| 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 doing |
| 58 | 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 | lc(), uc(), lcfirst(), and ucfirst() work only for some of the |
| 91 | simplest cases, where the mapping goes from a single Unicode character |
| 92 | to another single Unicode character. See lib/unicore/SpecCase.txt |
| 93 | (and CaseFold.txt). |
| 94 | |
| 95 | =item * |
| 96 | |
| 97 | They have some tricks Perl doesn't yet implement like character |
| 98 | class subtraction. |
| 99 | |
| 100 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr18/ |
| 101 | |
| 102 | =back |
| 103 | |
| 104 | See L<perlunicode/UNICODE REGULAR EXPRESSION SUPPORT LEVEL> for what's |
| 105 | there and what's missing. Almost all of Levels 2 and 3 is missing, |
| 106 | and as of 5.8.0 not even all of Level 1 is there. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | =head2 use Thread for iThreads |
| 109 | |
| 110 | Artur Bergman's C<iThreads> module is a start on this, but needs to |
| 111 | be more mature. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | =head2 make perl_clone optionally clone ops |
| 114 | |
| 115 | So that pseudoforking, mod_perl, iThreads and nvi will work properly |
| 116 | (but not as efficiently) until the regex engine is fixed to be threadsafe. |
| 117 | |
| 118 | =head2 Work out exit/die semantics for threads |
| 119 | |
| 120 | =head2 Typed lexicals for compiler |
| 121 | |
| 122 | =head2 Compiler workarounds for Win32 |
| 123 | |
| 124 | =head2 AUTOLOADing in the compiler |
| 125 | |
| 126 | =head2 Fixing comppadlist when compiling |
| 127 | |
| 128 | =head2 Cleaning up exported namespace |
| 129 | |
| 130 | =head2 Complete signal handling |
| 131 | |
| 132 | Add C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK> to opcodes which loop; replace C<sigsetjmp> with |
| 133 | C<sigjmp>; check C<wait> for signal safety. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | =head2 Out-of-source builds |
| 136 | |
| 137 | This was done for 5.6.0, but needs reworking for 5.7.x |
| 138 | |
| 139 | =head2 POSIX realtime support |
| 140 | |
| 141 | POSIX 1003.1 1996 Edition support--realtime stuff: POSIX semaphores, |
| 142 | message queues, shared memory, realtime clocks, timers, signals (the |
| 143 | metaconfig units mostly already exist for these) |
| 144 | |
| 145 | =head2 UNIX98 support |
| 146 | |
| 147 | Reader-writer locks, realtime/asynchronous IO |
| 148 | |
| 149 | =head2 IPv6 Support |
| 150 | |
| 151 | There are non-core modules, such as C<Net::IPv6>, but these will need |
| 152 | integrating when IPv6 actually starts to really happen. See RFC 2292 |
| 153 | and RFC 2553. |
| 154 | |
| 155 | =head2 Long double conversion |
| 156 | |
| 157 | Floating point formatting is still causing some weird test failures. |
| 158 | |
| 159 | =head2 Locales |
| 160 | |
| 161 | Locales and Unicode interact with each other in unpleasant ways. |
| 162 | One possible solution would be to adopt/support ICU: |
| 163 | |
| 164 | http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/icu/project/ |
| 165 | |
| 166 | =head2 Thread-safe regexes |
| 167 | |
| 168 | The regular expression engine is currently non-threadsafe. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | =head2 Arithmetic on non-Arabic numerals |
| 171 | |
| 172 | C<[1234567890]> aren't the only numerals any more. |
| 173 | |
| 174 | =head2 POSIX Unicode character classes |
| 175 | |
| 176 | (C<[=a=]> for equivalance classes, C<[.ch.]> for collation.) |
| 177 | These are dependent on Unicode normalization and collation. |
| 178 | |
| 179 | =head2 Factoring out common suffices/prefices in regexps (trie optimization) |
| 180 | |
