>, L<bytes>,