package utf8; $^U = 1 if caller and caller eq 'main'; # they are unicode aware # XXX split this out? sub import { $^H |= 0x00800000; $enc{caller()} = $_[1] if $_[1]; } sub unimport { $^H &= ~0x00800000; } sub AUTOLOAD { require "utf8_heavy.pl"; goto &$AUTOLOAD; } 1; __END__ =head1 NAME utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 in source code =head1 SYNOPSIS use utf8; no utf8; =head1 DESCRIPTION WARNING: The implementation of Unicode support in Perl is incomplete. Expect sudden and unannounced changes! The C pragma tells the Perl parser to allow UTF-8 in the program text in the current lexical scope. The C pragma tells Perl to switch back to treating the source text as literal bytes in the current lexical scope. This pragma is primarily a compatibility device. Perl versions earlier than 5.6 allowed arbitrary bytes in source code, whereas in future we would like to standardize on the UTF-8 encoding for source text. Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source text, this pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8 in the source. When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this pragma will effectively become a no-op. Enabling the C pragma has the following effects: =over =item * Bytes in the source text that have their high-bit set will be treated as being part of a literal UTF-8 character. This includes most literals such as identifiers, string constants, constant regular expression patterns and package names. =item * As a side effect, when this pragma is used within the main package, it also enables Unicode character semantics for the entire program. See L for more on that. [XXX: split this out into separate "pragma" and/or -C command-line switch?] =item * In the absence of inputs marked as UTF-8, regular expressions within the scope of this pragma will default to using character semantics instead of byte semantics. @bytes_or_chars = split //, $data; # may split to bytes if data # $data isn't UTF-8 { use utf8; # force char semantics @chars = split //, $data; # splits characters } [XXX: Should this should be enabled like chr()/sprintf("%c") by looking at $^U instead?] =head1 SEE ALSO L, L =cut