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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
3 | perltodo - Perl TO-DO List | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
6 | ||
7 | This is a list of wishes for Perl. Send updates to | |
8 | I<perl5-porters@perl.org>. If you want to work on any of these | |
9 | projects, be sure to check the perl5-porters archives for past ideas, | |
10 | flames, and propaganda. This will save you time and also prevent you | |
11 | from implementing something that Larry has already vetoed. One set | |
12 | of archives may be found at: | |
13 | ||
14 | http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/ | |
15 | ||
16 | =head1 To do during 5.6.x | |
17 | ||
18 | =head2 Support for I/O disciplines | |
19 | ||
20 | C<perlio> provides this, but the interface could be a lot more | |
21 | straightforward. | |
22 | ||
23 | =head2 Autoload bytes.pm | |
24 | ||
25 | When the lexer sees, for instance, C<bytes::length>, it should | |
26 | automatically load the C<bytes> pragma. | |
27 | ||
28 | =head2 Make "\u{XXXX}" et al work | |
29 | ||
30 | Danger, Will Robinson! Discussing the semantics of C<"\x{F00}">, | |
31 | C<"\xF00"> and C<"\U{F00}"> on P5P I<will> lead to a long and boring | |
32 | flamewar. | |
33 | ||
34 | =head2 Create a char *sv_pvprintify(sv, STRLEN *lenp, UV flags) | |
35 | ||
36 | For displaying PVs with control characters, embedded nulls, and Unicode. | |
37 | This would be useful for printing warnings, or data and regex dumping, | |
38 | not_a_number(), and so on. | |
39 | ||
40 | Requirements: should handle both byte and UTF8 strings. isPRINT() | |
41 | characters printed as-is, character less than 256 as \xHH, Unicode | |
42 | characters as \x{HHH}. Don't assume ASCII-like, either, get somebody | |
43 | on EBCDIC to test the output. | |
44 | ||
45 | Possible options, controlled by the flags: | |
46 | - whitespace (other than ' ' of isPRINT()) printed as-is | |
47 | - use isPRINT_LC() instead of isPRINT() | |
48 | - print control characters like this: "\cA" | |
49 | - print control characters like this: "^A" | |
50 | - non-PRINTables printed as '.' instead of \xHH | |
51 | - use \OOO instead of \xHH | |
52 | - use the C/Perl-metacharacters like \n, \t | |
53 | - have a maximum length for the produced string (read it from *lenp) | |
54 | - append a "..." to the produced string if the maximum length is exceeded | |
55 | - really fancy: print unicode characters as \N{...} | |
56 | ||
57 | NOTE: pv_display(), pv_uni_display(), sv_uni_display() are already | |
58 | doing something like the above. | |
59 | ||
60 | =head2 Overloadable regex assertions | |
61 | ||
62 | This may or may not be possible with the current regular expression | |
63 | engine. The idea is that, for instance, C<\b> needs to be | |
64 | algorithmically computed if you're dealing with Thai text. Hence, the | |
65 | B<\b> assertion wants to be overloaded by a function. | |
66 | ||
67 | =head2 Unicode | |
68 | ||
69 | =over 4 | |
70 | ||
71 | =item * | |
72 | ||
73 | Allow for long form of the General Category Properties, e.g | |
74 | C<\p{IsOpenPunctuation}>, not just the abbreviated form, e.g. | |
75 | C<\p{IsPs}>. | |
76 | ||
77 | =item * | |
78 | ||
79 | Allow for the metaproperties: C<XID Start>, C<XID Continue>, | |
80 | C<NF*_NO>, C<NF*_MAYBE> (require the DerivedCoreProperties and | |
81 | DerviceNormalizationProperties files). | |
82 | ||
83 | There are also multiple value properties still unimplemented: | |
84 | C<Numeric Type>, C<East Asian Width>. | |
85 | ||
86 | =item * | |
87 | ||
88 | Case Mappings? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21/ | |
89 | ||
90 | Mostly implemented (all of 1:1, 1:N, N:1), only the "final sigma" | |
91 | and locale-specific rules of SpecCase are not implemented. | |
92 | ||
93 | =item * | |
94 | ||
95 | UTF-8 identifier names should probably be canonicalized: NFC? | |
96 | ||
97 | =item * | |
98 | ||
99 | UTF-8 in package names and sub names? The first is problematic | |
100 | because of the mapping to pathnames, ditto for the second one if | |
101 | one does autosplitting, for example. Some of this works already | |
102 | in 5.8.0, but essentially it is unsupported. Constructs to consider, | |
103 | at the very least: | |
104 | ||
105 | use utf8; | |
106 | package UnicodePackage; | |
107 | sub new { bless {}, shift }; | |
108 | sub UnicodeMethod1 { ... $_[0]->UnicodeMethod2(...) ... } | |
109 | sub UnicodeMethod2 { ... } # in here caller(0) should contain Unicode | |
110 | ... | |
111 | package main; | |
112 | my $x = UnicodePackage->new; | |
113 | print ref $x, "\n"; # should be Unicode | |
114 | $x->UnicodeMethod1(...); | |
115 | my $y = UnicodeMethod3 UnicodePackage ...; | |
