-they act like die() or warn(), but report where the error
-was in the code they were called from. Thus if you have a
-routine Foo() that has a carp() in it, then the carp()
-will report the error as occurring where Foo() was called,
-not where carp() was called.
+they act like die() or warn(), but with a message which is more
+likely to be useful to a user of your module. In the case of
+cluck, confess, and longmess that context is a summary of every
+call in the call-stack. For a shorter message you can use carp,
+croak or shortmess which report the error as being from where
+your module was called. There is no guarantee that that is where
+the error was, but it is a good educated guess.
+
+You can also alter the way the output and logic of C<Carp> works, by
+changing some global variables in the C<Carp> namespace. See the
+section on C<GLOBAL VARIABLES> below.
+
+Here is a more complete description of how shortmess works. What
+it does is search the call-stack for a function call stack where
+it hasn't been told that there shouldn't be an error. If every
+call is marked safe, it then gives up and gives a full stack
+backtrace instead. In other words it presumes that the first likely
+looking potential suspect is guilty. Its rules for telling whether
+a call shouldn't generate errors work as follows:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item 1.
+
+Any call from a package to itself is safe.
+
+=item 2.
+
+Packages claim that there won't be errors on calls to or from
+packages explicitly marked as safe by inclusion in @CARP_NOT, or
+(if that array is empty) @ISA. The ability to override what
+@ISA says is new in 5.8.
+
+=item 3.
+
+The trust in item 2 is transitive. If A trusts B, and B
+trusts C, then A trusts C. So if you do not override @ISA
+with @CARP_NOT, then this trust relationship is identical to,
+"inherits from".
+
+=item 4.
+
+Any call from an internal Perl module is safe. (Nothing keeps
+user modules from marking themselves as internal to Perl, but
+this practice is discouraged.)
+
+=item 5.
+
+Any call to Carp is safe. (This rule is what keeps it from
+reporting the error where you call carp/croak/shortmess.)
+
+=back