| 181 | Currently, the user has to optimize C<foo|far> and C<foo|goo> into |
| 182 | C<f(?:oo|ar)> and C<[fg]oo> by hand; this could be done automatically. |
| 183 | |
| 184 | =head2 Security audit shipped utilities |
| 185 | |
| 186 | All the code we ship with Perl needs to be sensible about temporary file |
| 187 | handling, locking, input validation, and so on. |
| 188 | |
| 189 | =head2 Custom opcodes |
| 190 | |
| 191 | Have a way to introduce user-defined opcodes without the subroutine call |
| 192 | overhead of an XSUB; the user should be able to create PP code. Simon |
| 193 | Cozens has some ideas on this. |
| 194 | |
| 195 | =head2 DLL Versioning |
| 196 | |
| 197 | Windows needs a way to know what version of an XS or C<libperl> DLL it's |
| 198 | loading. |
| 199 | |
| 200 | =head2 Introduce @( and @) |
| 201 | |
| 202 | C<$(> may return "foo bar baz". Unfortunately, since groups can |
| 203 | theoretically have spaces in their names, this could be one, two or |
| 204 | three groups. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | =head2 Floating point handling |
| 207 | |
| 208 | C<NaN> and C<inf> support is particularly troublesome. |
| 209 | (fp_classify(), fp_class(), fp_class_d(), class(), isinf(), |
| 210 | isfinite(), finite(), isnormal(), unordered(), <ieeefp.h>, |
| 211 | <fp_class.h> (there are metaconfig units for all these) (I think), |
| 212 | fp_setmask(), fp_getmask(), fp_setround(), fp_getround() |
| 213 | (no metaconfig units yet for these). Don't forget finitel(), fp_classl(), |
| 214 | fp_class_l(), (yes, both do, unfortunately, exist), and unorderedl().) |
| 215 | |
| 216 | As of Perl 5.6.1, there is a Perl macro, Perl_isnan(). |
| 217 | |
| 218 | =head2 IV/UV preservation |
| 219 | |
| 220 | Nicholas Clark has done a lot of work on this, but work is continuing. |
| 221 | C<+>, C<-> and C<*> work, but guards need to be in place for C<%>, C</>, |
| 222 | C<&>, C<oct>, C<hex> and C<pack>. |
| 223 | |
| 224 | =head2 Replace pod2html with something using Pod::Parser |
| 225 | |
| 226 | The CPAN module C<Malik::Pod::Html> may be a more suitable basis for a |
| 227 | C<pod2html> convertor; the current one duplicates the functionality |
| 228 | abstracted in C<Pod::Parser>, which makes updating the POD language |
| 229 | difficult. |
| 230 | |
| 231 | =head2 Automate module testing on CPAN |
| 232 | |
| 233 | When a new Perl is being beta tested, porters have to manually grab |
| 234 | their favourite CPAN modules and test them - this should be done |
| 235 | automatically. |
| 236 | |
| 237 | =head2 sendmsg and recvmsg |
| 238 | |
| 239 | We have all the other BSD socket functions but these. There are |
| 240 | metaconfig units for these functions which can be added. To avoid these |
| 241 | being new opcodes, a solution similar to the way C<sockatmark> was added |
| 242 | would be preferable. (Autoload the C<IO::whatever> module.) |
| 243 | |
| 244 | =head2 Rewrite perlre documentation |
| 245 | |
| 246 | The new-style patterns need full documentation, and the whole document |
| 247 | needs to be a lot clearer. |
| 248 | |
| 249 | =head2 Convert example code to IO::Handle filehandles |
| 250 | |
| 251 | =head2 Document Win32 choices |
| 252 | |
| 253 | =head2 Check new modules |
| 254 | |
| 255 | =head2 Make roffitall find pods and libs itself |
| 256 | |
| 257 | Simon Cozens has done some work on this but it needs a rethink. |
| 258 | |
| 259 | =head1 To do at some point |
| 260 | |
| 261 | These are ideas that have been regularly tossed around, that most |
| 262 | people believe should be done maybe during 5.8.x |
| 263 | |
| 264 | =head2 Remove regular expression recursion |
| 265 | |
