Dave remarks that I have been too terse here.

[perl5.git] / pod / perlpodspec.pod

diff --git a/pod/perlpodspec.pod b/pod/perlpodspec.pod
index ab20799..0b60dfd 100644 (file)
--- a/pod/perlpodspec.pod
+++ b/pod/perlpodspec.pod
@@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ ignored.  Examples:
   # This is the first line of program text.
   sub foo { # This is the second.
 
-It is an error to try to I<start> a Pod black with a "=cut" command.  In
+It is an error to try to I<start> a Pod block with a "=cut" command.  In
 that case, the Pod processor must halt parsing of the input file, and
 must by default emit a warning.
 
@@ -332,6 +332,29 @@ then "text..." will constitute a data paragraph.  There is no way
 to use "=for formatname text..." to express "text..." as a verbatim
 paragraph.
 
+=item "=encoding encodingname"
+
+This command, which should occur early in the document (at least
+before any non-US-ASCII data!), declares that this document is
+encoded in the encoding I<encodingname>, which must be
+an encoding name that L<Encoding> recognizes.  (Encoding's list
+of supported encodings, in L<Encoding::Supported>, is useful here.)
+If the Pod parser cannot decode the declared encoding, it 
+should emit a warning and may abort parsing the document
+altogether.
+
+A document having more than one "=encoding" line should be
+considered an error.  Pod processors may silently tolerate this if
+the not-first "=encoding" lines are just duplicates of the
+first one (e.g., if there's a "=use utf8" line, and later on
+another "=use utf8" line).  But Pod processors should complain if
+there are contradictory "=encoding" lines in the same document
+(e.g., if there is a "=encoding utf8" early in the document and
+"=encoding big5" later).  Pod processors that recognize BOMs
+may also complain if they see an "=encoding" line
+that contradicts the BOM (e.g., if a document with a UTF-16LE
+BOM has an "=encoding shiftjis" line).
+
 =back
 
 If a Pod processor sees any command other than the ones listed
@@ -463,7 +486,7 @@ L</Notes on Implementing Pod Processors>.
 
 This formatting code is syntactically simple, but semantically
 complex.  What it means is that each space in the printable
-content of this code signifies a nonbreaking space.
+content of this code signifies a non-breaking space.
 
 Consider:
 
@@ -474,7 +497,7 @@ Consider:
 Both signify the monospace (c[ode] style) text consisting of
 "$x", one space, "?", one space, ":", one space, "$z".  The
 difference is that in the latter, with the S code, those spaces
-are not "normal" spaces, but instead are nonbreaking spaces.
+are not "normal" spaces, but instead are non-breaking spaces.
 
 =back
 
@@ -499,7 +522,7 @@ a "-".  This was so that this:
 
 would parse as equivalent to this:
 
-    C<$foo-E<lt>bar>
+    C<$foo-E<gt>bar>
 
 instead of as equivalent to a "C" formatting code containing 
 only "$foo-", and then a "bar>" outside the "C" formatting code.  This
@@ -589,7 +612,7 @@ UTF-16.  If the file begins with the three literal byte values
  0xEF 0xBB 0xBF
 
 =for comment
- If toke.c is modified to support UTF32, add mention of those here.
+ If toke.c is modified to support UTF-32, add mention of those here.
 
 =item *
 
@@ -611,11 +634,11 @@ is sufficient to establish this file's encoding.
 
 =for comment
  If/WHEN some brave soul makes these heuristics into a generic
- text-file class (or file discipline?), we can presumably delete
+ text-file class (or PerlIO layer?), we can presumably delete
  mention of these icky details from this file, and can instead
- tell people to just use appropriate class/discipline.
+ tell people to just use appropriate class/layer.
  Auto-recognition of newline sequences would be another desirable
- feature of such a class/discipline.
+ feature of such a class/layer.
  HINT HINT HINT.
 
 =for comment
@@ -709,10 +732,10 @@ paragraphs.
 =item *
 
 When rendering Pod to a format that has two kinds of hyphens (-), one
-that's a nonbreaking hyphen, and another that's a breakable hyphen
+that's a non-breaking hyphen, and another that's a breakable hyphen
 (as in "object-oriented", which can be split across lines as
 "object-", newline, "oriented"), formatters are encouraged to
-generally translate "-" to nonbreaking hyphen, but may apply
+generally translate "-" to non-breaking hyphen, but may apply
 heuristics to convert some of these to breaking hyphens.
 
 =item *
@@ -969,15 +992,15 @@ EE<lt>euro>1,000,000 Solution|Million::Euros>".
 
 =item *
 
-Some Pod formatters output to formats that implement nonbreaking
+Some Pod formatters output to formats that implement non-breaking
 spaces as an individual character (which I'll call "NBSP"), and
-others output to formats that implement nonbreaking spaces just as
+others output to formats that implement non-breaking spaces just as
 spaces wrapped in a "don't break this across lines" code.  Note that
 at the level of Pod, both sorts of codes can occur: Pod can contain a
 NBSP character (whether as a literal, or as a "EE<lt>160>" or
 "EE<lt>nbsp>" code); and Pod can contain "SE<lt>foo
 IE<lt>barE<gt> baz>" codes, where "mere spaces" (character 32) in
-such codes are taken to represent nonbreaking spaces.  Pod
+such codes are taken to represent non-breaking spaces.  Pod
 parsers should consider supporting the optional parsing of "SE<lt>foo
 IE<lt>barE<gt> baz>" as if it were
 "fooI<NBSP>IE<lt>barE<gt>I<NBSP>baz", and, going the other way, the