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| 129 | .\" ======================================================================== |
| 130 | .\" |
| 131 | .IX Title "PERLTODO 1" |
| 132 | .TH PERLTODO 1 "2006-01-07" "perl v5.8.8" "Perl Programmers Reference Guide" |
| 133 | .SH "NAME" |
| 134 | perltodo \- Perl TO\-DO List |
| 135 | .SH "DESCRIPTION" |
| 136 | .IX Header "DESCRIPTION" |
| 137 | This is a list of wishes for Perl. The tasks we think are smaller or easier |
| 138 | are listed first. Anyone is welcome to work on any of these, but it's a good |
| 139 | idea to first contact \fIperl5\-porters@perl.org\fR to avoid duplication of |
| 140 | effort. By all means contact a pumpking privately first if you prefer. |
| 141 | .PP |
| 142 | Whilst patches to make the list shorter are most welcome, ideas to add to |
| 143 | the list are also encouraged. Check the perl5\-porters archives for past |
| 144 | ideas, and any discussion about them. One set of archives may be found at: |
| 145 | .PP |
| 146 | .Vb 1 |
| 147 | \& http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/ |
| 148 | .Ve |
| 149 | .PP |
| 150 | What can we offer you in return? Fame, fortune, and everlasting glory? Maybe |
| 151 | not, but if your patch is incorporated, then we'll add your name to the |
| 152 | \&\fI\s-1AUTHORS\s0\fR file, which ships in the official distribution. How many other |
| 153 | programming languages offer you 1 line of immortality? |
| 154 | .SH "The roadmap to 5.10" |
| 155 | .IX Header "The roadmap to 5.10" |
| 156 | The roadmap to 5.10 envisages feature based releases, as various items in this |
| 157 | \&\s-1TODO\s0 are completed. |
| 158 | .Sh "Needed for a 5.9.4 release" |
| 159 | .IX Subsection "Needed for a 5.9.4 release" |
| 160 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 161 | Review assertions. Review syntax to combine assertions. Assertions could take |
| 162 | advantage of the lexical pragmas work. \*(L"What hooks would assertions need?\*(R" |
| 163 | .Sh "Needed for a 5.9.5 release" |
| 164 | .IX Subsection "Needed for a 5.9.5 release" |
| 165 | .ie n .IP "* Implement ""_ prototype character""" 4 |
| 166 | .el .IP "* Implement ``_ prototype character''" 4 |
| 167 | .IX Item "Implement _ prototype character" |
| 168 | .PD 0 |
| 169 | .ie n .IP "* Implement ""state variables""" 4 |
| 170 | .el .IP "* Implement ``state variables''" 4 |
| 171 | .IX Item "Implement state variables" |
| 172 | .PD |
| 173 | .Sh "Needed for a 5.9.6 release" |
| 174 | .IX Subsection "Needed for a 5.9.6 release" |
| 175 | Stabilisation. If all goes well, this will be the equivalent of a 5.10\-beta. |
| 176 | .SH "Tasks that only need Perl knowledge" |
| 177 | .IX Header "Tasks that only need Perl knowledge" |
| 178 | .Sh "common test code for timed bail out" |
| 179 | .IX Subsection "common test code for timed bail out" |
| 180 | Write portable self destruct code for tests to stop them burning \s-1CPU\s0 in |
| 181 | infinite loops. This needs to avoid using alarm, as some of the tests are |
| 182 | testing alarm/sleep or timers. |
| 183 | .Sh "\s-1POD\s0 \-> \s-1HTML\s0 conversion in the core still sucks" |
| 184 | .IX Subsection "POD -> HTML conversion in the core still sucks" |
| 185 | Which is crazy given just how simple \s-1POD\s0 purports to be, and how simple \s-1HTML\s0 |
| 186 | can be. It's not actually \fIas\fR simple as it sounds, particularly with the |
| 187 | flexibility \s-1POD\s0 allows for \f(CW\*(C`=item\*(C'\fR, but it would be good to improve the |
| 188 | visual appeal of the \s-1HTML\s0 generated, and to avoid it having any validation |
| 189 | errors. See also \*(L"make \s-1HTML\s0 install work\*(R", as the layout of installation tree |
| 190 | is needed to improve the cross\-linking. |
| 191 | .PP |
| 192 | The addition of \f(CW\*(C`Pod::Simple\*(C'\fR and its related modules may make this task |
| 193 | easier to complete. |
| 194 | .Sh "Parallel testing" |
| 195 | .IX Subsection "Parallel testing" |
| 196 | The core regression test suite is getting ever more comprehensive, which has |
| 197 | the side effect that it takes longer to run. This isn't so good. Investigate |
| 198 | whether it would be feasible to give the harness script the \fBoption\fR of |
| 199 | running sets of tests in parallel. This would be useful for tests in |
| 200 | \&\fIt/op/*.t\fR and \fIt/uni/*.t\fR and maybe some sets of tests in \fIlib/\fR. |
| 201 | .PP |
