xref: /onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/perl/5.8.4/distrib/ext/Encode/Encode.pm (revision 0:68f95e015346)
1#
2# $Id: Encode.pm,v 1.99 2003/12/29 02:47:16 dankogai Exp dankogai $
3#
4package Encode;
5use strict;
6our $VERSION = "1.99_01";
7sub DEBUG () { 0 }
8use XSLoader ();
9XSLoader::load(__PACKAGE__, $VERSION);
10
11require Exporter;
12use base qw/Exporter/;
13
14# Public, encouraged API is exported by default
15
16our @EXPORT = qw(
17  decode  decode_utf8  encode  encode_utf8
18  encodings  find_encoding clone_encoding
19);
20
21our @FB_FLAGS  = qw(DIE_ON_ERR WARN_ON_ERR RETURN_ON_ERR LEAVE_SRC
22		    PERLQQ HTMLCREF XMLCREF);
23our @FB_CONSTS = qw(FB_DEFAULT FB_CROAK FB_QUIET FB_WARN
24		    FB_PERLQQ FB_HTMLCREF FB_XMLCREF);
25
26our @EXPORT_OK =
27    (
28     qw(
29       _utf8_off _utf8_on define_encoding from_to is_16bit is_8bit
30       is_utf8 perlio_ok resolve_alias utf8_downgrade utf8_upgrade
31      ),
32     @FB_FLAGS, @FB_CONSTS,
33    );
34
35our %EXPORT_TAGS =
36    (
37     all          =>  [ @EXPORT, @EXPORT_OK ],
38     fallbacks    =>  [ @FB_CONSTS ],
39     fallback_all =>  [ @FB_CONSTS, @FB_FLAGS ],
40    );
41
42# Documentation moved after __END__ for speed - NI-S
43
44our $ON_EBCDIC = (ord("A") == 193);
45
46use Encode::Alias;
47
48# Make a %Encoding package variable to allow a certain amount of cheating
49our %Encoding;
50our %ExtModule;
51require Encode::Config;
52eval { require Encode::ConfigLocal };
53
54sub encodings
55{
56    my $class = shift;
57    my %enc;
58    if (@_ and $_[0] eq ":all"){
59	%enc = ( %Encoding, %ExtModule );
60    }else{
61	%enc = %Encoding;
62	for my $mod (map {m/::/o ? $_ : "Encode::$_" } @_){
63	    DEBUG and warn $mod;
64	    for my $enc (keys %ExtModule){
65		$ExtModule{$enc} eq $mod and $enc{$enc} = $mod;
66	    }
67	}
68    }
69    return
70	sort { lc $a cmp lc $b }
71             grep {!/^(?:Internal|Unicode|Guess)$/o} keys %enc;
72}
73
74sub perlio_ok{
75    my $obj = ref($_[0]) ? $_[0] : find_encoding($_[0]);
76    $obj->can("perlio_ok") and return $obj->perlio_ok();
77    return 0; # safety net
78}
79
80sub define_encoding
81{
82    my $obj  = shift;
83    my $name = shift;
84    $Encoding{$name} = $obj;
85    my $lc = lc($name);
86    define_alias($lc => $obj) unless $lc eq $name;
87    while (@_){
88	my $alias = shift;
89	define_alias($alias, $obj);
90    }
91    return $obj;
92}
93
94sub getEncoding
95{
96    my ($class, $name, $skip_external) = @_;
97
98    ref($name) && $name->can('renew') and return $name;
99    exists $Encoding{$name} and return $Encoding{$name};
100    my $lc = lc $name;
101    exists $Encoding{$lc} and return $Encoding{$lc};
102
103    my $oc = $class->find_alias($name);
104    defined($oc) and return $oc;
105    $lc ne $name and $oc = $class->find_alias($lc);
106    defined($oc) and return $oc;
107
108    unless ($skip_external)
109    {
110	if (my $mod = $ExtModule{$name} || $ExtModule{$lc}){
111	    $mod =~ s,::,/,g ; $mod .= '.pm';
112	    eval{ require $mod; };
113	    exists $Encoding{$name} and return $Encoding{$name};
114	}
115    }
116    return;
117}
118
119sub find_encoding($;$)
120{
121    my ($name, $skip_external) = @_;
122    return __PACKAGE__->getEncoding($name,$skip_external);
123}
124
125sub resolve_alias($){