| 266 | Because the regular expression engine is recursive, badly designed |
| 267 | expressions can lead to lots of recursion filling up the stack. Ilya |
| 268 | claims that it is easy to convert the engine to being iterative, but |
| 269 | this has still not yet been done. There may be a regular expression |
| 270 | engine hit squad meeting at TPC5. |
| 271 | |
| 272 | =head2 Memory leaks after failed eval |
| 273 | |
| 274 | Perl will leak memory if you C<eval "hlagh hlagh hlagh hlagh">. This is |
| 275 | partially because it attempts to build up an op tree for that code and |
| 276 | doesn't properly free it. The same goes for non-syntactically-correct |
| 277 | regular expressions. Hugo looked into this, but decided it needed a |
| 278 | mark-and-sweep GC implementation. |
| 279 | |
| 280 | Alan notes that: The basic idea was to extend the parser token stack |
| 281 | (C<YYSTYPE>) to include a type field so we knew what sort of thing each |
| 282 | element of the stack was. The F<perly.c> code would then have to be |
| 283 | postprocessed to record the type of each entry on the stack as it was |
| 284 | created, and the parser patched so that it could unroll the stack |
| 285 | properly on error. |
| 286 | |
| 287 | This is possible to do, but would be pretty messy to implement, as it |
| 288 | would rely on even more sed hackery in F<perly.fixer>. |
| 289 | |
| 290 | =head2 pack "(stuff)*" |
| 291 | |
| 292 | That's to say, C<pack "(sI)40"> would be the same as C<pack "sI"x40> |
| 293 | |
| 294 | =head2 bitfields in pack |
| 295 | |
| 296 | =head2 Cross compilation |
| 297 | |
| 298 | Make Perl buildable with a cross-compiler. This will play havoc with |
| 299 | Configure, which needs to know how the target system will respond to |
| 300 | its tests; maybe C<microperl> will be a good starting point here. |
| 301 | (Indeed, Bart Schuller reports that he compiled up C<microperl> for |
| 302 | the Agenda PDA and it works fine.) A really big spanner in the works |
| 303 | is the bootstrapping build process of Perl: if the filesystem the |
| 304 | target systems sees is not the same what the build host sees, various |
| 305 | input, output, and (Perl) library files need to be copied back and forth. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | As of 5.8.0 Configure mostly works for cross-compilation |
| 308 | (used successfully for iPAQ Linux), miniperl gets built, |
| 309 | but then building DynaLoader (and other extensions) fails |
| 310 | since MakeMaker knows nothing of cross-compilation. |
| 311 | (See INSTALL/Cross-compilation for the state of things.) |
| 312 | |
| 313 | =head2 Perl preprocessor / macros |
| 314 | |
| 315 | Source filters help with this, but do not get us all the way. For |
| 316 | instance, it should be possible to implement the C<??> operator somehow; |
| 317 | source filters don't (quite) cut it. |
| 318 | |
| 319 | =head2 Perl lexer in Perl |
| 320 | |
| 321 | Damian Conway is planning to work on this, but it hasn't happened yet. |
| 322 | |
| 323 | =head2 Using POSIX calls internally |
| 324 | |
| 325 | When faced with a BSD vs. SysV -style interface to some library or |
| 326 | system function, perl's roots show in that it typically prefers the BSD |
| 327 | interface (but falls back to the SysV one). One example is getpgrp(). |
| 328 | Other examples include C<memcpy> vs. C<bcopy>. There are others, mostly in |
| 329 | F<pp_sys.c>. |
| 330 | |
| 331 | Mostly, this item is a suggestion for which way to start a journey into |
| 332 | an C<#ifdef> forest. It is not primarily a suggestion to eliminate any of |
| 333 | the C<#ifdef> forests. |
| 334 | |
| 335 | POSIX calls are perhaps more likely to be portable to unexpected |
