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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
3 | perltodo - Perl TO-DO List | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
e50bb9a1 | 6 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
7 | This is a list of wishes for Perl. The tasks we think are smaller or easier |
8 | are listed first. Anyone is welcome to work on any of these, but it's a good | |
9 | idea to first contact I<perl5-porters@perl.org> to avoid duplication of | |
10 | effort. By all means contact a pumpking privately first if you prefer. | |
e50bb9a1 | 11 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
12 | Whilst patches to make the list shorter are most welcome, ideas to add to |
13 | the list are also encouraged. Check the perl5-porters archives for past | |
14 | ideas, and any discussion about them. One set of archives may be found at: | |
e50bb9a1 | 15 | |
0bdfc961 | 16 | http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/ |
938c8732 | 17 | |
617eabfa NC |
18 | What can we offer you in return? Fame, fortune, and everlasting glory? Maybe |
19 | not, but if your patch is incorporated, then we'll add your name to the | |
20 | F<AUTHORS> file, which ships in the official distribution. How many other | |
21 | programming languages offer you 1 line of immortality? | |
938c8732 | 22 | |
4e577f8b | 23 | =head1 The roadmap to 5.10 |
938c8732 | 24 | |
4e577f8b NC |
25 | The roadmap to 5.10 envisages feature based releases, as various items in this |
26 | TODO are completed. | |
27 | ||
02f21748 | 28 | =head2 Needed for a 5.9.5 release |
4e577f8b NC |
29 | |
30 | =over | |
31 | ||
32 | =item * | |
c1f116f6 | 33 | |
02f21748 | 34 | Implement L</_ prototype character> |
4e577f8b | 35 | |
860f190d RGS |
36 | =item * |
37 | ||
02f21748 | 38 | Review smart match semantics in light of Perl 6 developments. |
4e577f8b NC |
39 | |
40 | =item * | |
c1f116f6 | 41 | |
02f21748 RGS |
42 | Review assertions. Review syntax to combine assertions. Assertions could take |
43 | advantage of the lexical pragmas work. L</What hooks would assertions need?> | |
4e577f8b | 44 | |
c1f116f6 RGS |
45 | =item * |
46 | ||
02f21748 | 47 | C<encoding> should be turned into a lexical pragma (probably). |
c1f116f6 | 48 | |
4e577f8b NC |
49 | =back |
50 | ||
51 | =head2 Needed for a 5.9.6 release | |
52 | ||
53 | Stabilisation. If all goes well, this will be the equivalent of a 5.10-beta. | |
e50bb9a1 | 54 | |
0bdfc961 | 55 | =head1 Tasks that only need Perl knowledge |
e50bb9a1 | 56 | |
0bdfc961 | 57 | =head2 common test code for timed bail out |
e50bb9a1 | 58 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
59 | Write portable self destruct code for tests to stop them burning CPU in |
60 | infinite loops. This needs to avoid using alarm, as some of the tests are | |
61 | testing alarm/sleep or timers. | |
e50bb9a1 | 62 | |
0bdfc961 | 63 | =head2 POD -> HTML conversion in the core still sucks |
e50bb9a1 | 64 | |
938c8732 | 65 | Which is crazy given just how simple POD purports to be, and how simple HTML |
adebf063 NC |
66 | can be. It's not actually I<as> simple as it sounds, particularly with the |
67 | flexibility POD allows for C<=item>, but it would be good to improve the | |
68 | visual appeal of the HTML generated, and to avoid it having any validation | |
69 | errors. See also L</make HTML install work>, as the layout of installation tree | |
70 | is needed to improve the cross-linking. | |
938c8732 | 71 | |
dc0fb092 SP |
72 | The addition of C<Pod::Simple> and its related modules may make this task |
73 | easier to complete. | |
74 | ||
aa237293 NC |
75 | =head2 Parallel testing |
76 | ||
b2e2905c | 77 | (This probably impacts much more than the core: also the Test::Harness |
02f21748 RGS |
78 | and TAP::* modules on CPAN.) |
79 | ||
aa237293 NC |
80 | The core regression test suite is getting ever more comprehensive, which has |
81 | the side effect that it takes longer to run. This isn't so good. Investigate | |