| 202 | Questions to answer |
| 203 | .IP "1" 4 |
| 204 | .IX Item "1" |
| 205 | How does screen layout work when you're running more than one test? |
| 206 | .IP "2" 4 |
| 207 | .IX Item "2" |
| 208 | How does the caller of test specify how many tests to run in parallel? |
| 209 | .IP "3" 4 |
| 210 | .IX Item "3" |
| 211 | How do setup/teardown tests identify themselves? |
| 212 | .PP |
| 213 | Pugs already does parallel testing \- can their approach be re\-used? |
| 214 | .Sh "Make Schwern poorer" |
| 215 | .IX Subsection "Make Schwern poorer" |
| 216 | We should have for everything. When all the core's modules are tested, |
| 217 | Schwern has promised to donate to \f(CW$500\fR to \s-1TPF\s0. We may need volunteers to |
| 218 | hold him upside down and shake vigorously in order to actually extract the |
| 219 | cash. |
| 220 | .PP |
| 221 | See \fIt/lib/1_compile.t\fR for the 3 remaining modules that need tests. |
| 222 | .Sh "Improve the coverage of the core tests" |
| 223 | .IX Subsection "Improve the coverage of the core tests" |
| 224 | Use Devel::Cover to ascertain the core's test coverage, then add tests that |
| 225 | are currently missing. |
| 226 | .Sh "test B" |
| 227 | .IX Subsection "test B" |
| 228 | A full test suite for the B module would be nice. |
| 229 | .Sh "A decent benchmark" |
| 230 | .IX Subsection "A decent benchmark" |
| 231 | \&\f(CW\*(C`perlbench\*(C'\fR seems impervious to any recent changes made to the perl core. It |
| 232 | would be useful to have a reasonable general benchmarking suite that roughly |
| 233 | represented what current perl programs do, and measurably reported whether |
| 234 | tweaks to the core improve, degrade or don't really affect performance, to |
| 235 | guide people attempting to optimise the guts of perl. Gisle would welcome |
| 236 | new tests for perlbench. |
| 237 | .Sh "fix tainting bugs" |
| 238 | .IX Subsection "fix tainting bugs" |
| 239 | Fix the bugs revealed by running the test suite with the \f(CW\*(C`\-t\*(C'\fR switch (via |
| 240 | \&\f(CW\*(C`make test.taintwarn\*(C'\fR). |
| 241 | .Sh "Dual life everything" |
| 242 | .IX Subsection "Dual life everything" |
| 243 | As part of the \*(L"dists\*(R" plan, anything that doesn't belong in the smallest perl |
| 244 | distribution needs to be dual lifed. Anything else can be too. Figure out what |
| 245 | changes would be needed to package that module and its tests up for \s-1CPAN\s0, and |
| 246 | do so. Test it with older perl releases, and fix the problems you find. |
| 247 | .ie n .Sh "Improving ""threads::shared""" |
| 248 | .el .Sh "Improving \f(CWthreads::shared\fP" |
| 249 | .IX Subsection "Improving threads::shared" |
| 250 | Investigate whether \f(CW\*(C`threads::shared\*(C'\fR could share aggregates properly with |
| 251 | only Perl level changes to shared.pm |
| 252 | .Sh "\s-1POSIX\s0 memory footprint" |
| 253 | .IX Subsection "POSIX memory footprint" |
| 254 | Ilya observed that use \s-1POSIX\s0; eats memory like there's no tomorrow, and at |
| 255 | various times worked to cut it down. There is probably still fat to cut out \- |
| 256 | for example \s-1POSIX\s0 passes Exporter some very memory hungry data structures. |
| 257 | .SH "Tasks that need a little sysadmin-type knowledge" |
| 258 | .IX Header "Tasks that need a little sysadmin-type knowledge" |
| 259 | Or if you prefer, tasks that you would learn from, and broaden your skills |
| 260 | base... |
| 261 | .Sh "Relocatable perl" |
| 262 | .IX Subsection "Relocatable perl" |
| 263 | The C level patches needed to create a relocatable perl binary are done, as |
| 264 | is the work on \fIConfig.pm\fR. All that's left to do is the \f(CW\*(C`Configure\*(C'\fR tweaking |
| 265 | to let people specify how they want to do the install. |
| 266 | .Sh "make \s-1HTML\s0 install work" |
| 267 | .IX Subsection "make HTML install work" |
| 268 | There is an \f(CW\*(C`installhtml\*(C'\fR target in the Makefile. It's marked as |
| 269 | \&\*(L"experimental\*(R". It would be good to get this tested, make it work reliably, and |
| 270 | remove the \*(L"experimental\*(R" tag. This would include |
| 271 | .IP "1" 4 |
| 272 | .IX Item "1" |
| 273 | Checking that cross linking between various parts of the documentation works. |
| 274 | In particular that links work between the modules (files with \s-1POD\s0 in \fIlib/\fR) |
| 275 | and the core documentation (files in \fIpod/\fR) |
| 276 | .IP "2" 4 |
| 277 | .IX Item "2" |
| 278 | Work out how to split \f(CW\*(C`perlfunc\*(C'\fR into chunks, preferably one per function |
| 279 | group, preferably with general case code that could be used elsewhere. |
| 280 | Challenges here are correctly identifying the groups of functions that go |
| 281 | together, and making the right named external cross-links point to the right |
| 282 | page. Things to be aware of are \f(CW\*(C`\-X\*(C'\fR, groups such as \f(CW\*(C`getpwnam\*(C'\fR to |
| 283 | \&\f(CW\*(C`endservent\*(C'\fR, two or more \f(CW\*(C`=items\*(C'\fR giving the different parameter lists, such |
| 284 | as |
| 285 | .Sp |
| 286 | .Vb 1 |
| 287 | \& =item substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT |
| 288 | .Ve |
| 289 | .Sp |
| 290 | .Vb 1 |
| 291 | \& =item substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH |
| 292 | .Ve |
| 293 | .Sp |
| 294 | .Vb 1 |
| 295 | \& =item substr EXPR,OFFSET |
| 296 | .Ve |
| 297 | .Sp |
| 298 | and different parameter lists having different meanings. (eg \f(CW\*(C`select\*(C'\fR) |
| 299 | .Sh "compressed man pages" |
| 300 | .IX Subsection "compressed man pages" |
| 301 | Be able to install them. This would probably need a configure test to see how |
| 302 | the system does compressed man pages (same directory/different directory? |
| 303 | same filename/different filename), as well as tweaking the \fIinstallman\fR script |
| 304 | to compress as necessary. |
| 305 | .Sh "Add a code coverage target to the Makefile" |
| 306 | .IX Subsection "Add a code coverage target to the Makefile" |
| 307 | Make it easy for anyone to run Devel::Cover on the core's tests. The steps |
| 308 | to do this manually are roughly |
| 309 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 310 | do a normal \f(CW\*(C`Configure\*(C'\fR, but include Devel::Cover as a module to install |
| 311 | (see \fI\s-1INSTALL\s0\fR for how to do this) |
| 312 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 313 | .Vb 1 |
| 314 | \& make perl |
| 315 | .Ve |
| 316 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 317 | .Vb 1 |
| 318 | \& cd t; HARNESS_PERL_SWITCHES=-MDevel::Cover ./perl -I../lib harness |
| 319 | .Ve |
| 320 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 321 | Process the resulting Devel::Cover database |
| 322 | .PP |
| 323 | This just give you the coverage of the \fI.pm\fRs. To also get the C level |
| 324 | coverage you need to |
| 325 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 326 | Additionally tell \f(CW\*(C`Configure\*(C'\fR to use the appropriate C compiler flags for |
| 327 | \&\f(CW\*(C`gcov\*(C'\fR |
| 328 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 329 | .Vb 1 |
| 330 | \& make perl.gcov |
| 331 | .Ve |
| 332 | .Sp |
| 333 | (instead of \f(CW\*(C`make perl\*(C'\fR) |
| 334 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 335 | After running the tests run \f(CW\*(C`gcov\*(C'\fR to generate all the \fI.gcov\fR files. |
| 336 | (Including down in the subdirectories of \fIext/\fR |
| 337 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 338 | (From the top level perl directory) run \f(CW\*(C`gcov2perl\*(C'\fR on all the \f(CW\*(C`.gcov\*(C'\fR files |
| 339 | to get their stats into the cover_db directory. |
| 340 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 341 | Then process the Devel::Cover database |
| 342 | .PP |
| 343 | It would be good to add a single switch to \f(CW\*(C`Configure\*(C'\fR to specify that you |
| 344 | wanted to perform perl level coverage, and another to specify C level |
| 345 | coverage, and have \f(CW\*(C`Configure\*(C'\fR and the \fIMakefile\fR do all the right things |
| 346 | automatically. |
| 347 | .Sh "Make Config.pm cope with differences between build and installed perl" |
| 348 | .IX Subsection "Make Config.pm cope with differences between build and installed perl" |
| 349 | Quite often vendors ship a perl binary compiled with their (pay\-for) |
| 350 | compilers. People install a free compiler, such as gcc. To work out how to |
| 351 | build extensions, Perl interrogates \f(CW%Config\fR, so in this situation |
| 352 | \&\f(CW%Config\fR describes compilers that aren't there, and extension building |
| 353 | fails. This forces people into choosing between re-compiling perl themselves |
| 354 | using the compiler they have, or only using modules that the vendor ships. |
| 355 | .PP |