126    my $obj = find_encoding(shift);
127    defined $obj and return $obj->name;
128    return;
129}
130
131sub clone_encoding($){
132    my $obj = find_encoding(shift);
133    ref $obj or return;
134    eval { require Storable };
135    $@ and return;
136    return Storable::dclone($obj);
137}
138
139sub encode($$;$)
140{
141    my ($name, $string, $check) = @_;
142    return undef unless defined $string;
143    $check ||=0;
144    my $enc = find_encoding($name);
145    unless(defined $enc){
146	require Carp;
147	Carp::croak("Unknown encoding '$name'");
148    }
149    my $octets = $enc->encode($string,$check);
150    $_[1] = $string if $check;
151    return $octets;
152}
153
154sub decode($$;$)
155{
156    my ($name,$octets,$check) = @_;
157    return undef unless defined $octets;
158    $check ||=0;
159    my $enc = find_encoding($name);
160    unless(defined $enc){
161	require Carp;
162	Carp::croak("Unknown encoding '$name'");
163    }
164    my $string = $enc->decode($octets,$check);
165    $_[1] = $octets if $check;
166    return $string;
167}
168
169sub from_to($$$;$)
170{
171    my ($string,$from,$to,$check) = @_;
172    return undef unless defined $string;
173    $check ||=0;
174    my $f = find_encoding($from);
175    unless (defined $f){
176	require Carp;
177	Carp::croak("Unknown encoding '$from'");
178    }
179    my $t = find_encoding($to);
180    unless (defined $t){
181	require Carp;
182	Carp::croak("Unknown encoding '$to'");
183    }
184    my $uni = $f->decode($string,$check);
185    return undef if ($check && length($string));
186    $string =  $t->encode($uni,$check);
187    return undef if ($check && length($uni));
188    return defined($_[0] = $string) ? length($string) : undef ;
189}
190
191sub encode_utf8($)
192{
193    my ($str) = @_;
194    utf8::encode($str);
195    return $str;
196}
197
198sub decode_utf8($;$)
199{
200    my ($str, $check) = @_;
201    if ($check){
202	return decode("utf8", $str, $check);
203    }else{
204	return undef unless utf8::decode($str);
205	return $str;
206    }
207}
208
209predefine_encodings(1);
210
211#
212# This is to restore %Encoding if really needed;
213#
214
215sub predefine_encodings{
216    use Encode::Encoding;
217    no warnings 'redefine';
218    my $use_xs = shift;
219    if ($ON_EBCDIC) {
220	# was in Encode::UTF_EBCDIC
221	package Encode::UTF_EBCDIC;
222	push @Encode::UTF_EBCDIC::ISA, 'Encode::Encoding';
223	*decode = sub{
224	    my ($obj,$str,$chk) = @_;
225	    my $res = '';
226	    for (my $i = 0; $i < length($str); $i++) {
227		$res .=
228		    chr(utf8::unicode_to_native(ord(substr($str,$i,1))));
229	    }
230	    $_[1] = '' if $chk;
231	    return $res;
232	};
233	*encode = sub{
234	    my ($obj,$str,$chk) = @_;
235	    my $res = '';
236	    for (my $i = 0; $i < length($str); $i++) {
237		$res .=
238		    chr(utf8::native_to_unicode(ord(substr($str,$i,1))));
239	    }
240	    $_[1] = '' if $chk;
241	    return $res;
242	};
243	$Encode::Encoding{Unicode} =
244	    bless {Name => "UTF_EBCDIC"} => "Encode::UTF_EBCDIC";
245    } else {
246	package Encode::Internal;
247	push @Encode::Internal::ISA, 'Encode::Encoding';
248	*decode = sub{
249	    my ($obj,$str,$chk) = @_;
250	    utf8::upgrade($str);
251	    $_[1] = '' if $chk;
252	    return $str;
253	};
254	*encode = \&decode;
