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Re: IV preservation (was Re: [PATCH 5.7.0] compiling on OS/2)

From:
Jarkko Hietaniemi
Date:
February 14, 2001 14:48
Subject:
Re: IV preservation (was Re: [PATCH 5.7.0] compiling on OS/2)
Message ID:
20010214164801.K10804@chaos.wustl.edu
On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 05:37:35PM -0500, Ilya Zakharevich wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 02:27:26PM -0600, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> > > On the scale of disasters in the Perl design, IMO this is less than
> > > the qu// horror, but on par with forcing h2xs to produce a
> > > backwards-incompatible code, v3.4.5 thingies, or using REx-opcodes
> > > which switch their unicode-face at runtime.
> > 
> > I won't comment on the IV/UV matters but on this I feel personally
> > obliged to say something on these.  Polymorphic REx-opcodes are a necessity
> > because out data is polymorphic in its Unicodeness, in compile-time
> > you cannot know what the data will be.  I see no way out of that.
> 
> I explained a simple way out of it many times already: make a PMOP
> have two pointers to a REx instead of one.  Switch *the whole REx at
> once* instead of making a switch in each opcode individually.
> 
> Do not remember any objection from you (or anybody) on this...

No objections.  It's just that implementations speak much louder than
words.  If you or anybody produces such a patch that solves the
problems in matching Unicode, I won't have no problems ripping my
solution out and applying the new one.  If the new code is faster than
the current scheme, or simpler, all the nicer.  (I confess that I
really liked getting rid of dozens of essentially duplicated opcodes
with my solution, though: ALNUM vs ALNUMUTF8, yechhh...)

> > About the proposed qu//: it's not a perfect solution, but it is a
> > compromise.  It gives for those of who need us the way to produce
> > UTF-8: compactly and in compile-time, as opposed to pack("U", ...).
> 
> There is a mechanism for this already.  It is called overloaded
> constants.

I have a mechanism that can replace Perl: it's called Turing's machine.
Or an abacus, for that matter.  More details on your proposed solution
would be conducive for further discussion.

-- 
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen



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