deprecate package with no arguments

Message-ID: <20010710133340.A13452@robin.kitsite.com>

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@11256

2 files changed, 11 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/pod/perldiag.pod b/pod/perldiag.pod
index c754333040..65cde01c35 100644
--- a/pod/perldiag.pod
+++ b/pod/perldiag.pod
@@ -3868,6 +3868,13 @@ In code that currently says C<use AutoLoader; @ISA = qw(AutoLoader);>
 you should remove AutoLoader from @ISA and change C<use AutoLoader;> to
 C<use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';>.
 
+=item Use of "package" with no arguments is deprecated
+
+(D deprecated) You used the C<package> keyword without specifying a package
+name. So no namespace is current at all. Using this can cause many
+otherwise reasonable constructs to fail in baffling ways. C<use strict;>
+instead.
+
 =item Use of %s in printf format not supported
 
 (F) You attempted to use a feature of printf that is accessible from
diff --git a/pod/perlfunc.pod b/pod/perlfunc.pod
index 1039cd0caa..6deeadb622 100644
--- a/pod/perlfunc.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfunc.pod
@@ -3404,8 +3404,10 @@ C<$::sail> is equivalent to C<$main::sail> (as well as to C<$main'sail>,
 still seen in older code).
 
 If NAMESPACE is omitted, then there is no current package, and all
-identifiers must be fully qualified or lexicals.  This is stricter
-than C<use strict>, since it also extends to function names.
+identifiers must be fully qualified or lexicals.  However, you are
+strongly advised not to make use of this feature. Its use can cause
+unexpected behaviour, even crashing some versions of Perl. It is
+deprecated, and will be removed from a future release.
 
 See L<perlmod/"Packages"> for more information about packages, modules,
 and classes.  See L<perlsub> for other scoping issues.