| 356 | It would be good to find a way teach \f(CW\*(C`Config.pm\*(C'\fR about the installation setup, |
| 357 | possibly involving probing at install time or later, so that the \f(CW%Config\fR in |
| 358 | a binary distribution better describes the installed machine, when the |
| 359 | installed machine differs from the build machine in some significant way. |
| 360 | .Sh "make parallel builds work" |
| 361 | .IX Subsection "make parallel builds work" |
| 362 | Currently parallel builds (such as \f(CW\*(C`make \-j3\*(C'\fR) don't work reliably. We believe |
| 363 | that this is due to incomplete dependency specification in the \fIMakefile\fR. |
| 364 | It would be good if someone were able to track down the causes of these |
| 365 | problems, so that parallel builds worked properly. |
| 366 | .Sh "linker specification files" |
| 367 | .IX Subsection "linker specification files" |
| 368 | Some platforms mandate that you provide a list of a shared library's external |
| 369 | symbols to the linker, so the core already has the infrastructure in place to |
| 370 | do this for generating shared perl libraries. My understanding is that the |
| 371 | \&\s-1GNU\s0 toolchain can accept an optional linker specification file, and restrict |
| 372 | visibility just to symbols declared in that file. It would be good to extend |
| 373 | \&\fImakedef.pl\fR to support this format, and to provide a means within |
| 374 | \&\f(CW\*(C`Configure\*(C'\fR to enable it. This would allow Unix users to test that the |
| 375 | export list is correct, and to build a perl that does not pollute the global |
| 376 | namespace with private symbols. |
| 377 | .SH "Tasks that need a little C knowledge" |
| 378 | .IX Header "Tasks that need a little C knowledge" |
| 379 | These tasks would need a little C knowledge, but don't need any specific |
| 380 | background or experience with \s-1XS\s0, or how the Perl interpreter works |
| 381 | .Sh "Make it clear from \-v if this is the exact official release" |
| 382 | .IX Subsection "Make it clear from -v if this is the exact official release" |
| 383 | Currently perl from \f(CW\*(C`p4\*(C'\fR/\f(CW\*(C`rsync\*(C'\fR ships with a \fIpatchlevel.h\fR file that |
| 384 | usually defines one local patch, of the form \*(L"\s-1MAINT12345\s0\*(R" or \*(L"\s-1RC1\s0\*(R". The output |
| 385 | of perl \-v doesn't report that a perl isn't an official release, and this |
| 386 | information can get lost in bugs reports. Because of this, the minor version |
| 387 | isn't bumped up until \s-1RC\s0 time, to minimise the possibility of versions of perl |
| 388 | escaping that believe themselves to be newer than they actually are. |
| 389 | .PP |
| 390 | It would be useful to find an elegant way to have the \*(L"this is an interim |
| 391 | maintenance release\*(R" or \*(L"this is a release candidate\*(R" in the terse \-v output, |
| 392 | and have it so that it's easy for the pumpking to remove this just as the |
| 393 | release tarball is rolled up. This way the version pulled out of rsync would |
| 394 | always say \*(L"I'm a development release\*(R" and it would be safe to bump the |
| 395 | reported minor version as soon as a release ships, which would aid perl |
| 396 | developers. |
| 397 | .PP |
| 398 | This task is really about thinking of an elegant way to arrange the C source |
| 399 | such that it's trivial for the Pumpking to flag \*(L"this is an official release\*(R" |
| 400 | when making a tarball, yet leave the default source saying \*(L"I'm not the |
| 401 | official release\*(R". |
| 402 | .Sh "Tidy up global variables" |
| 403 | .IX Subsection "Tidy up global variables" |
| 404 | There's a note in \fIintrpvar.h\fR |
| 405 | .PP |
| 406 | .Vb 4 |
| 407 | \& /* These two variables are needed to preserve 5.8.x bincompat because |
| 408 | \& we can't change function prototypes of two exported functions. |
| 409 | \& Probably should be taken out of blead soon, and relevant prototypes |
| 410 | \& changed. */ |
| 411 | .Ve |
| 412 | .PP |
| 413 | So doing this, and removing any of the unused variables still present would |
| 414 | be good. |
| 415 | .ie n .Sh "Ordering of ""global"" variables." |
| 416 | .el .Sh "Ordering of ``global'' variables." |
| 417 | .IX Subsection "Ordering of global variables." |
| 418 | \&\fIthrdvar.h\fR and \fIintrpvarh\fR define the \*(L"global\*(R" variables that need to be |
| 419 | per-thread under ithreads, where the variables are actually elements in a |