255	$Encode::Encoding{Unicode} =
256	    bless {Name => "Internal"} => "Encode::Internal";
257    }
258
259    {
260	# was in Encode::utf8
261	package Encode::utf8;
262	push @Encode::utf8::ISA, 'Encode::Encoding';
263	#
264	if ($use_xs){
265	    Encode::DEBUG and warn __PACKAGE__, " XS on";
266	    *decode = \&decode_xs;
267	    *encode = \&encode_xs;
268	}else{
269	    Encode::DEBUG and warn __PACKAGE__, " XS off";
270	    *decode = sub{
271		my ($obj,$octets,$chk) = @_;
272		my $str = Encode::decode_utf8($octets);
273		if (defined $str) {
274		    $_[1] = '' if $chk;
275		    return $str;
276		}
277		return undef;
278	    };
279	    *encode = sub {
280		my ($obj,$string,$chk) = @_;
281		my $octets = Encode::encode_utf8($string);
282		$_[1] = '' if $chk;
283		return $octets;
284	    };
285	}
286	*cat_decode = sub{ # ($obj, $dst, $src, $pos, $trm, $chk)
287	    my ($obj, undef, undef, $pos, $trm) = @_; # currently ignores $chk
288	    my ($rdst, $rsrc, $rpos) = \@_[1,2,3];
289	    use bytes;
290	    if ((my $npos = index($$rsrc, $trm, $pos)) >= 0) {
291		$$rdst .= substr($$rsrc, $pos, $npos - $pos + length($trm));
292		$$rpos = $npos + length($trm);
293		return 1;
294	    }
295	    $$rdst .= substr($$rsrc, $pos);
296	    $$rpos = length($$rsrc);
297	    return '';
298	};
299	$Encode::Encoding{utf8} =
300	    bless {Name => "utf8"} => "Encode::utf8";
301    }
302}
303
3041;
305
306__END__
307
308=head1 NAME
309
310Encode - character encodings
311
312=head1 SYNOPSIS
313
314    use Encode;
315
316=head2 Table of Contents
317
318Encode consists of a collection of modules whose details are too big
319to fit in one document.  This POD itself explains the top-level APIs
320and general topics at a glance.  For other topics and more details,
321see the PODs below:
322
323  Name			        Description
324  --------------------------------------------------------
325  Encode::Alias         Alias definitions to encodings
326  Encode::Encoding      Encode Implementation Base Class
327  Encode::Supported     List of Supported Encodings
328  Encode::CN            Simplified Chinese Encodings
329  Encode::JP            Japanese Encodings
330  Encode::KR            Korean Encodings
331  Encode::TW            Traditional Chinese Encodings
332  --------------------------------------------------------
333
334=head1 DESCRIPTION
335
336The C<Encode> module provides the interfaces between Perl's strings
337and the rest of the system.  Perl strings are sequences of
338B<characters>.
339
340The repertoire of characters that Perl can represent is at least that
341defined by the Unicode Consortium. On most platforms the ordinal
342values of the characters (as returned by C<ord(ch)>) is the "Unicode
343codepoint" for the character (the exceptions are those platforms where
344the legacy encoding is some variant of EBCDIC rather than a super-set
345of ASCII - see L<perlebcdic>).
346
347Traditionally, computer data has been moved around in 8-bit chunks
348often called "bytes". These chunks are also known as "octets" in
349networking standards. Perl is widely used to manipulate data of many
350types - not only strings of characters representing human or computer
351languages but also "binary" data being the machine's representation of
352numbers, pixels in an image - or just about anything.