| 336 | architectures. They are also perhaps more likely to be actively |
| 337 | maintained by a current vendor. They are also perhaps more likely to be |
| 338 | available in thread-safe versions, if appropriate. |
| 339 | |
| 340 | =head2 -i rename file when changed |
| 341 | |
| 342 | It's only necessary to rename a file when inplace editing when the file |
| 343 | has changed. Detecting a change is perhaps the difficult bit. |
| 344 | |
| 345 | =head2 All ARGV input should act like E<lt>E<gt> |
| 346 | |
| 347 | eg C<read(ARGV, ...)> doesn't currently read across multiple files. |
| 348 | |
| 349 | =head2 Support for rerunning debugger |
| 350 | |
| 351 | There should be a way of restarting the debugger on demand. |
| 352 | |
| 353 | =head2 Test Suite for the Debugger |
| 354 | |
| 355 | The debugger is a complex piece of software and fixing something |
| 356 | here may inadvertently break something else over there. To tame |
| 357 | this chaotic behaviour, a test suite is necessary. |
| 358 | |
| 359 | =head2 my sub foo { } |
| 360 | |
| 361 | The basic principle is sound, but there are problems with the semantics |
| 362 | of self-referential and mutually referential lexical subs: how to |
| 363 | declare the subs? |
| 364 | |
| 365 | =head2 One-pass global destruction |
| 366 | |
| 367 | Sweeping away all the allocated memory in one go is a laudable goal, but |
| 368 | it's difficult and in most cases, it's easier to let the memory get |
| 369 | freed by exiting. |
| 370 | |
| 371 | =head2 Rewrite regexp parser |
| 372 | |
| 373 | There has been talk recently of rewriting the regular expression parser |
| 374 | to produce an optree instead of a chain of opcodes; it's unclear whether |
| 375 | or not this would be a win. |
| 376 | |
| 377 | =head2 Cache recently used regexps |
| 378 | |
| 379 | This is to speed up |
| 380 | |
| 381 | for my $re (@regexps) { |
| 382 | $matched++ if /$re/ |
| 383 | } |
| 384 | |
| 385 | C<qr//> already gives us a way of saving compiled regexps, but it should |
| 386 | be done automatically. |
| 387 | |
| 388 | =head2 Re-entrant functions |
| 389 | |
| 390 | Add configure probes for C<_r> forms of system calls and fit them to the |
| 391 | core. Unfortunately, calling conventions for these functions and not |
| 392 | standardised. |
| 393 | |
| 394 | =head2 Cross-compilation support |
| 395 | |
| 396 | Bart Schuller reports that using C<microperl> and a cross-compiler, he |
| 397 | got Perl working on the Agenda PDA. However, one cannot build a full |
| 398 | Perl because Configure needs to get the results for the target platform, |
| 399 | for the host. |
| 400 | |
| 401 | =head2 Bit-shifting bitvectors |
| 402 | |
| 403 | Given: |
| 404 | |
| 405 | vec($v, 1000, 1) = 1; |
| 406 | |
| 407 | One should be able to do |
| 408 | |
| 409 | $v <<= 1; |
| 410 | |
| 411 | and have the 999'th bit set. |
| 412 | |
| 413 | Currently if you try with shift bitvectors you shift the NV/UV, instead |
| 414 | of the bits in the PV. Not very logical. |
| 415 | |
| 416 | =head2 debugger pragma |
| 417 | |
| 418 | The debugger is implemented in Perl in F<perl5db.pl>; turning it into a |
| 419 | pragma should be easy, but making it work lexically might be more |
| 420 | difficult. Fiddling with C<$^P> would be necessary. |
| 421 | |
| 422 | =head2 use less pragma |
| 423 | |
| 424 | Identify areas where speed/memory tradeoffs can be made and have a hint |
| 425 | to switch between them. |
| 426 | |
| 427 | =head2 switch structures |
| 428 | |
| 429 | Although we have C<Switch.pm> in core, Larry points to the dormant |
| 430 | C<nswitch> and C<cswitch> ops in F<pp.c>; using these opcodes would be |
| 431 | much faster. |
