Change 25773 notes
-
-=head2 Allocate OPs from arenas
-
-Currently all new OP structures are individually malloc()ed and free()d.
-All C<malloc> implementations have space overheads, and are now as fast as
-custom allocates so it would both use less memory and less CPU to allocate
-the various OP structures from arenas. The SV arena code can probably be
-re-used for this.
-
-=head2 Improve win32/wince.c
-
-Currently, numerous functions look virtually, if not completely,
-identical in both C<win32/wince.c> and C<win32/win32.c> files, which can't
-be good.
-
-=head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of XS
-
-These tasks would need C knowledge, and roughly the level of knowledge of
-the perl API that comes from writing modules that use XS to interface to
-C.
-
-=head2 shrink C<PVBM>s
-
-By removing unused elements and careful re-ordering, the structures for C<AV>s,
-C<HV>s, C<CV>s and C<GV>s have recently been shrunk considerably. C<PVIO>s
-probably aren't worth it, as typical programs don't use more than 8, and
-(at least) C<Filter::Util::Call> uses C<SvPVX>/C<SvCUR>/C<SvLEN> on a C<PVIO>,
-so it would mean code changes to modules on CPAN. C<PVBM>s might have some
-savings to win.
-
-=head2 autovivification
-
-Make all autovivification consistent w.r.t LVALUE/RVALUE and strict/no strict;
-
-This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help.
-
-=head2 Unicode in Filenames
-
-chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open,
-opendir, qx, readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen,
-system, truncate, unlink, utime, -X. All these could potentially accept
-Unicode filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system
-and qx Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell).
-Whether a filesystem - an operating system pair understands Unicode in
-filenames varies.
-
-Known combinations that have some level of understanding include
-Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS+ (In Mac OS 9 and X) and Apple UFS (in Mac
-OS X), NFS v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to
-create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used
-(UCS-2, UTF-16, UTF-8), what (if any) is the normalization form used,
-and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl
-requires some thought. Remember that an OS does not implicate a
-filesystem.
-
-(The Windows -C command flag "wide API support" has been at least
-temporarily retired in 5.8.1, and the -C has been repurposed, see
-L<perlrun>.)
-
-=head2 Unicode in %ENV
-
-Currently the %ENV entries are always byte strings.
-
-=head2 use less 'memory'
-
-Investigate trade offs to switch out perl's choices on memory usage.
-Particularly perl should be able to give memory back.
-
-This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help.
-
-=head2 Re-implement C<:unique> in a way that is actually thread-safe
-
-The old implementation made bad assumptions on several levels. A good 90%
-solution might be just to make C<:unique> work to share the string buffer
-of SvPVs. That way large constant strings can be shared between ithreads,
-such as the configuration information in F<Config>.
-
-=head2 Make tainting consistent
-
-Tainting would be easier to use if it didn't take documented shortcuts and
-allow taint to "leak" everywhere within an expression.
-
-=head2 readpipe(LIST)
-
-system() accepts a LIST syntax (and a PROGRAM LIST syntax) to avoid
-running a shell. readpipe() (the function behind qx//) could be similarly
-extended.
-
-=head2 strcat(), strcpy(), strncat(), strncpy(), sprintf(), vsprintf()
-
-Maybe create a utility that checks after each libperl.a creation that
-none of the above (nor sprintf(), vsprintf(), or *SHUDDER* gets())
-ever creep back to libperl.a.
-
- nm libperl.a | ./miniperl -alne '$o = $F[0] if /:$/; print "$o $F[1]" if $F[0] eq "U" && $F[1] =~ /^(?:strn?c(?:at|py)|v?sprintf|gets)$/'
-
-Note, of course, that this will only tell whether B<your> platform
-is using those naughty interfaces.
-
-=head2 Audit the code for destruction ordering assumptions
-
-Change 25773 notes
-
/* Need to check SvMAGICAL, as during global destruction it may be that
AvARYLEN(av) has been freed before av, and hence the SvANY() pointer
is now part of the linked list of SV heads, rather than pointing to
projects / platform / upstream / perl.git / commitdiff