353
354When Perl is processing "binary data", the programmer wants Perl to
355process "sequences of bytes". This is not a problem for Perl - as a
356byte has 256 possible values, it easily fits in Perl's much larger
357"logical character".
358
359=head2 TERMINOLOGY
360
361=over 2
362
363=item *
364
365I<character>: a character in the range 0..(2**32-1) (or more).
366(What Perl's strings are made of.)
367
368=item *
369
370I<byte>: a character in the range 0..255
371(A special case of a Perl character.)
372
373=item *
374
375I<octet>: 8 bits of data, with ordinal values 0..255
376(Term for bytes passed to or from a non-Perl context, e.g. a disk file.)
377
378=back
379
380=head1 PERL ENCODING API
381
382=over 2
383
384=item $octets  = encode(ENCODING, $string [, CHECK])
385
386Encodes a string from Perl's internal form into I<ENCODING> and returns
387a sequence of octets.  ENCODING can be either a canonical name or
388an alias.  For encoding names and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">.
389For CHECK, see L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
390
391For example, to convert a string from Perl's internal format to
392iso-8859-1 (also known as Latin1),
393
394  $octets = encode("iso-8859-1", $string);
395
396B<CAVEAT>: When you run C<$octets = encode("utf8", $string)>, then $octets
397B<may not be equal to> $string.  Though they both contain the same data, the utf8 flag
398for $octets is B<always> off.  When you encode anything, utf8 flag of
399the result is always off, even when it contains completely valid utf8
400string. See L</"The UTF-8 flag"> below.
401
402encode($valid_encoding, undef) is harmless but warns you for
403C<Use of uninitialized value in subroutine entry>.
404encode($valid_encoding, '') is harmless and warnless.
405
406=item $string = decode(ENCODING, $octets [, CHECK])
407
408Decodes a sequence of octets assumed to be in I<ENCODING> into Perl's
409internal form and returns the resulting string.  As in encode(),
410ENCODING can be either a canonical name or an alias. For encoding names
411and aliases, see L</"Defining Aliases">.  For CHECK, see
412L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
413
414For example, to convert ISO-8859-1 data to a string in Perl's internal format:
415
416  $string = decode("iso-8859-1", $octets);
417
418B<CAVEAT>: When you run C<$string = decode("utf8", $octets)>, then $string
419B<may not be equal to> $octets.  Though they both contain the same data,
420the utf8 flag for $string is on unless $octets entirely consists of
421ASCII data (or EBCDIC on EBCDIC machines).  See L</"The UTF-8 flag">
422below.
423
424decode($valid_encoding, undef) is harmless but warns you for
425C<Use of uninitialized value in subroutine entry>.
426decode($valid_encoding, '') is harmless and warnless.
427
428=item [$length =] from_to($octets, FROM_ENC, TO_ENC [, CHECK])
429
430Converts B<in-place> data between two encodings. The data in $octets
431must be encoded as octets and not as characters in Perl's internal
432format. For example, to convert ISO-8859-1 data to Microsoft's CP1250 encoding:
433
434  from_to($octets, "iso-8859-1", "cp1250");
435
436and to convert it back:
437
438  from_to($octets, "cp1250", "iso-8859-1");
439
440Note that because the conversion happens in place, the data to be
441converted cannot be a string constant; it must be a scalar variable.
442
443from_to() returns the length of the converted string in octets on success, undef
444otherwise.
445
446B<CAVEAT>: The following operations look the same but are not quite so;
447
448  from_to($data, "iso-8859-1", "utf8"); #1
449  $data = decode("iso-8859-1", $data);  #2
450
451Both #1 and #2 make $data consist of a completely valid UTF-8 string
452but only #2 turns utf8 flag on.  #1 is equivalent to
453
454  $data = encode("utf8", decode("iso-8859-1", $data));
455
456See L</"The UTF-8 flag"> below.
457
458=item $octets = encode_utf8($string);
459
460Equivalent to C<$octets = encode("utf8", $string);> The characters
461that comprise $string are encoded in Perl's internal format and the
462result is returned as a sequence of octets. All possible
463characters have a UTF-8 representation so this function cannot fail.