116 | ||
117 | In the above all I<UnicodeXxx> contain (identifier-worthy) characters | |
118 | beyond the code point 255, for example 256. Wherever package/class or | |
119 | subroutine names can be returned needs to be checked for Unicodeness. | |
120 | ||
121 | =back | |
122 | ||
123 | See L<perlunicode/UNICODE REGULAR EXPRESSION SUPPORT LEVEL> for what's | |
124 | there and what's missing. Almost all of Levels 2 and 3 is missing, | |
125 | and as of 5.8.0 not even all of Level 1 is there. | |
126 | They have some tricks Perl doesn't yet implement, such as character | |
127 | class subtraction. | |
128 | ||
129 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr18/ | |
130 | ||
131 | =head2 Work out exit/die semantics for threads | |
132 | ||
133 | There are some suggestions to use for example something like this: | |
134 | default to "(thread exiting first will) wait for the other threads | |
135 | until up to 60 seconds". Other possibilities: | |
136 | ||
137 | use threads wait => 0; | |
138 | ||
139 | Do not wait. | |
140 | ||
141 | use threads wait_for => 10; | |
142 | ||
143 | Wait up to 10 seconds. | |
144 | ||
145 | use threads wait_for => -1; | |
146 | ||
147 | Wait for ever. | |
148 | ||
149 | http://archive.develooper.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg79618.html | |
150 | ||
151 | =head2 Better support for nonpreemptive threading systems like GNU pth | |
152 | ||
153 | To better support nonpreemptive threading systems, perhaps some of the | |
154 | blocking functions internally in Perl should do a yield() before a | |
155 | blocking call. (Now certain threads tests ({basic,list,thread.t}) | |
156 | simply do a yield() before they sleep() to give nonpreemptive thread | |
157 | implementations a chance). | |
158 | ||
159 | In some cases, like the GNU pth, which has replacement functions that | |
160 | are nonblocking (pth_select instead of select), maybe Perl should be | |
161 | using them instead when built for threading. | |
162 | ||
163 | =head2 Typed lexicals for compiler | |
164 | ||
165 | =head2 Compiler workarounds for Win32 | |
166 | ||
167 | =head2 AUTOLOADing in the compiler | |
168 | ||
169 | =head2 Fixing comppadlist when compiling | |
170 | ||
171 | =head2 Cleaning up exported namespace | |
172 | ||
173 | =head2 Complete signal handling | |
174 | ||
175 | Add C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK> to opcodes which loop; replace C<sigsetjmp> with | |
176 | C<sigjmp>; check C<wait> for signal safety. | |
177 | ||
178 | =head2 Out-of-source builds | |
179 | ||
180 | This was done for 5.6.0, but needs reworking for 5.7.x | |
181 | ||
182 | =head2 POSIX realtime support | |
183 | ||
184 | POSIX 1003.1 1996 Edition support--realtime stuff: POSIX semaphores, | |
185 | message queues, shared memory, realtime clocks, timers, signals (the | |
186 | metaconfig units mostly already exist for these) | |
187 | ||
188 | =head2 UNIX98 support | |
189 | ||
190 | Reader-writer locks, realtime/asynchronous IO | |
191 | ||
192 | =head2 IPv6 Support | |
193 | ||
194 | There are non-core modules, such as C<Socket6>, but these will need | |
195 | integrating when IPv6 actually starts to really happen. See RFC 2292 | |
196 | and RFC 2553. | |
197 | ||
198 | =head2 Long double conversion | |
199 | ||
200 | Floating point formatting is still causing some weird test failures. | |
201 | ||
202 | =head2 Locales | |
203 | ||
204 | Locales and Unicode interact with each other in unpleasant ways. | |
205 | One possible solution would be to adopt/support ICU: | |
206 | ||
207 | http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/project/ | |
208 | ||
209 | =head2 Arithmetic on non-Arabic numerals | |
210 | ||
211 | C<[1234567890]> aren't the only numerals any more. | |
212 | ||
213 | =head2 POSIX Unicode character classes | |
214 | ||
215 | (C<[=a=]> for equivalence classes, C<[.ch.]> for collation.) | |
216 | These are dependent on Unicode normalization and collation. | |
217 | ||
218 | =head2 Factoring out common suffices/prefices in regexps (trie optimization) | |
219 | ||
220 | Currently, the user has to optimize C<foo|far> and C<foo|goo> into | |
221 | C<f(?:oo|ar)> and C<[fg]oo> by hand; this could be done automatically. | |
222 | ||
223 | =head2 Security audit shipped utilities | |
224 | ||
225 | All the code we ship with Perl needs to be sensible about temporary file | |
226 | handling, locking, input validation, and so on. | |
227 | ||
228 | =head2 Sort out the uid-setting mess | |
229 | ||
230 | Currently there are several problems with the setting of uids ($<, $> | |
231 | for the real and effective uids). Firstly, what exactly setuid() call | |
232 | gets invoked in which platform is simply a big mess that needs to be | |
