Make the point a bit clearer after suggestion from Merijin

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

diff --git a/pod/perlvar.pod b/pod/perlvar.pod
index 69cd592..98bd657 100644 (file)
--- a/pod/perlvar.pod
+++ b/pod/perlvar.pod
@@ -663,8 +663,11 @@ Also see L<Error Indicators>.
 
 =item ${^ENCODING}
 
-The encoding used to interpret native eight-bit encodings to Unicode,
-see L<encode>.  An opaque C<Encode::XS> object.
+The I<object reference> to the Encode object that is used to convert
+the source code to Unicode.  Thanks to this variable your perl script
+does not have to be written in UTF-8.  Default is I<undef>.  The direct
+manipulation of this variable is highly discouraged.  See L<encoding>
+for more details.
 
 =item $OS_ERROR
 
@@ -704,10 +707,13 @@ Also see L<Error Indicators>.
 
 Each element of C<%!> has a true value only if C<$!> is set to that
 value.  For example, C<$!{ENOENT}> is true if and only if the current
-value of C<$!> is C<ENOENT>; that is, if the mot recent error was "No
-such file or directory".  To check if a particular key is meaningful
-on your system, use C<exists $!{the_key}>; for a list of legal keys,
-use C<keys %!>.  See L<Errno> for more information.
+value of C<$!> is C<ENOENT>; that is, if the most recent error was
+"No such file or directory" (or its moral equivalent: not all operating
+systems give that exact error, and certainly not all languages).
+To check if a particular key is meaningful on your system, use
+C<exists $!{the_key}>; for a list of legal keys, use C<keys %!>.
+See L<Errno> for more information, and also see above for the
+validity of C<$!>.
 
 =item $EXTENDED_OS_ERROR
 
@@ -1425,7 +1431,7 @@ expression matches in a program, regardless of whether they occur
 in the scope of C<use English>.  For that reason, saying C<use
 English> in libraries is strongly discouraged.  See the
 Devel::SawAmpersand module documentation from CPAN
-(http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Devel/)
+( http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Devel/ )
 for more information.
 
 Having to even think about the C<$^S> variable in your exception