RFC: PERL_REENTR

Perl has a facility for automatically and invisibly substituting 
reentrant library functions when the non-reentrant one is called.

For example, asctime() calls are automatically transformed into 
asctime_r() calls.

This minimizes the chances of races in multi-threaded perls.

The substitution is not needed nor done unless the perl is built 
multi-threaded.

Nor is it needed, the comments say, on Windows, and not done.

Nor is it done on Darwin, but I don't know why.

Nor is it done outside the core and PERL_EXT modules.

We tell module writers they should be using these functions, and that 
mixing them with the non-reentrant ones is asking for trouble.  Yet we 
in the core use the reentrant ones, and so they must to, it appears, and 
must do it manually, which leads to portability issues in knowing which 
are valid on the currently running platform.

It seems to me we should either extend this to work on all modules or 
allow a module to #define PERL_REENTR to enable it.  Thus they wouldn't 
be lying and saying PERL_EXT when it isn't true.

I don't fully understand some of the code, but it appears that it is too 
closely tied to the core for even PERL_EXT to work properly, since it is 
switching on PL_op->op_type.  But it appears that it could be fixed to 
not do that.

I presume there are good reasons we don't just substitute our preferred 
functions for what an XS writer has specified.

So I'm suggesting that we allow the writers to #define PERL_REENTR to 
gain access to this feature.

• RFC: PERL_REENTR by Karl Williamson
• Re: RFC: PERL_REENTR by Tony Cook
• Re: RFC: PERL_REENTR by Karl Williamson