233 | untangled. Secondly, the effects are apparently not standard across | |
234 | platforms, (if you first set $< and then $>, or vice versa, being | |
235 | uid == euid == zero, or just euid == zero, or as a normal user, what are | |
236 | the results?). The test suite not (usually) being run as root means | |
237 | that these things do not get much testing. Thirdly, there's quite | |
238 | often a third uid called saved uid, and Perl has no knowledge of that | |
239 | feature in any way. (If one has the saved uid of zero, one can get | |
240 | back any real and effective uids.) As an example, to change also the | |
241 | saved uid, one needs to set the real and effective uids B<twice>-- in | |
242 | most systems, that is: in HP-UX that doesn't seem to work. | |
243 | ||
244 | =head2 Custom opcodes | |
245 | ||
246 | Have a way to introduce user-defined opcodes without the subroutine call | |
247 | overhead of an XSUB; the user should be able to create PP code. Simon | |
248 | Cozens has some ideas on this. | |
249 | ||
250 | =head2 DLL Versioning | |
251 | ||
252 | Windows needs a way to know what version of an XS or C<libperl> DLL it's | |
253 | loading. | |
254 | ||
255 | =head2 Introduce @( and @) | |
256 | ||
257 | C<$(> may return "foo bar baz". Unfortunately, since groups can | |
258 | theoretically have spaces in their names, this could be one, two or | |
259 | three groups. | |
260 | ||
261 | =head2 Floating point handling | |
262 | ||
263 | C<NaN> and C<inf> support is particularly troublesome. | |
264 | (fp_classify(), fp_class(), fp_class_d(), class(), isinf(), | |
265 | isfinite(), finite(), isnormal(), unordered(), <ieeefp.h>, | |
266 | <fp_class.h> (there are metaconfig units for all these) (I think), | |
267 | fp_setmask(), fp_getmask(), fp_setround(), fp_getround() | |
268 | (no metaconfig units yet for these). Don't forget finitel(), fp_classl(), | |
269 | fp_class_l(), (yes, both do, unfortunately, exist), and unorderedl().) | |
270 | ||
271 | As of Perl 5.6.1, there is a Perl macro, Perl_isnan(). | |
272 | ||
273 | =head2 IV/UV preservation | |
274 | ||
275 | Nicholas Clark has done a lot of work on this, but work is continuing. | |
276 | C<+>, C<-> and C<*> work, but guards need to be in place for C<%>, C</>, | |
277 | C<&>, C<oct>, C<hex> and C<pack>. | |
278 | ||
279 | =head2 Replace pod2html with something using Pod::Parser | |
280 | ||
281 | The CPAN module C<Marek::Pod::Html> may be a more suitable basis for a | |
282 | C<pod2html> converter; the current one duplicates the functionality | |
283 | abstracted in C<Pod::Parser>, which makes updating the POD language | |
284 | difficult. | |
285 | ||
286 | =head2 Automate module testing on CPAN | |
287 | ||
288 | When a new Perl is being beta tested, porters have to manually grab | |
289 | their favourite CPAN modules and test them - this should be done | |
290 | automatically. | |
291 | ||
292 | =head2 sendmsg and recvmsg | |
293 | ||
294 | We have all the other BSD socket functions but these. There are | |
295 | metaconfig units for these functions which can be added. To avoid these | |
296 | being new opcodes, a solution similar to the way C<sockatmark> was added | |
297 | would be preferable. (Autoload the C<IO::whatever> module.) | |
298 | ||
299 | =head2 Rewrite perlre documentation | |
300 | ||
301 | The new-style patterns need full documentation, and the whole document | |
302 | needs to be a lot clearer. | |
303 | ||
304 | =head2 Convert example code to IO::Handle filehandles | |
305 | ||
306 | =head2 Document Win32 choices | |
307 | ||
308 | =head2 Check new modules | |
309 | ||
310 | =head2 Make roffitall find pods and libs itself | |
311 | ||
312 | Simon Cozens has done some work on this but it needs a rethink. | |
313 | ||
314 | =head1 To do at some point | |
315 | ||
316 | These are ideas that have been regularly tossed around, that most | |
317 | people believe should be done maybe during 5.8.x | |
318 | ||
319 | =head2 Remove regular expression recursion | |
320 | ||
321 | Because the regular expression engine is recursive, badly designed | |
322 | expressions can lead to lots of recursion filling up the stack. Ilya | |
323 | claims that it is easy to convert the engine to being iterative, but | |
324 | this has still not yet been done. There may be a regular expression | |
325 | engine hit squad meeting at TPC5. | |
326 | ||
327 | =head2 Memory leaks after failed eval | |
328 | ||
329 | Perl will leak memory if you C<eval "hlagh hlagh hlagh hlagh">. This is | |
330 | partially because it attempts to build up an op tree for that code and | |
331 | doesn't properly free it. The same goes for non-syntactically-correct | |
332 | regular expressions. Hugo looked into this, but decided it needed a | |