| 432 | |
| 433 | =head2 Cache eval tree |
| 434 | |
| 435 | =head2 rcatmaybe |
| 436 | |
| 437 | =head2 Shrink opcode tables |
| 438 | |
| 439 | =head2 Optimize away @_ |
| 440 | |
| 441 | Look at the "reification" code in C<av.c> |
| 442 | |
| 443 | =head2 Prototypes versus indirect objects |
| 444 | |
| 445 | Currently, indirect object syntax bypasses prototype checks. |
| 446 | |
| 447 | =head2 Install HTML |
| 448 | |
| 449 | HTML versions of the documentation need to be installed by default; a |
| 450 | call to C<installhtml> from C<installperl> may be all that's necessary. |
| 451 | |
| 452 | =head2 Prototype method calls |
| 453 | |
| 454 | =head2 Return context prototype declarations |
| 455 | |
| 456 | =head2 magic_setisa |
| 457 | |
| 458 | =head2 Garbage collection |
| 459 | |
| 460 | There have been persistent mumblings about putting a mark-and-sweep |
| 461 | garbage detector into Perl; Alan Burlison has some ideas about this. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | =head2 IO tutorial |
| 464 | |
| 465 | Mark-Jason Dominus has the beginnings of one of these. |
| 466 | |
| 467 | =head2 pack/unpack tutorial |
| 468 | |
| 469 | Simon Cozens has the beginnings of one of these. |
| 470 | |
| 471 | =head2 Rewrite perldoc |
| 472 | |
| 473 | There are a few suggestions for what to do with C<perldoc>: maybe a |
| 474 | full-text search, an index function, locating pages on a particular |
| 475 | high-level subject, and so on. |
| 476 | |
| 477 | =head2 Install .3p manpages |
| 478 | |
| 479 | This is a bone of contention; we can create C<.3p> manpages for each |
| 480 | built-in function, but should we install them by default? Tcl does this, |
| 481 | and it clutters up C<apropos>. |
| 482 | |
| 483 | =head2 Unicode tutorial |
| 484 | |
| 485 | Simon Cozens promises to do this before he gets old. |
| 486 | |
| 487 | =head2 Update POSIX.pm for 1003.1-2 |
| 488 | |
| 489 | =head2 Retargetable installation |
| 490 | |
| 491 | Allow C<@INC> to be changed after Perl is built. |
| 492 | |
| 493 | =head2 POSIX emulation on non-POSIX systems |
| 494 | |
| 495 | Make C<POSIX.pm> behave as POSIXly as possible everywhere, meaning we |
| 496 | have to implement POSIX equivalents for some functions if necessary. |
| 497 | |
| 498 | =head2 Rename Win32 headers |
| 499 | |
| 500 | =head2 Finish off lvalue functions |
| 501 | |
| 502 | They don't work in the debugger, and they don't work for list or hash |
| 503 | slices. |
| 504 | |
| 505 | =head2 Update sprintf documentation |
| 506 | |
| 507 | Hugo van der Sanden plans to look at this. |
| 508 | |
| 509 | =head2 Use fchown/fchmod internally |
| 510 | |
| 511 | This has been done in places, but needs a thorough code review. |
| 512 | Also fchdir is available in some platforms. |
| 513 | |
| 514 | =head2 Make v-strings overloaded objects |
| 515 | |
| 516 | Instead of having to guess whether a string is a v-string and thus |
| 517 | needs to be displayed with %vd, make v-strings (readonly) objects |
| 518 | (class "vstring"?) with a stringify overload. |
| 519 | |
| 520 | =head1 Vague ideas |
| 521 | |
| 522 | Ideas which have been discussed, and which may or may not happen. |
| 523 | |
| 524 | =head2 ref() in list context |
| 525 | |
| 526 | It's unclear what this should do or how to do it without breaking old |
| 527 | code. |
| 528 | |
| 529 | =head2 Make tr/// return histogram of characters in list context |
| 530 | |
| 531 | There is a patch for this, but it may require Unicodification. |
| 532 | |
| 533 | =head2 Compile to real threaded code |
| 534 | |
| 535 | =head2 Structured types |
| 536 | |
| 537 | =head2 Modifiable $1 et al. |
| 538 | |
| 539 | ($x = "elephant") =~ /e(ph)/; |
