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authorJarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>2001-12-10 04:03:10 +0000
committerJarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>2001-12-10 04:03:10 +0000
commit3e33716fff35c87acba10f1d7630d4ad55ad58e8 (patch)
treed1bd7986197406e854de24e767a648fd3462655c
parentea5fc951afef02e4de7ec4d7a93e8ef289815e8b (diff)
downloadperl-3e33716fff35c87acba10f1d7630d4ad55ad58e8.tar.gz
Tell about the downside of safe signals.
p4raw-id: //depot/perl@13588
-rw-r--r--pod/perldelta.pod12
1 files changed, 10 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/pod/perldelta.pod b/pod/perldelta.pod
index dfb71f9294..15216d4ee8 100644
--- a/pod/perldelta.pod
+++ b/pod/perldelta.pod
@@ -300,11 +300,19 @@ the child process.
=back
-=head2 Signals Are Now Safe
+=head2 Safe Signals
Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments
could corrupt Perl's internal state. Now Perl postpones handling of
-signals until it's safe.
+signals until it's safe (between opcodes).
+
+This change may have surprising side effects because signals no more
+interrupt Perl instantly. Perl will now first finish whatever it was
+doing, like finishing an internal operation (like sort()) or an
+external operation (like an I/O operation), and only then look at any
+arrived signals (and before starting the next operation). No more corrupt
+internal state since the current operation is always finished first,
+but the signal may take more time to get heard.
=head2 Unicode Overhaul