xref: /openbsd-src/gnu/usr.bin/perl/lib/utf8.pm (revision 8500990981f885cbe5e6a4958549cacc238b5ae6)
1package utf8;
2
3$utf8::hint_bits = 0x00800000;
4
5our $VERSION = '1.02';
6
7sub import {
8    $^H |= $utf8::hint_bits;
9    $enc{caller()} = $_[1] if $_[1];
10}
11
12sub unimport {
13    $^H &= ~$utf8::hint_bits;
14}
15
16sub AUTOLOAD {
17    require "utf8_heavy.pl";
18    goto &$AUTOLOAD if defined &$AUTOLOAD;
19    Carp::croak("Undefined subroutine $AUTOLOAD called");
20}
21
221;
23__END__
24
25=head1 NAME
26
27utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 (or UTF-EBCDIC) in source code
28
29=head1 SYNOPSIS
30
31    use utf8;
32    no utf8;
33
34    $num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string);
35    $success    = utf8::downgrade($string[, FAIL_OK]);
36
37    utf8::encode($string);
38    utf8::decode($string);
39
40    $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING); # since Perl 5.8.1
41    $flag = utf8::valid(STRING);
42
43=head1 DESCRIPTION
44
45The C<use utf8> pragma tells the Perl parser to allow UTF-8 in the
46program text in the current lexical scope (allow UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC based
47platforms).  The C<no utf8> pragma tells Perl to switch back to treating
48the source text as literal bytes in the current lexical scope.
49
50This pragma is primarily a compatibility device.  Perl versions
51earlier than 5.6 allowed arbitrary bytes in source code, whereas
52in future we would like to standardize on the UTF-8 encoding for
53source text.
54
55B<Do not use this pragma for anything else than telling Perl that your
56script is written in UTF-8.> The utility functions described below are
57useful for their own purposes, but they are not really part of the
58"pragmatic" effect.
59
60Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source text, either this
61pragma or the L</encoding> pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8
62in the source.  When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this
63pragma will effectively become a no-op.  For convenience in what
64follows the term I<UTF-X> is used to refer to UTF-8 on ASCII and ISO
65Latin based platforms and UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC based platforms.
66
67See also the effects of the C<-C> switch and its cousin, the
68C<$ENV{PERL_UNICODE}>, in L<perlrun>.
69
70Enabling the C<utf8> pragma has the following effect:
71
72=over 4
73
74=item *
75
76Bytes in the source text that have their high-bit set will be treated
77as being part of a literal UTF-8 character.  This includes most
78literals such as identifier names, string constants, and constant
79regular expression patterns.
80
81On EBCDIC platforms characters in the Latin 1 character set are
82treated as being part of a literal UTF-EBCDIC character.
83
84=back
85
86Note that if you have bytes with the eighth bit on in your script
87(for example embedded Latin-1 in your string literals), C<use utf8>
88will be unhappy since the bytes are most probably not well-formed
89UTF-8.  If you want to have such bytes and use utf8, you can disable
90utf8 until the end the block (or file, if at top level) by C<no utf8;>.
91
92If you want to automatically upgrade your 8-bit legacy bytes to UTF-8,
93use the L</encoding> pragma instead of this pragma.  For example, if
94you want to implicitly upgrade your ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) bytes to UTF-8
95as used in e.g. C<chr()> and C<\x{...}>, try this:
96
97    use encoding "latin-1";
98    my $c = chr(0xc4);
99    my $x = "\x{c5}";
100
101In case you are wondering: yes, C<use encoding 'utf8';> works much
102the same as C<use utf8;>.
103
104=head2 Utility functions
105
106The following functions are defined in the C<utf8::> package by the
107Perl core.  You do not need to say C<use utf8> to use these and in fact
108you should not say that  unless you really want to have UTF-8 source code.
109
110=over 4
111
112=item * $num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string)
113
114Converts (in-place) internal representation of string to Perl's
115internal I<UTF-X> form.  Returns the number of octets necessary to
116represent the string as I<UTF-X>.  Can be used to make sure that the
117UTF-8 flag is on, so that C<\w> or C<lc()> work as expected on strings
118containing characters in the range 0x80-0xFF (oon ASCII and
119derivatives).  Note that this should not be used to convert a legacy
120byte encoding to Unicode: use Encode for that.  Affected by the
121encoding pragma.
122
123=item * $success = utf8::downgrade($string[, FAIL_OK])
124
125Converts (in-place) internal representation of string to be un-encoded
126bytes.  Returns true on success. On failure dies or, if the value of
127FAIL_OK is true, returns false.  Can be used to make sure that the
128UTF-8 flag is off, e.g. when you want to make sure that the substr()
129or length() function works with the usually faster byte algorithm.
130Note that this should not be used to convert Unicode back to a legacy
131byte encoding: use Encode for that.  B<Not> affected by the encoding
132pragma.
133
134=item * utf8::encode($string)
135
136Converts (in-place) I<$string> from logical characters to octet
137sequence representing it in Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding.  Returns
138nothing.  Same as Encode::encode_utf8(). Note that this should not be
139used to convert a legacy byte encoding to Unicode: use Encode for
140that.
141
142=item * utf8::decode($string)
143
144Attempts to convert I<$string> in-place from Perl's I<UTF-X> encoding
145into logical characters. Returns nothing.  Same as Encode::decode_utf8().
146Note that this should not be used to convert Unicode back to a legacy
147byte encoding: use Encode for that.
148
149=item * $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING)
150
151(Since Perl 5.8.1)  Test whether STRING is in UTF-8.  Functionally
152the same as Encode::is_utf8().
153
154=item * $flag = utf8::valid(STRING)
155
156[INTERNAL] Test whether STRING is in a consistent state regarding
157UTF-8.  Will return true is well-formed UTF-8 and has the UTF-8 flag
158on B<or> if string is held as bytes (both these states are 'consistent').
159Main reason for this routine is to allow Perl's testsuite to check
160that operations have left strings in a consistent state.  You most
161probably want to use utf8::is_utf8() instead.
162
163=back
164
165C<utf8::encode> is like C<utf8::upgrade>, but the UTF8 flag is
166cleared.  See L<perlunicode> for more on the UTF8 flag and the C API
167functions C<sv_utf8_upgrade>, C<sv_utf8_downgrade>, C<sv_utf8_encode>,
168and C<sv_utf8_decode>, which are wrapped by the Perl functions
169C<utf8::upgrade>, C<utf8::downgrade>, C<utf8::encode> and
170C<utf8::decode>.  Note that in the Perl 5.8.0 and 5.8.1 implementation
171the functions utf8::is_utf8, utf8::valid, utf8::encode, utf8::decode,
172utf8::upgrade, and utf8::downgrade are always available, without a
173C<require utf8> statement-- this may change in future releases.
174
175=head1 BUGS
176
177One can have Unicode in identifier names, but not in package/class or
178subroutine names.  While some limited functionality towards this does
179exist as of Perl 5.8.0, that is more accidental than designed; use of
180Unicode for the said purposes is unsupported.
181
182One reason of this unfinishedness is its (currently) inherent
183unportability: since both package names and subroutine names may need
184to be mapped to file and directory names, the Unicode capability of
185the filesystem becomes important-- and there unfortunately aren't
186portable answers.
187
188=head1 SEE ALSO
189
190L<perluniintro>, L<encoding>, L<perlrun>, L<bytes>, L<perlunicode>
191
192=cut
193