summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/pod/perlfunc.pod
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorFather Chrysostomos <sprout@cpan.org>2013-06-10 00:18:07 -0700
committerFather Chrysostomos <sprout@cpan.org>2013-06-10 00:19:17 -0700
commitdbaf95aca2eb7d377aca1764b72e71120da654fd (patch)
treee30425ea38adc0d529af303998457a63c5c95647 /pod/perlfunc.pod
parent319f71293a1ed7c0f55e9fb7822514fb5fbe7944 (diff)
downloadperl-dbaf95aca2eb7d377aca1764b72e71120da654fd.tar.gz
perlfunc: Document fallback to "top" format
perl 4’s perl.man says this: By default the top‐of‐page format is "top", but it may be set to the format of your choice by assigning the name to the $^ variable. This is still the case, but is completely undocumented in perl 5. In perl 5 the presence of a <FILEHANDLE_NAME>_TOP format will over- ride "top", as will $^, but "top" is still checked for in the absence of those. This should be documented. One thing I do mention here that perl 4 omits is that it is "top" in the current package. I also tweaked the wording of the preceding sentence.
Diffstat (limited to 'pod/perlfunc.pod')
-rw-r--r--pod/perlfunc.pod6
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/pod/perlfunc.pod b/pod/perlfunc.pod
index d386245abc..9be5931ecd 100644
--- a/pod/perlfunc.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfunc.pod
@@ -9056,9 +9056,11 @@ explicitly by assigning the name of the format to the C<$~> variable.
Top of form processing is handled automatically: if there is insufficient
room on the current page for the formatted record, the page is advanced by
-writing a form feed, a special top-of-page format is used to format the new
+writing a form feed and a special top-of-page
+format is used to format the new
page header before the record is written. By default, the top-of-page
-format is the name of the filehandle with "_TOP" appended. This would be a
+format is the name of the filehandle with "_TOP" appended, or "top"
+in the current package if the former does not exist. This would be a
problem with autovivified filehandles, but it may be dynamically set to the
format of your choice by assigning the name to the C<$^> variable while
that filehandle is selected. The number of lines remaining on the current