464
465
466=item $string = decode_utf8($octets [, CHECK]);
467
468equivalent to C<$string = decode("utf8", $octets [, CHECK])>.
469The sequence of octets represented by
470$octets is decoded from UTF-8 into a sequence of logical
471characters. Not all sequences of octets form valid UTF-8 encodings, so
472it is possible for this call to fail.  For CHECK, see
473L</"Handling Malformed Data">.
474
475=back
476
477=head2 Listing available encodings
478
479  use Encode;
480  @list = Encode->encodings();
481
482Returns a list of the canonical names of the available encodings that
483are loaded.  To get a list of all available encodings including the
484ones that are not loaded yet, say
485
486  @all_encodings = Encode->encodings(":all");
487
488Or you can give the name of a specific module.
489
490  @with_jp = Encode->encodings("Encode::JP");
491
492When "::" is not in the name, "Encode::" is assumed.
493
494  @ebcdic = Encode->encodings("EBCDIC");
495
496To find out in detail which encodings are supported by this package,
497see L<Encode::Supported>.
498
499=head2 Defining Aliases
500
501To add a new alias to a given encoding, use:
502
503  use Encode;
504  use Encode::Alias;
505  define_alias(newName => ENCODING);
506
507After that, newName can be used as an alias for ENCODING.
508ENCODING may be either the name of an encoding or an
509I<encoding object>
510
511But before you do so, make sure the alias is nonexistent with
512C<resolve_alias()>, which returns the canonical name thereof.
513i.e.
514
515  Encode::resolve_alias("latin1") eq "iso-8859-1" # true
516  Encode::resolve_alias("iso-8859-12")   # false; nonexistent
517  Encode::resolve_alias($name) eq $name  # true if $name is canonical
518
519resolve_alias() does not need C<use Encode::Alias>; it can be
520exported via C<use Encode qw(resolve_alias)>.
521
522See L<Encode::Alias> for details.
523
524=head1 Encoding via PerlIO
525
526If your perl supports I<PerlIO> (which is the default), you can use a PerlIO layer to decode
527and encode directly via a filehandle.  The following two examples
528are totally identical in their functionality.
529
530  # via PerlIO
531  open my $in,  "<:encoding(shiftjis)", $infile  or die;
532  open my $out, ">:encoding(euc-jp)",   $outfile or die;
533  while(<$in>){ print $out $_; }
534
535  # via from_to
536  open my $in,  "<", $infile  or die;
537  open my $out, ">", $outfile or die;
538  while(<$in>){
539    from_to($_, "shiftjis", "euc-jp", 1);
540    print $out $_;
541  }
542
543Unfortunately, it may be that encodings are PerlIO-savvy.  You can check
544if your encoding is supported by PerlIO by calling the C<perlio_ok>
545method.
546
547  Encode::perlio_ok("hz");             # False
548  find_encoding("euc-cn")->perlio_ok;  # True where PerlIO is available
549
550  use Encode qw(perlio_ok);            # exported upon request
551  perlio_ok("euc-jp")
552
553Fortunately, all encodings that come with Encode core are PerlIO-savvy
554except for hz and ISO-2022-kr.  For gory details, see L<Encode::Encoding> and L<Encode::PerlIO>.
555
556=head1 Handling Malformed Data
557
558The I<CHECK> argument is used as follows.  When you omit it,
559the behaviour is the same as if you had passed a value of 0 for
560I<CHECK>.
561
562=over 2
563
564=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_DEFAULT ( == 0)
565
566If I<CHECK> is 0, (en|de)code will put a I<substitution character>
567in place of a malformed character.  For UCM-based encodings,
568E<lt>subcharE<gt> will be used.  For Unicode, the code point C<0xFFFD> is used.
569If the data is supposed to be UTF-8, an optional lexical warning
570(category utf8) is given.