| 420 | structure. As C dictates, the variables must be laid out in order of |
| 421 | declaration. There is a comment |
| 422 | \&\f(CW\*(C`/* Important ones in the first cache line (if alignment is done right) */\*(C'\fR |
| 423 | which implies that at some point in the past the ordering was carefully chosen |
| 424 | (at least in part). However, it's clear that the ordering is less than perfect, |
| 425 | as currently there are things such as 7 \f(CW\*(C`bool\*(C'\fRs in a row, then something |
| 426 | typically requiring 4 byte alignment, and then an odd \f(CW\*(C`bool\*(C'\fR later on. |
| 427 | (\f(CW\*(C`bool\*(C'\fRs are typically defined as \f(CW\*(C`char\*(C'\fRs). So it would be good for someone |
| 428 | to review the ordering of the variables, to see how much alignment padding can |
| 429 | be removed. |
| 430 | .Sh "bincompat functions" |
| 431 | .IX Subsection "bincompat functions" |
| 432 | There are lots of functions which are retained for binary compatibility. |
| 433 | Clean these up. Move them to mathom.c, and don't compile for blead? |
| 434 | .Sh "am I hot or not?" |
| 435 | .IX Subsection "am I hot or not?" |
| 436 | The idea of \fIpp_hot.c\fR is that it contains the \fIhot\fR ops, the ops that are |
| 437 | most commonly used. The idea is that by grouping them, their object code will |
| 438 | be adjacent in the executable, so they have a greater chance of already being |
| 439 | in the \s-1CPU\s0 cache (or swapped in) due to being near another op already in use. |
| 440 | .PP |
| 441 | Except that it's not clear if these really are the most commonly used ops. So |
| 442 | anyone feeling like exercising their skill with coverage and profiling tools |
| 443 | might want to determine what ops \fIreally\fR are the most commonly used. And in |
| 444 | turn suggest evictions and promotions to achieve a better \fIpp_hot.c\fR. |
| 445 | .Sh "emulate the per-thread memory pool on Unix" |
| 446 | .IX Subsection "emulate the per-thread memory pool on Unix" |
| 447 | For Windows, ithreads allocates memory for each thread from a separate pool, |
| 448 | which it discards at thread exit. It also checks that memory is \fIfree()\fRd to |
| 449 | the correct pool. Neither check is done on Unix, so code developed there won't |
| 450 | be subject to such strictures, so can harbour bugs that only show up when the |
| 451 | code reaches Windows. |
| 452 | .PP |
| 453 | It would be good to be able to optionally emulate the Window pool system on |
| 454 | Unix, to let developers who only have access to Unix, or want to use |
| 455 | Unix-specific debugging tools, check for these problems. To do this would |
| 456 | involve figuring out how the \f(CW\*(C`PerlMem_*\*(C'\fR macros wrap \f(CW\*(C`malloc()\*(C'\fR access, and |
| 457 | providing a layer that records/checks the identity of the thread making the |
| 458 | call, and recording all the memory allocated by each thread via this \s-1API\s0 so |
| 459 | that it can be summarily \fIfree()\fRd at thread exit. One implementation idea |
| 460 | would be to increase the size of allocation, and store the \f(CW\*(C`my_perl\*(C'\fR pointer |
| 461 | (to identify the thread) at the start, along with pointers to make a linked |
| 462 | list of blocks for this thread. To avoid alignment problems it would be |
| 463 | necessary to do something like |
| 464 | .PP |
| 465 | .Vb 7 |
| 466 | \& union memory_header_padded { |
| 467 | \& struct memory_header { |
| 468 | \& void *thread_id; /* For my_perl */ |
| 469 | \& void *next; /* Pointer to next block for this thread */ |
| 470 | \& } data; |
| 471 | \& long double padding; /* whatever type has maximal alignment constraint */ |
| 472 | \& }; |
| 473 | .Ve |
| 474 | .PP |
| 475 | although \f(CW\*(C`long double\*(C'\fR might not be the only type to add to the padding |
| 476 | union. |
| 477 | .Sh "reduce duplication in sv_setsv_flags" |
| 478 | .IX Subsection "reduce duplication in sv_setsv_flags" |
| 479 | \&\f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_setsv_flags\*(C'\fR has a comment |
| 480 | \&\f(CW\*(C`/* There's a lot of redundancy below but we're going for speed here */\*(C'\fR |
| 481 | .PP |
| 482 | Whilst this was true 10 years ago, the growing disparity between \s-1RAM\s0 and \s-1CPU\s0 |
| 483 | speeds mean that the trade offs have changed. In addition, the duplicate code |
| 484 | adds to the maintenance burden. It would be good to see how much of the |