| 540 | $1 = "g"; # $x = "elegant" |
| 541 | |
| 542 | What happens if there are multiple (nested?) brackets? What if the |
| 543 | string changes between the match and the assignment? |
| 544 | |
| 545 | =head2 Procedural interfaces for IO::*, etc. |
| 546 | |
| 547 | Some core modules have been accused of being overly-OO. Adding |
| 548 | procedural interfaces could demystify them. |
| 549 | |
| 550 | =head2 RPC modules |
| 551 | |
| 552 | =head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program |
| 553 | |
| 554 | With C<gdb>, you can attach the debugger to a running program if you |
| 555 | pass the process ID. It would be good to do this with the Perl debugger |
| 556 | on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be done. |
| 557 | |
| 558 | =head2 Alternative RE syntax module |
| 559 | |
| 560 | use Regex::Newbie; |
| 561 | $re = Regex::Newbie->new |
| 562 | ->start |
| 563 | ->match("foo") |
| 564 | ->repeat(Regex::Newbie->class("char"),3) |
| 565 | ->end; |
| 566 | /$re/; |
| 567 | |
| 568 | =head2 GUI::Native |
| 569 | |
| 570 | A non-core module that would use "native" GUI to create graphical |
| 571 | applications. |
| 572 | |
| 573 | =head2 foreach(reverse ...) |
| 574 | |
| 575 | Currently |
| 576 | |
| 577 | foreach (reverse @_) { ... } |
| 578 | |
| 579 | puts C<@_> on the stack, reverses it putting the reversed version on the |
| 580 | stack, then iterates forwards. Instead, it could be special-cased to put |
| 581 | C<@_> on the stack then iterate backwards. |
| 582 | |
| 583 | =head2 Constant function cache |
| 584 | |
| 585 | =head2 Approximate regular expression matching |
| 586 | |
| 587 | =head1 Ongoing |
| 588 | |
| 589 | These items B<always> need doing: |
| 590 | |
| 591 | =head2 Update guts documentation |
| 592 | |
| 593 | Simon Cozens tries to do this when possible, and contributions to the |
| 594 | C<perlapi> documentation is welcome. |
| 595 | |
| 596 | =head2 Add more tests |
| 597 | |
| 598 | Michael Schwern will donate $500 to Yet Another Society when all core |
| 599 | modules have tests. |
| 600 | |
| 601 | =head2 Update auxiliary tools |
| 602 | |
| 603 | The code we ship with Perl should look like good Perl 5. |
| 604 | |
| 605 | =head1 Recently done things |
| 606 | |
| 607 | These are things which have been on the todo lists in previous releases |
| 608 | but have recently been completed. |
| 609 | |
| 610 | =head2 Safe signal handling |
| 611 | |
| 612 | A new signal model went into 5.7.1 without much fanfare. Operations and |
| 613 | C<malloc>s are no longer interrupted by signals, which are handled |
| 614 | between opcodes. This means that C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK> now actually does |
| 615 | something. However, there are still a few things that need to be done. |
| 616 | |
| 617 | =head2 Tie Modules |
| 618 | |
| 619 | Modules which implement arrays in terms of strings, substrings or files |
| 620 | can be found on the CPAN. |
| 621 | |
| 622 | =head2 gettimeofday |
| 623 | |
| 624 | C<Time::HiRes> has been integrated into the core. |
| 625 | |
| 626 | =head2 setitimer and getimiter |
| 627 | |
| 628 | Adding C<Time::HiRes> got us this too. |
| 629 | |
| 630 | =head2 Testing __DIE__ hook |
| 631 | |
| 632 | Tests have been added. |
| 633 | |
| 634 | =head2 CPP equivalent in Perl |
| 635 | |
| 636 | A C Yardley will probably have done this by the time you can read this. |
| 637 | This allows for a generalization of the C constant detection used in |
| 638 | building C<Errno.pm>. |
| 639 | |
| 640 | =head2 Explicit switch statements |
| 641 | |
| 642 | C<Switch.pm> has been integrated into the core to give you all manner of |