333 | mark-and-sweep GC implementation. | |
334 | ||
335 | Alan notes that: The basic idea was to extend the parser token stack | |
336 | (C<YYSTYPE>) to include a type field so we knew what sort of thing each | |
337 | element of the stack was. The F<perly.c> code would then have to be | |
338 | postprocessed to record the type of each entry on the stack as it was | |
339 | created, and the parser patched so that it could unroll the stack | |
340 | properly on error. | |
341 | ||
342 | This is possible to do, but would be pretty messy to implement, as it | |
343 | would rely on even more sed hackery in F<perly.fixer>. | |
344 | ||
345 | =head2 bitfields in pack | |
346 | ||
347 | =head2 Cross compilation | |
348 | ||
349 | Make Perl buildable with a cross-compiler. This will play havoc with | |
350 | Configure, which needs to know how the target system will respond to | |
351 | its tests; maybe C<microperl> will be a good starting point here. | |
352 | (Indeed, Bart Schuller reports that he compiled up C<microperl> for | |
353 | the Agenda PDA and it works fine.) A really big spanner in the works | |
354 | is the bootstrapping build process of Perl: if the filesystem the | |
355 | target systems sees is not the same what the build host sees, various | |
356 | input, output, and (Perl) library files need to be copied back and forth. | |
357 | ||
358 | As of 5.8.0 Configure mostly works for cross-compilation | |
359 | (used successfully for iPAQ Linux), miniperl gets built, | |
360 | but then building DynaLoader (and other extensions) fails | |
361 | since MakeMaker knows nothing of cross-compilation. | |
362 | (See INSTALL/Cross-compilation for the state of things.) | |
363 | ||
364 | =head2 Perl preprocessor / macros | |
365 | ||
366 | Source filters help with this, but do not get us all the way. For | |
367 | instance, it should be possible to implement the C<??> operator somehow; | |
368 | source filters don't (quite) cut it. | |
369 | ||
370 | =head2 Perl lexer in Perl | |
371 | ||
372 | Damian Conway is planning to work on this, but it hasn't happened yet. | |
373 | ||
374 | =head2 Using POSIX calls internally | |
375 | ||
376 | When faced with a BSD vs. SysV -style interface to some library or | |
377 | system function, perl's roots show in that it typically prefers the BSD | |
378 | interface (but falls back to the SysV one). One example is getpgrp(). | |
379 | Other examples include C<memcpy> vs. C<bcopy>. There are others, mostly in | |
380 | F<pp_sys.c>. | |
381 | ||
382 | Mostly, this item is a suggestion for which way to start a journey into | |
383 | an C<#ifdef> forest. It is not primarily a suggestion to eliminate any of | |
384 | the C<#ifdef> forests. | |
385 | ||
386 | POSIX calls are perhaps more likely to be portable to unexpected | |
387 | architectures. They are also perhaps more likely to be actively | |
388 | maintained by a current vendor. They are also perhaps more likely to be | |
389 | available in thread-safe versions, if appropriate. | |
390 | ||
391 | =head2 -i rename file when changed | |
392 | ||
393 | It's only necessary to rename a file when inplace editing when the file | |
394 | has changed. Detecting a change is perhaps the difficult bit. | |
395 | ||
396 | =head2 All ARGV input should act like E<lt>E<gt> | |
397 | ||
398 | eg C<read(ARGV, ...)> doesn't currently read across multiple files. | |
399 | ||
400 | =head2 Support for rerunning debugger | |
401 | ||
402 | There should be a way of restarting the debugger on demand. | |
403 | ||
404 | =head2 Test Suite for the Debugger | |
405 | ||
406 | The debugger is a complex piece of software and fixing something | |
407 | here may inadvertently break something else over there. To tame | |
408 | this chaotic behaviour, a test suite is necessary. | |
409 | ||
410 | =head2 my sub foo { } | |
411 | ||
412 | The basic principle is sound, but there are problems with the semantics | |
413 | of self-referential and mutually referential lexical subs: how to | |
414 | declare the subs? | |
415 | ||
416 | =head2 One-pass global destruction | |
417 | ||
418 | Sweeping away all the allocated memory in one go is a laudable goal, but | |
419 | it's difficult and in most cases, it's easier to let the memory get | |
420 | freed by exiting. | |
421 | ||
422 | =head2 Rewrite regexp parser | |
423 | ||
424 | There has been talk recently of rewriting the regular expression parser | |
425 | to produce an optree instead of a chain of opcodes; it's unclear whether | |
426 | or not this would be a win. | |
427 | ||
428 | =head2 Cache recently used regexps | |
429 | ||
430 | This is to speed up | |
431 | ||
432 | for my $re (@regexps) { | |
433 | $matched++ if /$re/ | |
434 | } | |
435 | ||