571
572=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_CROAK ( == 1)
573
574If I<CHECK> is 1, methods will die on error immediately with an error
575message.  Therefore, when I<CHECK> is set to 1,  you should trap the
576fatal error with eval{} unless you really want to let it die on error.
577
578=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_QUIET
579
580If I<CHECK> is set to Encode::FB_QUIET, (en|de)code will immediately
581return the portion of the data that has been processed so far when
582an error occurs. The data argument will be overwritten with
583everything after that point (that is, the unprocessed part of data).
584This is handy when you have to call decode repeatedly in the case
585where your source data may contain partial multi-byte character
586sequences, for example because you are reading with a fixed-width
587buffer. Here is some sample code that does exactly this:
588
589  my $data = ''; my $utf8 = '';
590  while(defined(read $fh, $buffer, 256)){
591    # buffer may end in a partial character so we append
592    $data .= $buffer;
593    $utf8 .= decode($encoding, $data, Encode::FB_QUIET);
594    # $data now contains the unprocessed partial character
595  }
596
597=item I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_WARN
598
599This is the same as above, except that it warns on error.  Handy when
600you are debugging the mode above.
601
602=item perlqq mode (I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_PERLQQ)
603
604=item HTML charref mode (I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_HTMLCREF)
605
606=item XML charref mode (I<CHECK> = Encode::FB_XMLCREF)
607
608For encodings that are implemented by Encode::XS, CHECK ==
609Encode::FB_PERLQQ turns (en|de)code into C<perlqq> fallback mode.
610
611When you decode, C<\xI<HH>> will be inserted for a malformed character,
612where I<HH> is the hex representation of the octet  that could not be
613decoded to utf8.  And when you encode, C<\x{I<HHHH>}> will be inserted,
614where I<HHHH> is the Unicode ID of the character that cannot be found
615in the character repertoire of the encoding.
616
617HTML/XML character reference modes are about the same, in place of
618C<\x{I<HHHH>}>, HTML uses C<&#I<NNNN>>; where I<NNNN> is a decimal digit and
619XML uses C<&#xI<HHHH>>; where I<HHHH> is the hexadecimal digit.
620
621=item The bitmask
622
623These modes are actually set via a bitmask.  Here is how the FB_XX
624constants are laid out.  You can import the FB_XX constants via
625C<use Encode qw(:fallbacks)>; you can import the generic bitmask
626constants via C<use Encode qw(:fallback_all)>.
627
628                     FB_DEFAULT FB_CROAK FB_QUIET FB_WARN  FB_PERLQQ
629 DIE_ON_ERR    0x0001             X
630 WARN_ON_ERR   0x0002                               X
631 RETURN_ON_ERR 0x0004                      X        X
632 LEAVE_SRC     0x0008
633 PERLQQ        0x0100                                        X
634 HTMLCREF      0x0200
635 XMLCREF       0x0400
636
637=back
638
639=head2 Unimplemented fallback schemes
640
641In the future, you will be able to use a code reference to a callback
642function for the value of I<CHECK> but its API is still undecided.
643
644The fallback scheme does not work on EBCDIC platforms.
645
646=head1 Defining Encodings
647
648To define a new encoding, use:
649
650    use Encode qw(define_encoding);
651    define_encoding($object, 'canonicalName' [, alias...]);
652
653I<canonicalName> will be associated with I<$object>.  The object
654should provide the interface described in L<Encode::Encoding>.
655If more than two arguments are provided then additional
656arguments are taken as aliases for I<$object>.
657
658See L<Encode::Encoding> for more details.
659
660=head1 The UTF-8 flag
661
662Before the introduction of utf8 support in perl, The C<eq> operator
663just compared the strings represented by two scalars. Beginning with
664perl 5.8, C<eq> compares two strings with simultaneous consideration
665of I<the utf8 flag>. To explain why we made it so, I will quote page
666402 of C<Programming Perl, 3rd ed.>
667
668=over 2
669
670=item Goal #1:
671
672Old byte-oriented programs should not spontaneously break on the old
673byte-oriented data they used to work on.