82 | whether it would be feasible to give the harness script the B<option> of | |
83 | running sets of tests in parallel. This would be useful for tests in | |
84 | F<t/op/*.t> and F<t/uni/*.t> and maybe some sets of tests in F<lib/>. | |
85 | ||
86 | Questions to answer | |
87 | ||
88 | =over 4 | |
89 | ||
90 | =item 1 | |
91 | ||
92 | How does screen layout work when you're running more than one test? | |
93 | ||
94 | =item 2 | |
95 | ||
96 | How does the caller of test specify how many tests to run in parallel? | |
97 | ||
98 | =item 3 | |
99 | ||
100 | How do setup/teardown tests identify themselves? | |
101 | ||
102 | =back | |
103 | ||
104 | Pugs already does parallel testing - can their approach be re-used? | |
105 | ||
0bdfc961 | 106 | =head2 Make Schwern poorer |
e50bb9a1 | 107 | |
613bd4f7 | 108 | We should have tests for everything. When all the core's modules are tested, |
0bdfc961 NC |
109 | Schwern has promised to donate to $500 to TPF. We may need volunteers to |
110 | hold him upside down and shake vigorously in order to actually extract the | |
111 | cash. | |
3958b146 | 112 | |
0bdfc961 | 113 | =head2 Improve the coverage of the core tests |
e50bb9a1 | 114 | |
02f21748 RGS |
115 | Use Devel::Cover to ascertain the core modules's test coverage, then add |
116 | tests that are currently missing. | |
30222c0f | 117 | |
0bdfc961 | 118 | =head2 test B |
e50bb9a1 | 119 | |
0bdfc961 | 120 | A full test suite for the B module would be nice. |
e50bb9a1 | 121 | |
0bdfc961 | 122 | =head2 A decent benchmark |
e50bb9a1 | 123 | |
617eabfa | 124 | C<perlbench> seems impervious to any recent changes made to the perl core. It |
0bdfc961 NC |
125 | would be useful to have a reasonable general benchmarking suite that roughly |
126 | represented what current perl programs do, and measurably reported whether | |
127 | tweaks to the core improve, degrade or don't really affect performance, to | |
128 | guide people attempting to optimise the guts of perl. Gisle would welcome | |
129 | new tests for perlbench. | |
6168cf99 | 130 | |
0bdfc961 | 131 | =head2 fix tainting bugs |
6168cf99 | 132 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
133 | Fix the bugs revealed by running the test suite with the C<-t> switch (via |
134 | C<make test.taintwarn>). | |
e50bb9a1 | 135 | |
0bdfc961 | 136 | =head2 Dual life everything |
e50bb9a1 | 137 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
138 | As part of the "dists" plan, anything that doesn't belong in the smallest perl |
139 | distribution needs to be dual lifed. Anything else can be too. Figure out what | |
140 | changes would be needed to package that module and its tests up for CPAN, and | |
141 | do so. Test it with older perl releases, and fix the problems you find. | |
e50bb9a1 | 142 | |
0bdfc961 | 143 | =head2 Improving C<threads::shared> |
722d2a37 | 144 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
145 | Investigate whether C<threads::shared> could share aggregates properly with |
146 | only Perl level changes to shared.pm | |
722d2a37 | 147 | |
0bdfc961 | 148 | =head2 POSIX memory footprint |
e50bb9a1 | 149 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
150 | Ilya observed that use POSIX; eats memory like there's no tomorrow, and at |
151 | various times worked to cut it down. There is probably still fat to cut out - | |
152 | for example POSIX passes Exporter some very memory hungry data structures. | |
e50bb9a1 | 153 | |
eed36644 NC |
154 | =head2 embed.pl/makedef.pl |
155 | ||
156 | There is a script F<embed.pl> that generates several header files to prefix | |
157 | all of Perl's symbols in a consistent way, to provide some semblance of | |
158 | namespace support in C<C>. Functions are declared in F<embed.fnc>, variables | |
159 | in F<interpvar.h> and F<thrdvar.h>. Quite a few of the functions and variables | |
160 | are conditionally declared there, using C<#ifdef>. However, F<embed.pl> | |
161 | doesn't understand the C macros, so the rules about which symbols are present | |
