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Postings from January 2011
* Mark Overmeer (mark@overmeer.net) [110129 23:48]:
> In ancient history, memory was short and modules were small. It is the
> time of autosplit. However, I would call to reconsider autosplit for
> POSIX.pm...
The more I try to create a nice patches, the more worries I get. Maybe
you share these concerns.
For about 50 functions offered by POSIX, the name is directly calling
a CORE function with the same name. Wouldn't it be cheaper to alias the
names?
In a dozen cases, the function maps to some perl internal:
sub tolower { lc($_[0]) }
sub getpid { $$ }
In many, many other cases where that would also be possible, we do
simply produce an error:
# produces error "use method IO::Handle::flush() instead"
sub fflush { redef "IO::Handle::flush()" }
sub strlen { unimpl "strlen() is C-specific, use length instead" }
Does anyone understand why some functions are accepted and others are
refused? Suggestion how to formulate this rule as comment in the file?
A non-breaking change for consistency would be to implement these
functions as good as we can. They then change from run-time errors
into well accepted.
A seriously breaking alternative would be to degrade POSIX.pm into a
module which only exports constants and functions which are not provided
by the standard Perl interface (like ctermid()).
The manual-page of POSIX already is quite detailed on the use of all
functions. Most functions have important footnotes: we are not able
to map POSIX one-on-one at all.
Just a random example from the manual-page, to show a problem as purists
like me have with the provided interface. From POSIX.pod
fabs This is identical to Perl's builtin "abs()" function for
returning the absolute value of the numerical argument, see
"abs" in perlfunc.
My POSIX manual says
The fabs() functions return the absolute value of the floating-point
number x.
Perldoc -f abs says
abs VALUE
abs Returns the absolute value of its argument. If VALUE is
omitted, uses $_.
How identical are these two?
. in Perl, abs also works with integer values
. in Perl, the argument is optional
. in C, you may need fabsf and fabsl alternatives
They are very close for the good understander, but certainly not identical.
So, IMO, we should prefer to limit the remark to
fabs See "abs" in perlfunc.
An experienced C programmer without sufficient Perl knowledge could use
the POSIX man-page as translation table, but not as a way to attempt
writing C program syntax in Perl.
I would like to hear other peoples opinions.
--
Regards,
MarkOv
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Overmeer MSc MARKOV Solutions
Mark@Overmeer.net solutions@overmeer.net
http://Mark.Overmeer.net http://solutions.overmeer.net
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