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Re: [PATCH] .dev files.
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From:
Dave Mitchell
Date:
July 17, 2002 15:51
Subject:
Re: [PATCH] .dev files.
Message ID:
20020717234853.D4734@fdgroup.com
On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 11:13:58PM +0100, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 10:38:47PM +0100, Dave Mitchell wrote:
> > One of the reasons I used numerical accuracy as an example was because
> > in Perl 5, Nick's mini-essay on his stirling work *is* buried somewhere
> > in the middle of the 10,000 line sv.c, and thus probably hasn't been seen
> > by most people. If there was a .dev file, it would (hopefully) become a
> > well-known starting point and thus things in it would more likely be
> > drawn to the attention of the reader earlier.
>
> Hmm. But you're right too. I want them in both places.
> Well, more accurately, I think I'd agree that the overview documentation
> deserves not to be in sv.c, but all the "don't do this here" or "you don't
> need to worry about that here" stay inline. I *think* that means I'd like
> comments such as this:
>
> /* IV not precise. No need to convert from PV, as NV
> conversion would already have cached IV if it detected
> that PV->IV would be better than PV->NV->IV
> flags already correct - don't set public IOK. */
>
> to stay where they are, but the description (and health warning) maybe
> should come out.
Yep, that sounds about right. People would learn from the .dev file
about your overall strategy to keep values as 64-bit ints for as long as
possible, then could learn about the individual gruesome hacks^w^w
cunning manipulations near the individual functions.
> I guess the distinction should be that in perl5, sv.c
> does lots of things, and that description needs to stay together with the
> numeric conversion code. If the numeric conversion code got to live in its
> own file, then sv_convert.c and sv_convert.dev would make sense, as it
> ought to be obvious to anyone fundamentally chaining sv_convert.c that they
> had better look at and correct sv_convert.dev
>
> It's just that as is, perl5's sv.dev would have essays on SV allocation
> strategies, SV copying routines, SV number conversion, SV string conversion,
> SV setting routines (there are a lot of variants of these), magic, recycling
> unused SVs, SV string comparison, sv_gets, sprintf and cloning. And that
> list may not be complete. I had no idea so much was in there.
But better for there to be 15 essays than no essays :-)
--
"Do not dabble in paradox, Edward, it puts you in danger of fortuitous
wit." Lady Croom - Arcadia
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