162 | when is duplicated in F<makedef.pl>. Writing things twice is bad, m'kay. | |
163 | It would be good to teach C<embed.pl> to understand the conditional | |
164 | compilation, and hence remove the duplication, and the mistakes it has caused. | |
e50bb9a1 | 165 | |
0bdfc961 | 166 | =head1 Tasks that need a little sysadmin-type knowledge |
e50bb9a1 | 167 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
168 | Or if you prefer, tasks that you would learn from, and broaden your skills |
169 | base... | |
e50bb9a1 | 170 | |
cd793d32 | 171 | =head2 make HTML install work |
e50bb9a1 | 172 | |
adebf063 NC |
173 | There is an C<installhtml> target in the Makefile. It's marked as |
174 | "experimental". It would be good to get this tested, make it work reliably, and | |
175 | remove the "experimental" tag. This would include | |
176 | ||
177 | =over 4 | |
178 | ||
179 | =item 1 | |
180 | ||
181 | Checking that cross linking between various parts of the documentation works. | |
182 | In particular that links work between the modules (files with POD in F<lib/>) | |
183 | and the core documentation (files in F<pod/>) | |
184 | ||
185 | =item 2 | |
186 | ||
617eabfa NC |
187 | Work out how to split C<perlfunc> into chunks, preferably one per function |
188 | group, preferably with general case code that could be used elsewhere. | |
189 | Challenges here are correctly identifying the groups of functions that go | |
190 | together, and making the right named external cross-links point to the right | |
191 | page. Things to be aware of are C<-X>, groups such as C<getpwnam> to | |
192 | C<endservent>, two or more C<=items> giving the different parameter lists, such | |
193 | as | |
adebf063 NC |
194 | |
195 | =item substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT | |
adebf063 | 196 | =item substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH |
adebf063 NC |
197 | =item substr EXPR,OFFSET |
198 | ||
199 | and different parameter lists having different meanings. (eg C<select>) | |
200 | ||
201 | =back | |
3a89a73c | 202 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
203 | =head2 compressed man pages |
204 | ||
205 | Be able to install them. This would probably need a configure test to see how | |
206 | the system does compressed man pages (same directory/different directory? | |
207 | same filename/different filename), as well as tweaking the F<installman> script | |
208 | to compress as necessary. | |
209 | ||
30222c0f NC |
210 | =head2 Add a code coverage target to the Makefile |
211 | ||
212 | Make it easy for anyone to run Devel::Cover on the core's tests. The steps | |
213 | to do this manually are roughly | |
214 | ||
215 | =over 4 | |
216 | ||
217 | =item * | |
218 | ||
219 | do a normal C<Configure>, but include Devel::Cover as a module to install | |
220 | (see F<INSTALL> for how to do this) | |
221 | ||
222 | =item * | |
223 | ||
224 | make perl | |
225 | ||
226 | =item * | |
227 | ||
228 | cd t; HARNESS_PERL_SWITCHES=-MDevel::Cover ./perl -I../lib harness | |
229 | ||
230 | =item * | |
231 | ||
232 | Process the resulting Devel::Cover database | |
233 | ||
234 | =back | |
235 | ||
236 | This just give you the coverage of the F<.pm>s. To also get the C level | |
237 | coverage you need to | |
238 | ||
239 | =over 4 | |
240 | ||
241 | =item * | |
242 | ||
243 | Additionally tell C<Configure> to use the appropriate C compiler flags for | |
244 | C<gcov> | |
245 | ||
246 | =item * | |
247 | ||
248 | make perl.gcov | |
249 | ||
250 | (instead of C<make perl>) | |
251 | ||
252 | =item * | |
253 | ||
254 | After running the tests run C<gcov> to generate all the F<.gcov> files. | |
255 | (Including down in the subdirectories of F<ext/> | |
256 | ||
257 | =item * | |
258 | ||
259 | (From the top level perl directory) run C<gcov2perl> on all the C<.gcov> files | |
260 | to get their stats into the cover_db directory. | |
261 | ||
262 | =item * | |
263 | ||
264 | Then process the Devel::Cover database | |
265 | ||
266 | =back | |