| 485 | redundancy can be pruned, particular in the less common paths. (Profiling |
| 486 | tools at the ready...). For example, why does the test for |
| 487 | \&\*(L"Can't redefine active sort subroutine\*(R" need to occur in two places? |
| 488 | .SH "Tasks that need a knowledge of XS" |
| 489 | .IX Header "Tasks that need a knowledge of XS" |
| 490 | These tasks would need C knowledge, and roughly the level of knowledge of |
| 491 | the perl \s-1API\s0 that comes from writing modules that use \s-1XS\s0 to interface to |
| 492 | C. |
| 493 | .Sh "IPv6" |
| 494 | .IX Subsection "IPv6" |
| 495 | Clean this up. Check everything in core works |
| 496 | .ie n .Sh "shrink ""GV""\fPs, \f(CW""CV""s" |
| 497 | .el .Sh "shrink \f(CWGV\fPs, \f(CWCV\fPs" |
| 498 | .IX Subsection "shrink GVs, CVs" |
| 499 | By removing unused elements and careful re\-ordering, the structures for \f(CW\*(C`AV\*(C'\fRs |
| 500 | and \f(CW\*(C`HV\*(C'\fRs have recently been shrunk considerably. It's probable that the same |
| 501 | approach would find savings in \f(CW\*(C`GV\*(C'\fRs and \f(CW\*(C`CV\*(C'\fRs, if not all the other |
| 502 | larger\-than\-\f(CW\*(C`PVMG\*(C'\fR types. |
| 503 | .Sh "merge Perl_sv_2[inpu]v" |
| 504 | .IX Subsection "merge Perl_sv_2[inpu]v" |
| 505 | There's a lot of code shared between \f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_2iv_flags\*(C'\fR, |
| 506 | \&\f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_2uv_flags\*(C'\fR, \f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_2nv\*(C'\fR, and \f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_2pv_flags\*(C'\fR. It would be |
| 507 | interesting to see if some of it can be merged into common shared static |
| 508 | functions. In particular, \f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_2uv_flags\*(C'\fR started out as a cut&paste |
| 509 | from \f(CW\*(C`Perl_sv_2iv_flags\*(C'\fR around 5.005_50 time, and it may be possible to |
| 510 | replace both with a single function that returns a value or union which is |
| 511 | split out by the macros in \fIsv.h\fR |
| 512 | .Sh "\s-1UTF8\s0 caching code" |
| 513 | .IX Subsection "UTF8 caching code" |
| 514 | The string position/offset cache is not optional. It should be. |
| 515 | .Sh "Implicit Latin 1 => Unicode translation" |
| 516 | .IX Subsection "Implicit Latin 1 => Unicode translation" |
| 517 | Conversions from byte strings to \s-1UTF\-8\s0 currently map high bit characters |
| 518 | to Unicode without translation (or, depending on how you look at it, by |
| 519 | implicitly assuming that the byte strings are in Latin\-1). As perl assumes |
| 520 | the C locale by default, upgrading a string to \s-1UTF\-8\s0 may change the |
| 521 | meaning of its contents regarding character classes, case mapping, etc. |
| 522 | This should probably emit a warning (at least). |
| 523 | .PP |
| 524 | This task is incremental \- even a little bit of work on it will help. |
| 525 | .Sh "autovivification" |
| 526 | .IX Subsection "autovivification" |
| 527 | Make all autovivification consistent w.r.t \s-1LVALUE/RVALUE\s0 and strict/no strict; |
| 528 | .PP |
| 529 | This task is incremental \- even a little bit of work on it will help. |
| 530 | .Sh "Unicode in Filenames" |
| 531 | .IX Subsection "Unicode in Filenames" |
| 532 | chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open, |
| 533 | opendir, qx, readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen, |
| 534 | system, truncate, unlink, utime, \-X. All these could potentially accept |
| 535 | Unicode filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system |
| 536 | and qx Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell). |
| 537 | Whether a filesystem \- an operating system pair understands Unicode in |
| 538 | filenames varies. |
| 539 | .PP |
| 540 | Known combinations that have some level of understanding include |
| 541 | Microsoft \s-1NTFS\s0, Apple \s-1HFS+\s0 (In Mac \s-1OS\s0 9 and X) and Apple \s-1UFS\s0 (in Mac |
| 542 | \&\s-1OS\s0 X), \s-1NFS\s0 v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to |
| 543 | create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used |
| 544 | (\s-1UCS\-2\s0, \s-1UTF\-16\s0, \s-1UTF\-8\s0), what (if any) is the normalization form used, |
| 545 | and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl |
| 546 | requires some thought. Remember that an \s-1OS\s0 does not implicate a |
| 547 | filesystem. |