674
675=item Goal #2:
676
677Old byte-oriented programs should magically start working on the new
678character-oriented data when appropriate.
679
680=item Goal #3:
681
682Programs should run just as fast in the new character-oriented mode
683as in the old byte-oriented mode.
684
685=item Goal #4:
686
687Perl should remain one language, rather than forking into a
688byte-oriented Perl and a character-oriented Perl.
689
690=back
691
692Back when C<Programming Perl, 3rd ed.> was written, not even Perl 5.6.0
693was born and many features documented in the book remained
694unimplemented for a long time.  Perl 5.8 corrected this and the introduction
695of the UTF-8 flag is one of them.  You can think of this perl notion as of a
696byte-oriented mode (utf8 flag off) and a character-oriented mode (utf8
697flag on).
698
699Here is how Encode takes care of the utf8 flag.
700
701=over 2
702
703=item *
704
705When you encode, the resulting utf8 flag is always off.
706
707=item *
708
709When you decode, the resulting utf8 flag is on unless you can
710unambiguously represent data.  Here is the definition of
711dis-ambiguity.
712
713After C<$utf8 = decode('foo', $octet);>,
714
715  When $octet is...   The utf8 flag in $utf8 is
716  ---------------------------------------------
717  In ASCII only (or EBCDIC only)            OFF
718  In ISO-8859-1                              ON
719  In any other Encoding                      ON
720  ---------------------------------------------
721
722As you see, there is one exception, In ASCII.  That way you can assue
723Goal #1.  And with Encode Goal #2 is assumed but you still have to be
724careful in such cases mentioned in B<CAVEAT> paragraphs.
725
726This utf8 flag is not visible in perl scripts, exactly for the same
727reason you cannot (or you I<don't have to>) see if a scalar contains a
728string, integer, or floating point number.   But you can still peek
729and poke these if you will.  See the section below.
730
731=back
732
733=head2 Messing with Perl's Internals
734
735The following API uses parts of Perl's internals in the current
736implementation.  As such, they are efficient but may change.
737
738=over 2
739
740=item is_utf8(STRING [, CHECK])
741
742[INTERNAL] Tests whether the UTF-8 flag is turned on in the STRING.
743If CHECK is true, also checks the data in STRING for being well-formed
744UTF-8.  Returns true if successful, false otherwise.
745
746As of perl 5.8.1, L<utf8> also has utf8::is_utf8().
747
748=item _utf8_on(STRING)
749
750[INTERNAL] Turns on the UTF-8 flag in STRING.  The data in STRING is
751B<not> checked for being well-formed UTF-8.  Do not use unless you
752B<know> that the STRING is well-formed UTF-8.  Returns the previous
753state of the UTF-8 flag (so please don't treat the return value as
754indicating success or failure), or C<undef> if STRING is not a string.
755
756=item _utf8_off(STRING)
757
758[INTERNAL] Turns off the UTF-8 flag in STRING.  Do not use frivolously.
759Returns the previous state of the UTF-8 flag (so please don't treat the
760return value as indicating success or failure), or C<undef> if STRING is
761not a string.
762
763=back
764
765=head1 SEE ALSO
766
767L<Encode::Encoding>,
768L<Encode::Supported>,
769L<Encode::PerlIO>,
770L<encoding>,
771L<perlebcdic>,
772L<perlfunc/open>,
773L<perlunicode>,
774L<utf8>,
775the Perl Unicode Mailing List E<lt>perl-unicode@perl.orgE<gt>
776
777=head1 MAINTAINER
778
779This project was originated by Nick Ing-Simmons and later maintained
780by Dan Kogai E<lt>dankogai@dan.co.jpE<gt>.  See AUTHORS for a full
781list of people involved.  For any questions, use
782E<lt>perl-unicode@perl.orgE<gt> so we can all share.
783
784=cut
785