character set adequate only for poorly representing English text).
Often used loosely to describe the lowest 128 values of the various
ISO-8859-X character sets, a bunch of mutually incompatible 8-bit
-codes best described as half ASCII. See also L</Unicode>.
+codes sometimes described as half ASCII. See also L</Unicode>.
=item assertion
=item backreference
A substring L<captured|/capturing> by a subpattern within
-unadorned parentheses in a L</regex>. Backslashed decimal numbers
-(C<\1>, C<\2>, etc.) later in the same pattern refer back to the
-corresponding subpattern in the current match. Outside the pattern,
+unadorned parentheses in a L</regex>, also referred to as a capture group. The
+sequences (C<\g1>, C<\g2>, etc.) later in the same pattern refer back to
+the corresponding subpattern in the current match. Outside the pattern,
the numbered variables (C<$1>, C<$2>, etc.) continue to refer to these
same values, as long as the pattern was the last successful match of
-the current dynamic scope.
+the current dynamic scope. C<\g{-1}> can be used to refer to a group by
+relative rather than absolute position; and groups can be also be named, and
+referred to later by name rather than number. See L<perlre/"Capture groups">.
=item backtracking
Reduced to a standard form to facilitate comparison.
+=item capture buffer, capture group
+
+These two terms are synonymous:
+a L<captured substring|/capturing> by a regex subpattern.
+
=item capturing
The use of parentheses around a L</subpattern> in a L</regular
-expression> to store the matched L</substring> as a L</backreference>.
+expression> to store the matched L</substring> as a L</backreference>
+or L<capture group|/capture buffer, capture group>.
(Captured strings are also returned as a list in L</list context>.)
=item character
=item class method
-A L</method> whose L</invocant> is a L</package> name, not an
+A L</method> whose L</invocand> is a L</package> name, not an
L</object> reference. A method associated with the class as a whole.
=item client
code to implement the backend of a compiler. See L</program
generator>.
+=item code point
+
+The position of a character in a character set encoding. The character
+C<NULL> is almost certainly at the zeroth position in all character
+sets, so its code point is 0. The code point for the C<SPACE>
+character in the ASCII character set is 0x20, or 32 decimal; in EBCDIC
+it is 0x40, or 64 decimal. The L<ord|perlfunc/ord> function returns
+the code point of a character.
+
+"code position" and "ordinal" mean the same thing as "code point".
+
=item code subpattern
A L</regular expression> subpattern whose real purpose is to execute
L</terminator>. "To delimit" really just means "to surround" or "to
enclose" (like these parentheses are doing).
+=item deprecated modules and features
+
+Deprecated modules and features are those which were part of a stable
+release, but later found to be subtly flawed, and which should be avoided.
+They are subject to removal and/or bug-incompatible reimplementation in
+the next major release (but they will be preserved through maintenance
+releases). Deprecation warnings are issued under B<-w> or C<use
+diagnostics>, and notices are found in L<perldelta>s, as well as various
+other PODs. Coding practices that misuse features, such as C<my $foo if
+0>, can also be deprecated.
+
=item dereference
A fancy computer science term meaning "to follow a L</reference> to
usage implies source code is included. If that is not the case, it
will be called a "binary-only" distribution.
+=item (to be) dropped modules
+
+When Perl 5 was first released (see L<perlhist>), several modules were
+included, which have now fallen out of common use. It has been suggested
+that these modules should be removed, since the distribution became rather
+large, and the common criterion for new module additions is now limited to
+modules that help to build, test, and extend perl itself. Furthermore,
+the CPAN (which didn't exist at the time of Perl 5.0) can become the new
+home of dropped modules. Dropping modules is currently not an option, but
+further developments may clear the last barriers.
+
=item dweomer
An enchantment, illusion, phantasm, or jugglery. Said when Perl's
indirect-object object" where L</STDOUT> is the recipient of the
L<print|perlfunc/print> action, and C<"$foo"> is the object being
printed. Similarly, when invoking a L</method>, you might place the
-invocant between the method and its arguments:
+invocand between the method and its arguments:
$gollum = new Pathetic::Creature "Smeagol";
give $gollum "Fisssssh!";
give $gollum "Precious!";
+In modern Perl, calling methods this way is often considered bad practice and
+to be avoided.
+
=item indirect object slot
The syntactic position falling between a method call and its arguments
form (L<syntax trees|/syntax tree>) within the I<perl> process itself,
which the Perl L</run time> system then interprets.
-=item invocant
+=item invocand
The agent on whose behalf a L</method> is invoked. In a L</class>
-method, the invocant is a package name. In an L</instance> method,
-the invocant is an object reference.
+method, the invocand is a package name. In an L</instance> method,
+the invocand is an object reference.
=item invocation
"Just Another Perl Hacker," a clever but cryptic bit of Perl code that
when executed, evaluates to that string. Often used to illustrate a
-particular Perl feature, and something of an ungoing Obfuscated Perl
+particular Perl feature, and something of an ongoing Obfuscated Perl
Contest seen in Usenix signatures.
=back
See either L<switches|/switch> or L</regular expression modifier>.
+=item ordinal
+
+Another name for L</code point>
+
=item overloading
Giving additional meanings to a symbol or construct. Actually, all
A program technique that lets you evaluate an L</expression> and then,
based on the value of the expression, do a multiway branch to the
appropriate piece of code for that value. Also called a "case
-structure", named after the similar Pascal construct. Most switch
-statements in Perl are spelled C<for>. See L<perlsyn/Basic BLOCKs and
-Switch Statements>.
+structure", named after the similar Pascal construct. See
+L<perlsyn/"Switch statements">.
=item symbol
To turn one string representation into another by mapping each
character of the source string to its corresponding character in the
result string. See
-L<perlop/trE<sol>SEARCHLISTE<sol>REPLACEMENTLISTE<sol>cds>.
+L<perlop/trE<sol>SEARCHLISTE<sol>REPLACEMENTLISTE<sol>cdsr>.
=item trigger
=item Unicode
A character set comprising all the major character sets of the world,
-more or less. See L<http://www.unicode.org>.
+more or less. See L<perlunicode> and L<http://www.unicode.org>.
=item Unix
Based on the Glossary of Programming Perl, Third Edition,
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen & Jon Orwant.
Copyright (c) 2000, 1996, 1991 O'Reilly Media, Inc.
-Used with permission.
+This document may be distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff