From: Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@cpan.org>
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 16:05:22 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: update perlfork.pod for status as of 5.8.0
X-Git-Url: http://git.shadowcat.co.uk/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=c3c83ace19b3e08bb9a3bdf6f78346283861eb81;p=p5sagit%2Fp5-mst-13.2.git

update perlfork.pod for status as of 5.8.0

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@17137
---

diff --git a/pod/perlfork.pod b/pod/perlfork.pod
index d797dae..8ce0739 100644
--- a/pod/perlfork.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfork.pod
@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 =head1 NAME
 
-perlfork - Perl's fork() emulation (EXPERIMENTAL, subject to change)
+perlfork - Perl's fork() emulation
 
 =head1 SYNOPSIS
 
-    WARNING:  As of the 5.8.0 release, the fork() emulation continues
-    to be an experimental feature.  Use in production applications is
-    not recommended.  See the "BUGS" and "CAVEATS AND LIMITATIONS"
-    sections below.
+    NOTE:  As of the 5.8.0 release, fork() emulation has considerably
+    matured.  However, there are still a few known bugs and differences
+    from real fork() that might affect you.  See the "BUGS" and
+    "CAVEATS AND LIMITATIONS" sections below.
 
 Perl provides a fork() keyword that corresponds to the Unix system call
 of the same name.  On most Unix-like platforms where the fork() system
@@ -279,17 +279,6 @@ are expected to be fixed for thread-safety.
 
 =item *
 
-Perl's regular expression engine currently does not play very nicely
-with the fork() emulation.  There are known race conditions arising
-from the regular expression engine modifying state carried in the opcode
-tree at run time (the fork() emulation relies on the opcode tree being
-immutable).  This typically happens when the regex contains paren groups
-or variables interpolated within it that force a run time recompilation
-of the regex.  Due to this major bug, the fork() emulation is not
-recommended for use in production applications at this time.
-
-=item *
-
 Having pseudo-process IDs be negative integers breaks down for the integer
 C<-1> because the wait() and waitpid() functions treat this number as
 being special.  The tacit assumption in the current implementation is that
@@ -298,6 +287,15 @@ representation for pseudo-process IDs will be implemented in future.
 
 =item *
 
+In certain cases, the OS-level handles created by the pipe(), socket(),
+and accept() operators are apparently not duplicated accurately in
+pseudo-processes.  This only happens in some situations, but where it
+does happen, it may result in deadlocks between the read and write ends
+of pipe handles, or inability to send or receive data across socket
+handles.
+
+=item *
+
 This document may be incomplete in some respects.
 
 =back