267 | ||
268 | It would be good to add a single switch to C<Configure> to specify that you | |
269 | wanted to perform perl level coverage, and another to specify C level | |
270 | coverage, and have C<Configure> and the F<Makefile> do all the right things | |
271 | automatically. | |
272 | ||
02f21748 | 273 | =head2 Make Config.pm cope with differences between built and installed perl |
0bdfc961 NC |
274 | |
275 | Quite often vendors ship a perl binary compiled with their (pay-for) | |
276 | compilers. People install a free compiler, such as gcc. To work out how to | |
277 | build extensions, Perl interrogates C<%Config>, so in this situation | |
278 | C<%Config> describes compilers that aren't there, and extension building | |
279 | fails. This forces people into choosing between re-compiling perl themselves | |
280 | using the compiler they have, or only using modules that the vendor ships. | |
281 | ||
282 | It would be good to find a way teach C<Config.pm> about the installation setup, | |
283 | possibly involving probing at install time or later, so that the C<%Config> in | |
284 | a binary distribution better describes the installed machine, when the | |
285 | installed machine differs from the build machine in some significant way. | |
286 | ||
728f4ecd NC |
287 | =head2 linker specification files |
288 | ||
289 | Some platforms mandate that you provide a list of a shared library's external | |
290 | symbols to the linker, so the core already has the infrastructure in place to | |
291 | do this for generating shared perl libraries. My understanding is that the | |
292 | GNU toolchain can accept an optional linker specification file, and restrict | |
293 | visibility just to symbols declared in that file. It would be good to extend | |
294 | F<makedef.pl> to support this format, and to provide a means within | |
295 | C<Configure> to enable it. This would allow Unix users to test that the | |
296 | export list is correct, and to build a perl that does not pollute the global | |
297 | namespace with private symbols. | |
298 | ||
a229ae3b RGS |
299 | =head2 Cross-compile support |
300 | ||
301 | Currently C<Configure> understands C<-Dusecrosscompile> option. This option | |
302 | arranges for building C<miniperl> for TARGET machine, so this C<miniperl> is | |
303 | assumed then to be copied to TARGET machine and used as a replacement of full | |
304 | C<perl> executable. | |
305 | ||
d1307786 | 306 | This could be done little differently. Namely C<miniperl> should be built for |
a229ae3b | 307 | HOST and then full C<perl> with extensions should be compiled for TARGET. |
d1307786 JH |
308 | This, however, might require extra trickery for %Config: we have one config |
309 | first for HOST and then another for TARGET. | |
0bdfc961 NC |
310 | |
311 | =head1 Tasks that need a little C knowledge | |
312 | ||
313 | These tasks would need a little C knowledge, but don't need any specific | |
314 | background or experience with XS, or how the Perl interpreter works | |
315 | ||
316 | =head2 Make it clear from -v if this is the exact official release | |
89007cb3 | 317 | |
617eabfa NC |
318 | Currently perl from C<p4>/C<rsync> ships with a F<patchlevel.h> file that |
319 | usually defines one local patch, of the form "MAINT12345" or "RC1". The output | |
320 | of perl -v doesn't report that a perl isn't an official release, and this | |
89007cb3 | 321 | information can get lost in bugs reports. Because of this, the minor version |
fa11829f | 322 | isn't bumped up until RC time, to minimise the possibility of versions of perl |
89007cb3 NC |
323 | escaping that believe themselves to be newer than they actually are. |
324 | ||
325 | It would be useful to find an elegant way to have the "this is an interim | |
326 | maintenance release" or "this is a release candidate" in the terse -v output, | |
327 | and have it so that it's easy for the pumpking to remove this just as the | |
328 | release tarball is rolled up. This way the version pulled out of rsync would | |