436 | C<qr//> already gives us a way of saving compiled regexps, but it should | |
437 | be done automatically. | |
438 | ||
439 | =head2 Cross-compilation support | |
440 | ||
441 | Bart Schuller reports that using C<microperl> and a cross-compiler, he | |
442 | got Perl working on the Agenda PDA. However, one cannot build a full | |
443 | Perl because Configure needs to get the results for the target platform, | |
444 | for the host. | |
445 | ||
446 | =head2 Bit-shifting bitvectors | |
447 | ||
448 | Given: | |
449 | ||
450 | vec($v, 1000, 1) = 1; | |
451 | ||
452 | One should be able to do | |
453 | ||
454 | $v <<= 1; | |
455 | ||
456 | and have the 999'th bit set. | |
457 | ||
458 | Currently if you try with shift bitvectors you shift the NV/UV, instead | |
459 | of the bits in the PV. Not very logical. | |
460 | ||
461 | =head2 debugger pragma | |
462 | ||
463 | The debugger is implemented in Perl in F<perl5db.pl>; turning it into a | |
464 | pragma should be easy, but making it work lexically might be more | |
465 | difficult. Fiddling with C<$^P> would be necessary. | |
466 | ||
467 | =head2 use less pragma | |
468 | ||
469 | Identify areas where speed/memory tradeoffs can be made and have a hint | |
470 | to switch between them. | |
471 | ||
472 | =head2 switch structures | |
473 | ||
474 | Although we have C<Switch.pm> in core, Larry points to the dormant | |
475 | C<nswitch> and C<cswitch> ops in F<pp.c>; using these opcodes would be | |
476 | much faster. | |
477 | ||
478 | =head2 Cache eval tree | |
479 | ||
480 | =head2 rcatmaybe | |
481 | ||
482 | =head2 Shrink opcode tables | |
483 | ||
484 | =head2 Optimize away @_ | |
485 | ||
486 | Look at the "reification" code in C<av.c> | |
487 | ||
488 | =head2 Prototypes versus indirect objects | |
489 | ||
490 | Currently, indirect object syntax bypasses prototype checks. | |
491 | ||
492 | =head2 Install HTML | |
493 | ||
494 | HTML versions of the documentation need to be installed by default; a | |
495 | call to C<installhtml> from C<installperl> may be all that's necessary. | |
496 | ||
497 | =head2 Prototype method calls | |
498 | ||
499 | =head2 Return context prototype declarations | |
500 | ||
501 | =head2 magic_setisa | |
502 | ||
503 | =head2 Garbage collection | |
504 | ||
505 | There have been persistent mumblings about putting a mark-and-sweep | |
506 | garbage detector into Perl; Alan Burlison has some ideas about this. | |
507 | ||
508 | =head2 IO tutorial | |
509 | ||
510 | Mark-Jason Dominus has the beginnings of one of these. | |
511 | ||
512 | =head2 Rewrite perldoc | |
513 | ||
514 | There are a few suggestions for what to do with C<perldoc>: maybe a | |
515 | full-text search, an index function, locating pages on a particular | |
516 | high-level subject, and so on. | |
517 | ||
518 | =head2 Install .3p manpages | |
519 | ||
520 | This is a bone of contention; we can create C<.3p> manpages for each | |
521 | built-in function, but should we install them by default? Tcl does this, | |
522 | and it clutters up C<apropos>. | |
523 | ||
524 | =head2 Unicode tutorial | |
525 | ||
526 | Simon Cozens promises to do this before he gets old. | |
527 | ||
528 | =head2 Update POSIX.pm for 1003.1-2 | |
529 | ||
530 | =head2 Retargetable installation | |
531 | ||
532 | Allow C<@INC> to be changed after Perl is built. | |
533 | ||
534 | =head2 POSIX emulation on non-POSIX systems | |
535 | ||
536 | Make C<POSIX.pm> behave as POSIXly as possible everywhere, meaning we | |
537 | have to implement POSIX equivalents for some functions if necessary. | |
538 | ||
539 | =head2 Rename Win32 headers | |
540 | ||
541 | =head2 Finish off lvalue functions | |
542 | ||
543 | They don't work in the debugger, and they don't work for list or hash | |
544 | slices. | |
545 | ||
546 | =head2 Update sprintf documentation | |
547 | ||
548 | Hugo van der Sanden plans to look at this. | |
549 | ||
550 | =head2 Use fchown/fchmod internally | |
551 | ||
552 | This has been done in places, but needs a thorough code review. | |
553 | Also fchdir is available in some platforms. | |
554 | ||
555 | =head2 Make v-strings overloaded objects | |
556 | ||
557 | Instead of having to guess whether a string is a v-string and thus | |
558 | needs to be displayed with %vd, make v-strings (readonly) objects | |
559 | (class "vstring"?) with a stringify overload. | |
560 | ||
561 | =head2 Allow restricted hash assignment | |
562 | ||
563 | Currently you're not allowed to assign to a restricted hash at all, | |
564 | even with the same keys. | |
565 | ||
566 | %restricted = (foo => 42); # error | |
567 | ||
568 | This should be allowed if the new keyset is a subset of the old | |
569 | keyset. May require more extra code than we'd like in pp_aassign. | |