| 643 | C<switch...case> semantics. |
| 644 | |
| 645 | =head2 autocroak |
| 646 | |
| 647 | This is C<Fatal.pm>. |
| 648 | |
| 649 | =head2 UTF/EBCDIC |
| 650 | |
| 651 | Nick Ing-Simmons has made UTF-EBCDIC (UTR13) work with Perl. |
| 652 | |
| 653 | EBCDIC? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ |
| 654 | |
| 655 | =head2 UTF Regexes |
| 656 | |
| 657 | Although there are probably some small bugs to be rooted out, Jarkko |
| 658 | Hietaniemi has made regular expressions polymorphic between bytes and |
| 659 | characters. |
| 660 | |
| 661 | =head2 perlcc to produce executable |
| 662 | |
| 663 | C<perlcc> was recently rewritten, and can now produce standalone |
| 664 | executables. |
| 665 | |
| 666 | =head2 END blocks saved in compiled output |
| 667 | |
| 668 | =head2 Secure temporary file module |
| 669 | |
| 670 | Tim Jenness' C<File::Temp> is now in core. |
| 671 | |
| 672 | =head2 Integrate Time::HiRes |
| 673 | |
| 674 | This module is now part of core. |
| 675 | |
| 676 | =head2 Turn Cwd into XS |
| 677 | |
| 678 | Benjamin Sugars has done this. |
| 679 | |
| 680 | =head2 Mmap for input |
| 681 | |
| 682 | Nick Ing-Simmons' C<perlio> supports an C<mmap> IO method. |
| 683 | |
| 684 | =head2 Byte to/from UTF8 and UTF8 to/from local conversion |
| 685 | |
| 686 | C<Encode> provides this. |
| 687 | |
| 688 | =head2 Add sockatmark support |
| 689 | |
| 690 | Added in 5.7.1 |
| 691 | |
| 692 | =head2 Mailing list archives |
| 693 | |
| 694 | http://lists.perl.org/, http://archive.develooper.com/ |
| 695 | |
| 696 | =head2 Bug tracking |
| 697 | |
| 698 | Richard Foley has written the bug tracking system at http://bugs.perl.org/ |
| 699 | |
| 700 | =head2 Integrate MacPerl |
| 701 | |
| 702 | Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher have integrated the MacPerl changes |
| 703 | into 5.6.0. |
| 704 | |
| 705 | =head2 Web "nerve center" for Perl |
| 706 | |
| 707 | http://use.perl.org/ is what you're looking for. |
| 708 | |
| 709 | =head2 Regular expression tutorial |
| 710 | |
| 711 | C<perlretut>, provided by Mark Kvale. |
| 712 | |
| 713 | =head2 Debugging Tutorial |
| 714 | |
| 715 | C<perldebtut>, written by Richard Foley. |
| 716 | |
| 717 | =head2 Integrate new modules |
| 718 | |
| 719 | Jarkko has been integrating madly into 5.7.x |
| 720 | |
| 721 | =head2 Integrate profiler |
| 722 | |
| 723 | C<Devel::DProf> is now a core module. |
| 724 | |
| 725 | =head2 Y2K error detection |
| 726 | |
| 727 | There's a configure option to detect unsafe concatenation with "19", and |
| 728 | a CPAN module. (C<D'oh::Year>) |
| 729 | |
| 730 | =head2 Regular expression debugger |
| 731 | |
| 732 | While not part of core, Mark-Jason Dominus has written C<Rx> and has |
| 733 | also come up with a generalised strategy for regular expression |
| 734 | debugging. |
| 735 | |
| 736 | =head2 POD checker |
| 737 | |
| 738 | That's, uh, F<podchecker> |
| 739 | |
| 740 | =head2 "Dynamic" lexicals |
| 741 | |
| 742 | =head2 Cache precompiled modules |
| 743 | |
| 744 | =head1 Deprecated Wishes |
| 745 | |
| 746 | These are items which used to be in the todo file, but have been |
| 747 | deprecated for some reason. |
| 748 | |
| 749 | =head2 Loop control on do{} |
| 750 | |
| 751 | This would break old code; use C<do{{ }}> instead. |
| 752 | |
| 753 | =head2 Lexically scoped typeglobs |
| 754 | |
| 755 | Not needed now we have lexical IO handles. |
| 756 | |
| 757 | =head2 format BOTTOM |
| 758 | |
| 759 | =head2 report HANDLE |
| 760 | |
| 761 | Damian Conway's text formatting modules seem to be the Way To Go. |
| 762 | |
| 763 | =head2 Generalised want()/caller()) |
| 764 | |
| 765 | =head2 Named prototypes |
| 766 | |