329 | always say "I'm a development release" and it would be safe to bump the | |
330 | reported minor version as soon as a release ships, which would aid perl | |
331 | developers. | |
332 | ||
0bdfc961 NC |
333 | This task is really about thinking of an elegant way to arrange the C source |
334 | such that it's trivial for the Pumpking to flag "this is an official release" | |
335 | when making a tarball, yet leave the default source saying "I'm not the | |
336 | official release". | |
337 | ||
0f788cd2 NC |
338 | =head2 Ordering of "global" variables. |
339 | ||
340 | F<thrdvar.h> and F<intrpvarh> define the "global" variables that need to be | |
341 | per-thread under ithreads, where the variables are actually elements in a | |
342 | structure. As C dictates, the variables must be laid out in order of | |
343 | declaration. There is a comment | |
344 | C</* Important ones in the first cache line (if alignment is done right) */> | |
345 | which implies that at some point in the past the ordering was carefully chosen | |
346 | (at least in part). However, it's clear that the ordering is less than perfect, | |
347 | as currently there are things such as 7 C<bool>s in a row, then something | |
348 | typically requiring 4 byte alignment, and then an odd C<bool> later on. | |
349 | (C<bool>s are typically defined as C<char>s). So it would be good for someone | |
350 | to review the ordering of the variables, to see how much alignment padding can | |
351 | be removed. | |
352 | ||
d7939546 NC |
353 | It's also worth checking that all variables are actually used. Perl 5.8.0 |
354 | shipped with C<PL_nrs> still defined in F<thrdvar.h>, despite it being unused | |
355 | since a change over a year earlier. Had this been spotted before release, it | |
356 | could have been removed, but now it has to remain in the 5.8.x releases to | |
357 | keep the structure the same size, to retain binary compatibility. | |
358 | ||
c1ab7b38 NC |
359 | It's probably worth checking if all need to be the types they are. For example |
360 | ||
361 | PERLVAR(Ierror_count, I32) /* how many errors so far, max 10 */ | |
362 | ||
363 | might work as well if stored in a signed (or unsigned) 8 bit value, if the | |
364 | comment is accurate. C<PL_multi_open> and C<PL_multi_close> can probably | |
365 | become C<char>s. Finding variables to downsize coupled with rearrangement | |
366 | could shrink the interpreter structure; a size saving which is multiplied by | |
367 | the number of threads running. | |
368 | ||
fee0a0f7 | 369 | =head2 Profile Perl - am I hot or not? |
62403a3c | 370 | |
fee0a0f7 NC |
371 | The Perl source code is stable enough that it makes sense to profile it, |
372 | identify and optimise the hotspots. It would be good to measure the | |
373 | performance of the Perl interpreter using free tools such as cachegrind, | |
374 | gprof, and dtrace, and work to reduce the bottlenecks they reveal. | |
375 | ||
376 | As part of this, the idea of F<pp_hot.c> is that it contains the I<hot> ops, | |
377 | the ops that are most commonly used. The idea is that by grouping them, their | |
378 | object code will be adjacent in the executable, so they have a greater chance | |
379 | of already being in the CPU cache (or swapped in) due to being near another op | |
380 | already in use. | |
62403a3c NC |
381 | |
382 | Except that it's not clear if these really are the most commonly used ops. So | |
fee0a0f7 NC |
383 | as part of exercising your skills with coverage and profiling tools you might |
384 | want to determine what ops I<really> are the most commonly used. And in turn | |
385 | suggest evictions and promotions to achieve a better F<pp_hot.c>. | |
62403a3c | 386 | |
98fed0ad NC |
387 | =head2 Shrink struct context |
388 | ||
389 | In F<cop.h>, we have | |
390 | ||
391 | struct context { | |
392 | U32 cx_type; /* what kind of context this is */ | |
393 | union { | |
394 | struct block cx_blk; | |
395 | struct subst cx_subst; | |
396 | } cx_u; | |
397 | }; | |