570 | ||
571 | =head2 Should overload be inheritable? | |
572 | ||
573 | Should overload be 'contagious' through @ISA so that derived classes | |
574 | would inherit their base classes' overload definitions? What to do | |
575 | in case of overload conflicts? | |
576 | ||
577 | =head2 Taint rethink | |
578 | ||
579 | Should taint be stopped from affecting control flow, if ($tainted)? | |
580 | Should tainted symbolic method calls and subref calls be stopped? | |
581 | (Look at Ruby's $SAFE levels for inspiration?) | |
582 | ||
583 | =head1 Vague ideas | |
584 | ||
585 | Ideas which have been discussed, and which may or may not happen. | |
586 | ||
587 | =head2 ref() in list context | |
588 | ||
589 | It's unclear what this should do or how to do it without breaking old | |
590 | code. | |
591 | ||
592 | =head2 Make tr/// return histogram of characters in list context | |
593 | ||
594 | There is a patch for this, but it may require Unicodification. | |
595 | ||
596 | =head2 Compile to real threaded code | |
597 | ||
598 | =head2 Structured types | |
599 | ||
600 | =head2 Modifiable $1 et al. | |
601 | ||
602 | ($x = "elephant") =~ /e(ph)/; | |
603 | $1 = "g"; # $x = "elegant" | |
604 | ||
605 | What happens if there are multiple (nested?) brackets? What if the | |
606 | string changes between the match and the assignment? | |
607 | ||
608 | =head2 Procedural interfaces for IO::*, etc. | |
609 | ||
610 | Some core modules have been accused of being overly-OO. Adding | |
611 | procedural interfaces could demystify them. | |
612 | ||
613 | =head2 RPC modules | |
614 | ||
615 | =head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program | |
616 | ||
617 | With C<gdb>, you can attach the debugger to a running program if you | |
618 | pass the process ID. It would be good to do this with the Perl debugger | |
619 | on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be done. | |
620 | ||
621 | =head2 GUI::Native | |
622 | ||
623 | A non-core module that would use "native" GUI to create graphical | |
624 | applications. | |
625 | ||
626 | =head2 foreach(reverse ...) | |
627 | ||
628 | Currently | |
629 | ||
630 | foreach (reverse @_) { ... } | |
631 | ||
632 | puts C<@_> on the stack, reverses it putting the reversed version on the | |
633 | stack, then iterates forwards. Instead, it could be special-cased to put | |
634 | C<@_> on the stack then iterate backwards. | |
635 | ||
636 | =head2 Constant function cache | |
637 | ||
638 | =head2 Approximate regular expression matching | |
639 | ||
640 | =head1 Ongoing | |
641 | ||
642 | These items B<always> need doing: | |
643 | ||
644 | =head2 Update guts documentation | |
645 | ||
646 | Simon Cozens tries to do this when possible, and contributions to the | |
647 | C<perlapi> documentation is welcome. | |
648 | ||
649 | =head2 Add more tests | |
650 | ||
651 | Michael Schwern will donate $500 to Yet Another Society when all core | |
652 | modules have tests. | |
653 | ||
654 | =head2 Update auxiliary tools | |
655 | ||
656 | The code we ship with Perl should look like good Perl 5. | |
657 | ||
658 | =head2 Create debugging macros | |
659 | ||
660 | Debugging macros (like printsv, dump) can make debugging perl inside a | |
661 | C debugger much easier. A good set for gdb comes with mod_perl. | |
662 | Something similar should be distributed with perl. | |
663 | ||
664 | The proper way to do this is to use and extend Devel::DebugInit. | |
665 | Devel::DebugInit also needs to be extended to support threads. | |
666 | ||
667 | See p5p archives for late May/early June 2001 for a recent discussion | |
668 | on this topic. | |
669 | ||
670 | =head2 truncate to the people | |
671 | ||
672 | One can emulate ftruncate() using F_FREESP and F_CHSIZ fcntls | |
673 | (see the UNIX FAQ for details). This needs to go somewhere near | |
674 | pp_sys.c:pp_truncate(). | |
675 | ||
676 | One can emulate truncate() easily if one has ftruncate(). | |
677 | This emulation should also go near pp_sys.pp_truncate(). | |
678 | ||
679 | =head2 Unicode in Filenames | |
680 | ||
681 | chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open, | |
682 | opendir, qx, readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen, | |
683 | system, truncate, unlink, utime. All these could potentially accept | |
684 | Unicode filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system | |
685 | and qx Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell). | |
686 | Whether a filesystem - an operating system pair understands Unicode in | |
687 | filenames varies. | |
688 | ||
689 | Known combinations that have some level of understanding include | |
690 | Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS+ (In Mac OS 9 and X) and Apple UFS (in Mac | |