| 548 | .PP |
| 549 | (The Windows \-C command flag \*(L"wide \s-1API\s0 support\*(R" has been at least |
| 550 | temporarily retired in 5.8.1, and the \-C has been repurposed, see |
| 551 | perlrun.) |
| 552 | .ie n .Sh "Unicode in %ENV" |
| 553 | .el .Sh "Unicode in \f(CW%ENV\fP" |
| 554 | .IX Subsection "Unicode in %ENV" |
| 555 | Currently the \f(CW%ENV\fR entries are always byte strings. |
| 556 | .Sh "use less 'memory'" |
| 557 | .IX Subsection "use less 'memory'" |
| 558 | Investigate trade offs to switch out perl's choices on memory usage. |
| 559 | Particularly perl should be able to give memory back. |
| 560 | .PP |
| 561 | This task is incremental \- even a little bit of work on it will help. |
| 562 | .ie n .Sh "Re-implement "":unique"" in a way that is actually thread-safe" |
| 563 | .el .Sh "Re-implement \f(CW:unique\fP in a way that is actually thread-safe" |
| 564 | .IX Subsection "Re-implement :unique in a way that is actually thread-safe" |
| 565 | The old implementation made bad assumptions on several levels. A good 90% |
| 566 | solution might be just to make \f(CW\*(C`:unique\*(C'\fR work to share the string buffer |
| 567 | of SvPVs. That way large constant strings can be shared between ithreads, |
| 568 | such as the configuration information in \fIConfig\fR. |
| 569 | .Sh "Make tainting consistent" |
| 570 | .IX Subsection "Make tainting consistent" |
| 571 | Tainting would be easier to use if it didn't take documented shortcuts and |
| 572 | allow taint to \*(L"leak\*(R" everywhere within an expression. |
| 573 | .Sh "readpipe(\s-1LIST\s0)" |
| 574 | .IX Subsection "readpipe(LIST)" |
| 575 | \&\fIsystem()\fR accepts a \s-1LIST\s0 syntax (and a \s-1PROGRAM\s0 \s-1LIST\s0 syntax) to avoid |
| 576 | running a shell. \fIreadpipe()\fR (the function behind qx//) could be similarly |
| 577 | extended. |
| 578 | .SH "Tasks that need a knowledge of the interpreter" |
| 579 | .IX Header "Tasks that need a knowledge of the interpreter" |
| 580 | These tasks would need C knowledge, and knowledge of how the interpreter works, |
| 581 | or a willingness to learn. |
| 582 | .Sh "lexical pragmas" |
| 583 | .IX Subsection "lexical pragmas" |
| 584 | Document the new support for lexical pragmas in 5.9.3 and how %^H works. |
| 585 | Maybe \f(CW\*(C`re\*(C'\fR, \f(CW\*(C`encoding\*(C'\fR, maybe other pragmas could be made lexical. |
| 586 | .Sh "Attach/detach debugger from running program" |
| 587 | .IX Subsection "Attach/detach debugger from running program" |
| 588 | The old perltodo notes "With \f(CW\*(C`gdb\*(C'\fR, you can attach the debugger to a running |
| 589 | program if you pass the process \s-1ID\s0. It would be good to do this with the Perl |
| 590 | debugger on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be |
| 591 | done." ssh and screen do this with named pipes in /tmp. Maybe we can too. |
| 592 | .Sh "Constant folding" |
| 593 | .IX Subsection "Constant folding" |
| 594 | The peephole optimiser should trap errors during constant folding, and give |
| 595 | up on the folding, rather than bailing out at compile time. It is quite |
| 596 | possible that the unfoldable constant is in unreachable code, eg something |
| 597 | akin to \f(CW\*(C`$a = 0/0 if 0;\*(C'\fR |
| 598 | .Sh "\s-1LVALUE\s0 functions for lists" |
| 599 | .IX Subsection "LVALUE functions for lists" |
| 600 | The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work for list or hash |
| 601 | slices. This would be good to fix. |
| 602 | .Sh "\s-1LVALUE\s0 functions in the debugger" |
| 603 | .IX Subsection "LVALUE functions in the debugger" |
| 604 | The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work in the debugger. This |
| 605 | would be good to fix. |
| 606 | .Sh "_ prototype character" |
| 607 | .IX Subsection "_ prototype character" |
| 608 | Study the possibility of adding a new prototype character, \f(CW\*(C`_\*(C'\fR, meaning |
| 609 | \&\*(L"this argument defaults to \f(CW$_\fR\*(R". |
| 610 | .Sh "state variables" |
| 611 | .IX Subsection "state variables" |
| 612 | \&\f(CW\*(C`my $foo if 0;\*(C'\fR is deprecated, and should be replaced with |
| 613 | \&\f(CW\*(C`state $x = "initial value\en";\*(C'\fR the syntax from Perl 6. |
| 614 | .Sh "@INC source filter to Filter::Simple" |
| 615 | .IX Subsection "@INC source filter to Filter::Simple" |
| 616 | The second return value from a sub in \f(CW@INC\fR can be a source filter. This isn't |