398 | ||
399 | There are less than 256 values for C<cx_type>, and the constituent parts | |
400 | C<struct block> and C<struct subst> both contain some C<U8> and C<U16> fields, | |
401 | so it should be possible to move them to the first word, and share space with | |
402 | a C<U8> C<cx_type>, saving 1 word. | |
403 | ||
404 | =head2 Allocate OPs from arenas | |
405 | ||
406 | Currently all new OP structures are individually malloc()ed and free()d. | |
407 | All C<malloc> implementations have space overheads, and are now as fast as | |
408 | custom allocates so it would both use less memory and less CPU to allocate | |
409 | the various OP structures from arenas. The SV arena code can probably be | |
410 | re-used for this. | |
411 | ||
a229ae3b | 412 | =head2 Improve win32/wince.c |
0bdfc961 | 413 | |
a229ae3b | 414 | Currently, numerous functions look virtually, if not completely, |
02f21748 RGS |
415 | identical in both C<win32/wince.c> and C<win32/win32.c> files, which can't |
416 | be good. | |
0bdfc961 | 417 | |
0bdfc961 | 418 | =head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of XS |
e50bb9a1 | 419 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
420 | These tasks would need C knowledge, and roughly the level of knowledge of |
421 | the perl API that comes from writing modules that use XS to interface to | |
422 | C. | |
423 | ||
f23930d5 | 424 | =head2 shrink C<PVBM>s |
4a750395 | 425 | |
35b64ab6 | 426 | By removing unused elements and careful re-ordering, the structures for C<AV>s, |
f23930d5 NC |
427 | C<HV>s, C<CV>s and C<GV>s have recently been shrunk considerably. C<PVIO>s |
428 | probably aren't worth it, as typical programs don't use more than 8, and | |
429 | (at least) C<Filter::Util::Call> uses C<SvPVX>/C<SvCUR>/C<SvLEN> on a C<PVIO>, | |
430 | so it would mean code changes to modules on CPAN. C<PVBM>s might have some | |
431 | savings to win. | |
4a750395 | 432 | |
cd793d32 | 433 | =head2 autovivification |
e50bb9a1 | 434 | |
cd793d32 | 435 | Make all autovivification consistent w.r.t LVALUE/RVALUE and strict/no strict; |
e50bb9a1 | 436 | |
0bdfc961 | 437 | This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help. |
e50bb9a1 | 438 | |
0bdfc961 | 439 | =head2 Unicode in Filenames |
e50bb9a1 | 440 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
441 | chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open, |
442 | opendir, qx, readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen, | |
443 | system, truncate, unlink, utime, -X. All these could potentially accept | |
444 | Unicode filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system | |
445 | and qx Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell). | |
446 | Whether a filesystem - an operating system pair understands Unicode in | |
447 | filenames varies. | |
e50bb9a1 | 448 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
449 | Known combinations that have some level of understanding include |
450 | Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS+ (In Mac OS 9 and X) and Apple UFS (in Mac | |
451 | OS X), NFS v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to | |
452 | create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used | |
453 | (UCS-2, UTF-16, UTF-8), what (if any) is the normalization form used, | |
454 | and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl | |
455 | requires some thought. Remember that an OS does not implicate a | |
456 | filesystem. | |
e50bb9a1 | 457 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
458 | (The Windows -C command flag "wide API support" has been at least |
459 | temporarily retired in 5.8.1, and the -C has been repurposed, see | |
460 | L<perlrun>.) | |
969e704b | 461 | |
0bdfc961 | 462 | =head2 Unicode in %ENV |
969e704b | 463 | |
0bdfc961 | 464 | Currently the %ENV entries are always byte strings. |
e50bb9a1 | 465 | |
0bdfc961 | 466 | =head2 use less 'memory' |
e50bb9a1 | 467 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