691 | OS X), NFS v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to | |
692 | create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used | |
693 | (UCS-2, UTF-16, UTF-8), what (if any) is the normalization form used, | |
694 | and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl | |
695 | requires some thought. Remember that an OS does not implicate a | |
696 | filesystem. | |
697 | ||
698 | Note that in Windows the -C command line flag already does quite | |
699 | a bit of the above (but even there the support is not complete: | |
700 | for example the exec/spawn are not Unicode-aware) by turning on | |
701 | the so-called "wide API support". | |
702 | ||
703 | =head1 Recently done things | |
704 | ||
705 | These are things which have been on the todo lists in previous releases | |
706 | but have recently been completed. | |
707 | ||
708 | =head2 Alternative RE syntax module | |
709 | ||
710 | The C<Regexp::English> module, available from the CPAN, provides this: | |
711 | ||
712 | my $re = Regexp::English | |
713 | -> start_of_line | |
714 | -> literal('Flippers') | |
715 | -> literal(':') | |
716 | -> optional | |
717 | -> whitespace_char | |
718 | -> end | |
719 | -> remember | |
720 | -> multiple | |
721 | -> digit; | |
722 | ||
723 | /$re/; | |
724 | ||
725 | =head2 Safe signal handling | |
726 | ||
727 | A new signal model went into 5.7.1 without much fanfare. Operations and | |
728 | C<malloc>s are no longer interrupted by signals, which are handled | |
729 | between opcodes. This means that C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK> now actually does | |
730 | something. However, there are still a few things that need to be done. | |
731 | ||
732 | =head2 Tie Modules | |
733 | ||
734 | Modules which implement arrays in terms of strings, substrings or files | |
735 | can be found on the CPAN. | |
736 | ||
737 | =head2 gettimeofday | |
738 | ||
739 | C<Time::HiRes> has been integrated into the core. | |
740 | ||
741 | =head2 setitimer and getimiter | |
742 | ||
743 | Adding C<Time::HiRes> got us this too. | |
744 | ||
745 | =head2 Testing __DIE__ hook | |
746 | ||
747 | Tests have been added. | |
748 | ||
749 | =head2 CPP equivalent in Perl | |
750 | ||
751 | A C Yardley will probably have done this by the time you can read this. | |
752 | This allows for a generalization of the C constant detection used in | |
753 | building C<Errno.pm>. | |
754 | ||
755 | =head2 Explicit switch statements | |
756 | ||
757 | C<Switch.pm> has been integrated into the core to give you all manner of | |
758 | C<switch...case> semantics. | |
759 | ||
760 | =head2 autocroak | |
761 | ||
762 | This is C<Fatal.pm>. | |
763 | ||
764 | =head2 UTF/EBCDIC | |
765 | ||
766 | Nick Ing-Simmons has made UTF-EBCDIC (UTR13) work with Perl. | |
767 | ||
768 | EBCDIC? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ | |
769 | ||
770 | =head2 UTF Regexes | |
771 | ||
772 | Although there are probably some small bugs to be rooted out, Jarkko | |
773 | Hietaniemi has made regular expressions polymorphic between bytes and | |
774 | characters. | |
775 | ||
776 | =head2 perlcc to produce executable | |
777 | ||
778 | C<perlcc> was recently rewritten, and can now produce standalone | |
779 | executables. | |
780 | ||
781 | =head2 END blocks saved in compiled output | |
782 | ||
783 | =head2 Secure temporary file module | |
784 | ||
785 | Tim Jenness' C<File::Temp> is now in core. | |
786 | ||
787 | =head2 Integrate Time::HiRes | |
788 | ||
789 | This module is now part of core. | |
790 | ||
791 | =head2 Turn Cwd into XS | |
792 | ||
793 | Benjamin Sugars has done this. | |
794 | ||
795 | =head2 Mmap for input | |
796 | ||
797 | Nick Ing-Simmons' C<perlio> supports an C<mmap> IO method. | |
798 | ||
799 | =head2 Byte to/from UTF8 and UTF8 to/from local conversion | |
800 | ||
801 | C<Encode> provides this. | |
802 | ||
803 | =head2 Add sockatmark support | |
804 | ||
805 | Added in 5.7.1 | |
806 | ||
807 | =head2 Mailing list archives | |
808 | ||
809 | http://lists.perl.org/ , http://archive.develooper.com/ | |
810 | ||
811 | =head2 Bug tracking | |
812 | ||
813 | Richard Foley has written the bug tracking system at http://bugs.perl.org/ | |
814 | ||
815 | =head2 Integrate MacPerl | |
816 | ||
817 | Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher have integrated the MacPerl changes | |
818 | into 5.6.0. | |
819 | ||
820 | =head2 Web "nerve center" for Perl | |
821 | ||
822 | http://use.perl.org/ is what you're looking for. | |
823 | ||
824 | =head2 Regular expression tutorial | |
825 | ||
826 | C<perlretut>, provided by Mark Kvale. | |
827 | ||
828 | =head2 Debugging Tutorial | |
829 | ||
830 | C<perldebtut>, written by Richard Foley. | |
831 | ||