| 617 | documented. It should be changed to use Filter::Simple, tested and documented. |
| 618 | .Sh "regexp optimiser optional" |
| 619 | .IX Subsection "regexp optimiser optional" |
| 620 | The regexp optimiser is not optional. It should configurable to be, to allow |
| 621 | its performance to be measured, and its bugs to be easily demonstrated. |
| 622 | .Sh "\s-1UNITCHECK\s0" |
| 623 | .IX Subsection "UNITCHECK" |
| 624 | Introduce a new special block, \s-1UNITCHECK\s0, which is run at the end of a |
| 625 | compilation unit (module, file, eval(\s-1STRING\s0) block). This will correspond to |
| 626 | the Perl 6 \s-1CHECK\s0. Perl 5's \s-1CHECK\s0 cannot be changed or removed because the |
| 627 | O.pm/B.pm backend framework depends on it. |
| 628 | .Sh "optional optimizer" |
| 629 | .IX Subsection "optional optimizer" |
| 630 | Make the peephole optimizer optional. Currently it performs two tasks as |
| 631 | it walks the optree \- genuine peephole optimisations, and necessary fixups of |
| 632 | ops. It would be good to find an efficient way to switch out the |
| 633 | optimisations whilst keeping the fixups. |
| 634 | .Sh "You \s-1WANT\s0 *how* many" |
| 635 | .IX Subsection "You WANT *how* many" |
| 636 | Currently contexts are void, scalar and list. split has a special mechanism in |
| 637 | place to pass in the number of return values wanted. It would be useful to |
| 638 | have a general mechanism for this, backwards compatible and little speed hit. |
| 639 | This would allow proposals such as short circuiting sort to be implemented |
| 640 | as a module on \s-1CPAN\s0. |
| 641 | .Sh "lexical aliases" |
| 642 | .IX Subsection "lexical aliases" |
| 643 | Allow lexical aliases (maybe via the syntax \f(CW\*(C`my \e$alias = \e$foo\*(C'\fR. |
| 644 | .Sh "entersub \s-1XS\s0 vs Perl" |
| 645 | .IX Subsection "entersub XS vs Perl" |
| 646 | At the moment pp_entersub is huge, and has code to deal with entering both |
| 647 | perl and \s-1XS\s0 subroutines. Subroutine implementations rarely change between |
| 648 | perl and \s-1XS\s0 at run time, so investigate using 2 ops to enter subs (one for |
| 649 | \&\s-1XS\s0, one for perl) and swap between if a sub is redefined. |
| 650 | .Sh "Self ties" |
| 651 | .IX Subsection "Self ties" |
| 652 | self ties are currently illegal because they caused too many segfaults. Maybe |
| 653 | the causes of these could be tracked down and self-ties on all types re\- |
| 654 | instated. |
| 655 | .ie n .Sh "Optimize away @_" |
| 656 | .el .Sh "Optimize away \f(CW@_\fP" |
| 657 | .IX Subsection "Optimize away @_" |
| 658 | The old perltodo notes \*(L"Look at the \*(R"reification" code in \f(CW\*(C`av.c\*(C'\fR". |
| 659 | .Sh "What hooks would assertions need?" |
| 660 | .IX Subsection "What hooks would assertions need?" |
| 661 | Assertions are in the core, and work. However, assertions needed to be added |
| 662 | as a core patch, rather than an \s-1XS\s0 module in ext, or a \s-1CPAN\s0 module, because |
| 663 | the core has no hooks in the necessary places. It would be useful to |
| 664 | investigate what hooks would need to be added to make it possible to provide |
| 665 | the full assertion support from a \s-1CPAN\s0 module, so that we aren't constraining |
| 666 | the imagination of future \s-1CPAN\s0 authors. |
| 667 | .SH "Big projects" |
| 668 | .IX Header "Big projects" |
| 669 | Tasks that will get your name mentioned in the description of the \*(L"Highlights |
| 670 | of 5.10\*(R" |
| 671 | .Sh "make ithreads more robust" |
| 672 | .IX Subsection "make ithreads more robust" |
| 673 | Generally make ithreads more robust. See also \*(L"iCOW\*(R" |
| 674 | .PP |
| 675 | This task is incremental \- even a little bit of work on it will help, and |
| 676 | will be greatly appreciated. |
| 677 | .Sh "iCOW" |
| 678 | .IX Subsection "iCOW" |
| 679 | Sarathy and Arthur have a proposal for an improved Copy On Write which |
| 680 | specifically will be able to \s-1COW\s0 new ithreads. If this can be implemented |
| 681 | it would be a good thing. |
| 682 | .Sh "(?{...}) closures in regexps" |
| 683 | .IX Subsection "(?{...}) closures in regexps" |
| 684 | Fix (or rewrite) the implementation of the \f(CW\*(C`/(?{...})/\*(C'\fR closures. |
| 685 | .Sh "A re-entrant regexp engine" |
| 686 | .IX Subsection "A re-entrant regexp engine" |
| 687 | This will allow the use of a regex from inside (?{ }), (??{ }) and |
| 688 | (?(?{ })|) constructs. |