468 | Investigate trade offs to switch out perl's choices on memory usage. |
469 | Particularly perl should be able to give memory back. | |
e50bb9a1 | 470 | |
0bdfc961 | 471 | This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help. |
0abe3f7c | 472 | |
0bdfc961 | 473 | =head2 Re-implement C<:unique> in a way that is actually thread-safe |
0abe3f7c | 474 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
475 | The old implementation made bad assumptions on several levels. A good 90% |
476 | solution might be just to make C<:unique> work to share the string buffer | |
477 | of SvPVs. That way large constant strings can be shared between ithreads, | |
478 | such as the configuration information in F<Config>. | |
0abe3f7c | 479 | |
0bdfc961 | 480 | =head2 Make tainting consistent |
0abe3f7c | 481 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
482 | Tainting would be easier to use if it didn't take documented shortcuts and |
483 | allow taint to "leak" everywhere within an expression. | |
0abe3f7c | 484 | |
0bdfc961 | 485 | =head2 readpipe(LIST) |
0abe3f7c | 486 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
487 | system() accepts a LIST syntax (and a PROGRAM LIST syntax) to avoid |
488 | running a shell. readpipe() (the function behind qx//) could be similarly | |
489 | extended. | |
0abe3f7c | 490 | |
d1307786 | 491 | =head2 strcat(), strcpy(), strncat(), strncpy(), sprintf(), vsprintf() |
e50bb9a1 | 492 | |
d1307786 JH |
493 | Maybe create a utility that checks after each libperl.a creation that |
494 | none of the above (nor sprintf(), vsprintf(), or *SHUDDER* gets()) | |
495 | ever creep back to libperl.a. | |
e50bb9a1 | 496 | |
d1307786 | 497 | nm libperl.a | ./miniperl -alne '$o = $F[0] if /:$/; print "$o $F[1]" if $F[0] eq "U" && $F[1] =~ /^(?:strn?c(?:at|py)|v?sprintf|gets)$/' |
e50bb9a1 | 498 | |
d1307786 JH |
499 | Note, of course, that this will only tell whether B<your> platform |
500 | is using those naughty interfaces. | |
f86a8bc5 | 501 | |
0bdfc961 | 502 | =head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of the interpreter |
3298bd4d | 503 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
504 | These tasks would need C knowledge, and knowledge of how the interpreter works, |
505 | or a willingness to learn. | |
3298bd4d | 506 | |
d10fc472 | 507 | =head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program |
1626a787 | 508 | |
cd793d32 NC |
509 | The old perltodo notes "With C<gdb>, you can attach the debugger to a running |
510 | program if you pass the process ID. It would be good to do this with the Perl | |
0bdfc961 NC |
511 | debugger on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be |
512 | done." ssh and screen do this with named pipes in /tmp. Maybe we can too. | |
1626a787 | 513 | |
0bdfc961 NC |
514 | =head2 LVALUE functions for lists |
515 | ||
516 | The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work for list or hash | |
517 | slices. This would be good to fix. | |
518 | ||
519 | =head2 LVALUE functions in the debugger | |
520 | ||
521 | The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work in the debugger. This | |
522 | would be good to fix. | |
523 | ||
524 | =head2 _ prototype character | |
525 | ||
526 | Study the possibility of adding a new prototype character, C<_>, meaning | |
527 | "this argument defaults to $_". | |
528 | ||
0bdfc961 NC |
529 | =head2 regexp optimiser optional |
530 | ||
531 | The regexp optimiser is not optional. It should configurable to be, to allow | |
532 | its performance to be measured, and its bugs to be easily demonstrated. | |
533 | ||
534 | =head2 UNITCHECK | |
535 | ||
536 | Introduce a new special block, UNITCHECK, which is run at the end of a | |
537 | compilation unit (module, file, eval(STRING) block). This will correspond to | |
538 | the Perl 6 CHECK. Perl 5's CHECK cannot be changed or removed because the | |
539 | O.pm/B.pm backend framework depends on it. | |
540 | ||
02f21748 RGS |
541 | =head2 delete &function |
542 | ||