832 | =head2 Integrate new modules | |
833 | ||
834 | Jarkko has been integrating madly into 5.7.x | |
835 | ||
836 | =head2 Integrate profiler | |
837 | ||
838 | C<Devel::DProf> is now a core module. | |
839 | ||
840 | =head2 Y2K error detection | |
841 | ||
842 | There's a configure option to detect unsafe concatenation with "19", and | |
843 | a CPAN module. (C<D'oh::Year>) | |
844 | ||
845 | =head2 Regular expression debugger | |
846 | ||
847 | While not part of core, Mark-Jason Dominus has written C<Rx> and has | |
848 | also come up with a generalised strategy for regular expression | |
849 | debugging. | |
850 | ||
851 | =head2 POD checker | |
852 | ||
853 | That's, uh, F<podchecker> | |
854 | ||
855 | =head2 "Dynamic" lexicals | |
856 | ||
857 | =head2 Cache precompiled modules | |
858 | ||
859 | =head1 Deprecated Wishes | |
860 | ||
861 | These are items which used to be in the todo file, but have been | |
862 | deprecated for some reason. | |
863 | ||
864 | =head2 Loop control on do{} | |
865 | ||
866 | This would break old code; use C<do{{ }}> instead. | |
867 | ||
868 | =head2 Lexically scoped typeglobs | |
869 | ||
870 | Not needed now we have lexical IO handles. | |
871 | ||
872 | =head2 format BOTTOM | |
873 | ||
874 | =head2 report HANDLE | |
875 | ||
876 | Damian Conway's text formatting modules seem to be the Way To Go. | |
877 | ||
878 | =head2 Generalised want()/caller()) | |
879 | ||
880 | Robin Houston's C<Want> module does this. | |
881 | ||
882 | =head2 Named prototypes | |
883 | ||
884 | This seems to be delayed until Perl 6. | |
885 | ||
886 | =head2 Built-in globbing | |
887 | ||
888 | The C<File::Glob> module has been used to replace the C<glob> function. | |
889 | ||
890 | =head2 Regression tests for suidperl | |
891 | ||
892 | C<suidperl> is deprecated in favour of common sense. | |
893 | ||
894 | =head2 Cached hash values | |
895 | ||
896 | We have shared hash keys, which perform the same job. | |
897 | ||
898 | =head2 Add compression modules | |
899 | ||
900 | The compression modules are a little heavy; meanwhile, Nick Clark is | |
901 | working on experimental pragmata to do transparent decompression on | |
902 | input. | |
903 | ||
904 | =head2 Reorganise documentation into tutorials/references | |
905 | ||
906 | Could not get consensus on P5P about this. | |
907 | ||
908 | =head2 Remove distinction between functions and operators | |
909 | ||
910 | Caution: highly flammable. | |
911 | ||
912 | =head2 Make XS easier to use | |
913 | ||
914 | Use C<Inline> instead, or SWIG. | |
915 | ||
916 | =head2 Make embedding easier to use | |
917 | ||
918 | Use C<Inline::CPR>. | |
919 | ||
920 | =head2 man for perl | |
921 | ||
922 | See the Perl Power Tools. ( http://language.perl.com/ppt/ ) | |
923 | ||
924 | =head2 my $Package::variable | |
925 | ||
926 | Use C<our> instead. | |
927 | ||
928 | =head2 "or" tests defined, not truth | |
929 | ||
930 | Suggesting this on P5P B<will> cause a boring and interminable flamewar. | |
931 | ||
932 | =head2 "class"-based lexicals | |
933 | ||
934 | Use flyweight objects, secure hashes or, dare I say it, pseudo-hashes instead. | |
935 | (Or whatever will replace pseudohashes in 5.10.) | |
936 | ||
937 | =head2 byteperl | |
938 | ||
939 | C<ByteLoader> covers this. | |
940 | ||
941 | =head2 Lazy evaluation / tail recursion removal | |
942 | ||
943 | C<List::Util> gives first() (a short-circuiting grep); tail recursion | |
944 | removal is done manually, with C<goto &whoami;>. (However, MJD has | |
945 | found that C<goto &whoami> introduces a performance penalty, so maybe | |
946 | there should be a way to do this after all: C<sub foo {START: ... goto | |
947 | START;> is better.) | |
948 | ||
949 | =head2 Make "use utf8" the default | |
950 | ||
951 | Because of backward compatibility this is difficult: scripts could not | |
952 | contain B<any legacy eight-bit data> (like Latin-1) anymore, even in | |
953 | string literals or pod. Also would introduce a measurable slowdown of | |
954 | at least few percentages since all regular expression operations would | |
955 | be done in full UTF-8. But if you want to try this, add | |
956 | -DUSE_UTF8_SCRIPTS to your compilation flags. | |
957 | ||
958 | =head2 Unicode collation and normalization | |
959 | ||
960 | The Unicode::Collate and Unicode::Normalize modules | |
961 | by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki have been included since 5.8.0. | |
962 | ||
963 | Collation? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr10/ | |
964 | Normalization? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr15/ | |
965 | ||
966 | =head2 pack/unpack tutorial | |
967 | ||
968 | Wolfgang Laun finished what Simon Cozens started. | |
969 | ||
970 | =cut |