| 767 | These both seem to be delayed until Perl 6. |
| 768 | |
| 769 | =head2 Built-in globbing |
| 770 | |
| 771 | The C<File::Glob> module has been used to replace the C<glob> function. |
| 772 | |
| 773 | =head2 Regression tests for suidperl |
| 774 | |
| 775 | C<suidperl> is deprecated in favour of common sense. |
| 776 | |
| 777 | =head2 Cached hash values |
| 778 | |
| 779 | We have shared hash keys, which perform the same job. |
| 780 | |
| 781 | =head2 Add compression modules |
| 782 | |
| 783 | The compression modules are a little heavy; meanwhile, Nick Clark is |
| 784 | working on experimental pragmata to do transparent decompression on |
| 785 | input. |
| 786 | |
| 787 | =head2 Reorganise documentation into tutorials/references |
| 788 | |
| 789 | Could not get consensus on P5P about this. |
| 790 | |
| 791 | =head2 Remove distinction between functions and operators |
| 792 | |
| 793 | Caution: highly flammable. |
| 794 | |
| 795 | =head2 Make XS easier to use |
| 796 | |
| 797 | Use C<Inline> instead, or SWIG. |
| 798 | |
| 799 | =head2 Make embedding easier to use |
| 800 | |
| 801 | Use C<Inline::CPR>. |
| 802 | |
| 803 | =head2 man for perl |
| 804 | |
| 805 | See the Perl Power Tools. (http://language.perl.com/ppt/) |
| 806 | |
| 807 | =head2 my $Package::variable |
| 808 | |
| 809 | Use C<our> instead. |
| 810 | |
| 811 | =head2 "or" tests defined, not truth |
| 812 | |
| 813 | Suggesting this on P5P B<will> cause a boring and interminable flamewar. |
| 814 | |
| 815 | =head2 "class"-based lexicals |
| 816 | |
| 817 | Use flyweight objects, secure hashes or, dare I say it, pseudo-hashes instead. |
| 818 | (Or whatever will replace pseudohashes in 5.10.) |
| 819 | |
| 820 | =head2 byteperl |
| 821 | |
| 822 | C<ByteLoader> covers this. |
| 823 | |
| 824 | =head2 Lazy evaluation / tail recursion removal |
| 825 | |
| 826 | C<List::Util> gives first() (a short-circuiting grep); tail recursion |
| 827 | removal is done manually, with C<goto &whoami;>. (However, MJD has |
| 828 | found that C<goto &whoami> introduces a performance penalty, so maybe |
| 829 | there should be a way to do this after all: C<sub foo {START: ... goto |
| 830 | START;> is better.) |
| 831 | |
| 832 | =head2 Make "use utf8" the default |
| 833 | |
| 834 | Because of backward compatibility this is difficult: scripts could not |
| 835 | contain B<any legacy eight-bit data> (like Latin-1) anymore, even in |
| 836 | string literals or pod. Also would introduce a measurable slowdown of |
| 837 | at least few percentages since all regular expression operations would |
| 838 | be done in full UTF-8. But if you want to try this, add |
| 839 | -DUSE_UTF8_SCRIPTS to your compilation flags. |
| 840 | |
| 841 | =head2 Unicode collation and normalization |
| 842 | |
| 843 | The Unicode::Collate and Unicode::Normalize modules |
| 844 | by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki have been included since 5.8.0. |
| 845 | |
| 846 | Collation? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr10/ |
| 847 | Normalization? http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr15/ |
| 848 | |
| 849 | =head2 Create debugging macros |
| 850 | |
| 851 | Debugging macros (like printsv, dump) can make debugging perl inside a |
| 852 | C debugger much easier. A good set for gdb comes with mod_perl. |
| 853 | Something similar should be distributed with perl. |
| 854 | |
| 855 | The proper way to do this is to use and extend Devel::DebugInit. |
| 856 | Devel::DebugInit also needs to be extended to support threads. |
| 857 | |
| 858 | See p5p archives for late May/early June 2001 for a recent discussion |
| 859 | on this topic. |
| 860 | |
| 861 | =cut |