543 | Allow to delete functions. One can already undef them, but they're still | |
544 | in the stash. | |
545 | ||
546 | =head2 Make readpipe overridable | |
547 | ||
548 | so we can override qx// as well. | |
549 | ||
0bdfc961 NC |
550 | =head2 optional optimizer |
551 | ||
552 | Make the peephole optimizer optional. Currently it performs two tasks as | |
553 | it walks the optree - genuine peephole optimisations, and necessary fixups of | |
554 | ops. It would be good to find an efficient way to switch out the | |
555 | optimisations whilst keeping the fixups. | |
556 | ||
557 | =head2 You WANT *how* many | |
558 | ||
559 | Currently contexts are void, scalar and list. split has a special mechanism in | |
560 | place to pass in the number of return values wanted. It would be useful to | |
561 | have a general mechanism for this, backwards compatible and little speed hit. | |
562 | This would allow proposals such as short circuiting sort to be implemented | |
563 | as a module on CPAN. | |
564 | ||
565 | =head2 lexical aliases | |
566 | ||
567 | Allow lexical aliases (maybe via the syntax C<my \$alias = \$foo>. | |
568 | ||
569 | =head2 entersub XS vs Perl | |
570 | ||
571 | At the moment pp_entersub is huge, and has code to deal with entering both | |
572 | perl and XS subroutines. Subroutine implementations rarely change between | |
573 | perl and XS at run time, so investigate using 2 ops to enter subs (one for | |
574 | XS, one for perl) and swap between if a sub is redefined. | |
2810d901 NC |
575 | |
576 | =head2 Self ties | |
577 | ||
578 | self ties are currently illegal because they caused too many segfaults. Maybe | |
579 | the causes of these could be tracked down and self-ties on all types re- | |
580 | instated. | |
0bdfc961 NC |
581 | |
582 | =head2 Optimize away @_ | |
583 | ||
584 | The old perltodo notes "Look at the "reification" code in C<av.c>". | |
585 | ||
0bdfc961 NC |
586 | =head2 What hooks would assertions need? |
587 | ||
588 | Assertions are in the core, and work. However, assertions needed to be added | |
589 | as a core patch, rather than an XS module in ext, or a CPAN module, because | |
590 | the core has no hooks in the necessary places. It would be useful to | |
591 | investigate what hooks would need to be added to make it possible to provide | |
592 | the full assertion support from a CPAN module, so that we aren't constraining | |
593 | the imagination of future CPAN authors. | |
594 | ||
16fc99ce NC |
595 | =head2 Properly Unicode safe tokeniser and pads. |
596 | ||
597 | The tokeniser isn't actually very UTF-8 clean. C<use utf8;> is a hack - | |
598 | variable names are stored in stashes as raw bytes, without the utf-8 flag | |
599 | set. The pad API only takes a C<char *> pointer, so that's all bytes too. The | |
600 | tokeniser ignores the UTF-8-ness of C<PL_rsfp>, or any SVs returned from | |
601 | source filters. All this could be fixed. | |
602 | ||
0bdfc961 NC |
603 | =head1 Big projects |
604 | ||
605 | Tasks that will get your name mentioned in the description of the "Highlights | |
606 | of 5.10" | |
607 | ||
608 | =head2 make ithreads more robust | |
609 | ||
4e577f8b | 610 | Generally make ithreads more robust. See also L</iCOW> |
0bdfc961 NC |
611 | |
612 | This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help, and | |
613 | will be greatly appreciated. | |
614 | ||
6c047da7 YST |
615 | One bit would be to write the missing code in sv.c:Perl_dirp_dup. |
616 | ||
0bdfc961 NC |
617 | =head2 iCOW |
618 | ||
619 | Sarathy and Arthur have a proposal for an improved Copy On Write which | |
620 | specifically will be able to COW new ithreads. If this can be implemented | |
621 | it would be a good thing. | |
622 | ||
623 | =head2 (?{...}) closures in regexps | |
624 | ||
625 | Fix (or rewrite) the implementation of the C</(?{...})/> closures. | |
626 | ||
627 | =head2 A re-entrant regexp engine | |
628 | ||
629 | This will allow the use of a regex from inside (?{ }), (??{ }) and | |
630 | (?(?{ })|) constructs. |