remove $^U dependent behaviors in runtime; chr() and sprintf('%c',...)

now return bytes all the way to 255, they will be transparently
coerced (in future) to UTF-8 when they are used in operations
involving other UTF-8 strings; C<use utf8> doesn't set $^U anymore

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@5013

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 30 deletions

diff --git a/pod/perlvar.pod b/pod/perlvar.pod
index dca9cc092f..79ec7f9ff0 100644
--- a/pod/perlvar.pod
+++ b/pod/perlvar.pod
@@ -875,37 +875,15 @@ and B<-C> filetests are based on this value.
 
 =item $^U
 
-Global flag that switches on Unicode character support in the Perl
-interpreter.  The initial value is usually C<0> for compatibility
-with Perl versions earlier than 5.6, but may be automatically set
-to C<1> by Perl if the system provides a user-settable default
-(e.g., C<$ENV{LC_CTYPE}>).  It is also implicitly set to C<1>
-whenever the utf8 pragma is loaded.
+Global flag that enables system calls made by Perl to use wide character
+APIs native to the system, if available.  This is currently only implemented
+on the Windows platform.
 
-Setting it to C<1> has the following effects:
+The initial value is typically C<0> for compatibility with Perl versions
+earlier than 5.6, but may be automatically set to C<1> by Perl if the system
+provides a user-settable default (e.g., C<$ENV{LC_CTYPE}>).
 
-=over
-
-=item *
-
-C<chr> produces UTF-8 encoded Unicode characters.  These are the same
-as the corresponding ASCII characters if the argument is less than 128.
-
-=item *
-
-The C<%c> format in C<sprintf> generates a UTF-8 encoded Unicode
-character.  This is the same as the corresponding ASCII character
-if the argument is less than 128.
-
-=item *
-
-Any system calls made by Perl will use wide character APIs native to
-the system, if available.  This is currently only implemented on the
-Windows platform.
-
-=back
-
-The C<byte> pragma overrides the value of this flag in the current
+The C<byte> pragma always overrides the effect of this flag in the current
 lexical scope.  See L<byte>.
 
 =item $^V
@@ -914,7 +892,7 @@ The revision, version, and subversion of the Perl interpreter, represented
 as a "version tuple".  Version tuples have both a numeric value and a
 string value.  The numeric value is a floating point number that amounts
 to revision + version/1000 + subversion/1000000, and the string value
-is made of utf8 characters:
+is made of characters possibly in the UTF-8 range:
 C<chr($revision) . chr($version) . chr($subversion)>.
 
 This can be used to determine whether the Perl interpreter executing a