path: root/pod/perllexwarn.pod

=head1 NAME

perllexwarn - Perl Lexical Warnings

=head1 DESCRIPTION
 
The C<use warning> pragma is a replacement for both the command line
flag B<-w> and the equivalent Perl variable, C<$^W>.

The pragma works just like the existing "strict" pragma.
This means that the scope of the warning pragma is limited to the
enclosing block. It also means that that the pragma setting will not
leak across files (via C<use>, C<require> or C<do>). This allows
authors to independently define the degree of warning checks that will
be applied to their module.

By default, optional warnings are disabled, so any legacy code that
doesn't attempt to control the warnings will work unchanged.

All warnings are enabled in a block by either of these:
 
    use warning ;
    use warning 'all' ;
 
Similarly all warnings are disabled in a block by either of these:

    no warning ;
    no warning 'all' ;

For example, consider the code below:

    use warning ;
    my $a ;
    my $b ;
    {
        no warning ;
	$b = 2 if $a EQ 3 ;
    }
    $b = 1 if $a NE 3 ;

The code in the enclosing block has warnings enabled, but the inner
block has them disabled. In this case that means that the use of the C<EQ>
operator won't trip a C<"Use of EQ is deprecated"> warning, but the use of
C<NE> will produce a C<"Use of NE is deprecated"> warning.

=head2 Default Warnings and Optional Warnings

Before the introduction of lexical warnings, Perl had two classes of
warnings: mandatory and optional. 

As its name suggests, if your code tripped a mandatory warning, you
would get a warning whether you wanted it or not.
For example, the code below would always produce an C<"isn't numeric">
warning about the "2:".

    my $a = "2:" + 3;

though the result will be 5.

With the introduction of lexical warnings, mandatory warnings now become
I<default> warnings. The difference is that although the previously
mandatory warnings are still enabled by default, they can then be
subsequently enabled or disabled with the lexical warning pragma. For
example, in the code below, an C<"integer overflow"> warning will only
be reported for the C<$a> variable.

    my $a = "2:" + 3;
    no warning ;
    my $b = "2:" + 3;

Note that neither the B<-w> flag or the C<$^W> can be used to
disable/enable default warnings. They are still mandatory in this case.

=head2 What's wrong with B<-w> and C<$^W>

Although very useful, the big problem with using B<-w> on the command
line to enable warnings is that it is all or nothing. Take the typical
scenario when you are writing a Perl program. Parts of the code you
will write yourself, but it's very likely that you will make use of
pre-written Perl modules. If you use the B<-w> flag in this case, you
end up enabling warnings in pieces of code that you haven't written.

Similarly, using C<$^W> to either disable or enable blocks of code is
fundamentally flawed. For a start, say you want to disable warnings in
a block of code. You might expect this to be enough to do the trick:

     {
         local ($^W) = 0 ;
	 my $a =+ 2 ;
	 my $b ; chop $b ;
     }

When this code is run with the B<-w> flag, a warning will be produced
for the C<$a> line -- C<"Reversed += operator">.

The problem is that Perl has both compile-time and run-time warnings. To
disable compile-time warnings you need to rewrite the code like this:

     {
         BEGIN { $^W = 0 }
	 my $a =+ 2 ;
	 my $b ; chop $b ;
     }

The other big problem with C<$^W> is that way you can inadvertently
change the warning setting in unexpected places in your code. For example,
when the code below is run (without the B<-w> flag), the second call
to C<doit> will trip a C<"Use of uninitialized value"> warning, whereas
the first will not.

    sub doit
    {
        my $b ; chop $b ;
    }

    doit() ;

    {
        local ($^W) = 1 ;
        doit()
    }

This is a side-effect of C<$^W> being dynamically scoped.

Lexical warnings get around these limitations by allowing finer control
over where warnings can or can't be tripped.

=head2 Controlling Warnings from the Command Line

There are three Command Line flags that can be used to control when
warnings are (or aren't) produced:

=over 5

=item B<-w>

This is  the existing flag. If the lexical warnings pragma is B<not>
used in any of you code, or any of the modules that you use, this flag
will enable warnings everywhere. See L<Backward Compatibility> for
details of how this flag interacts with lexical warnings.

=item B<-W>
 
If the B<-W> flag is used on the command line, it will enable all warnings
throughout the program regardless of whether warnings were disabled
locally using C<no warning> or C<$^W =0>. This includes all files that get
included via C<use>, C<require> or C<do>.
Think of it as the Perl equivalent of the "lint" command.

=item B<-X>

Does the exact opposite to the B<-W> flag, i.e. it disables all warnings.

=back

=head2 Backward Compatibility

If you are used with working with a version of Perl prior to the
introduction of lexically scoped warnings, or have code that uses both
lexical warnings and C<$^W>, this section will describe how they interact.

How Lexical Warnings interact with B<-w>/C<$^W>:
 
=over 5

=item 1.

If none of the three command line flags (B<-w>, B<-W> or B<-X>) that
control warnings is used and neither C<$^W> or lexical warnings are used,
then default warnings will be enabled and optional warnings disabled.
This means that legacy code that doesn't attempt to control the warnings
will work unchanged.

=item 2.

The B<-w> flag just sets the global C<$^W> variable as in 5.005 -- this
means that any legacy code that currently relies on manipulating C<$^W>
to control warning behavior will still work as is. 

=item 3.
 
Apart from now being a boolean, the C<$^W> variable operates in exactly
the same horrible uncontrolled global way, except that it cannot
disable/enable default warnings.

=item 4.
 
If a piece of code is under the control of the lexical warning pragma,
both the C<$^W> variable and the B<-w> flag will be ignored for the
scope of the lexical warning.

=item 5.
 
The only way to override a lexical warnings setting is with the B<-W>
or B<-X> command line flags.

=back

The combined effect of 3 & 4 is that it will will allow code which uses
the lexical warning pragma to control the warning behavior of $^W-type
code (using a C<local $^W=0>) if it really wants to, but not vice-versa.

=head1 EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES

The features described in this section are experimental, and so subject
to change.

=head2 Category Hierarchy
 
A B<tentative> hierarchy of "categories" have been defined to allow groups
of warnings to be enabled/disabled in isolation.  The current
hierarchy is:

    all - +--- unsafe -------+--- taint
          |                  |
          |                  +--- substr
          |                  |
          |                  +--- signal
          |                  |
          |                  +--- closure
          |                  |
          |                  +--- overflow
          |                  |
          |                  +--- portable
          |                  |
          |                  +--- untie
          |                  |
          |                  +--- utf8
          |                  
          +--- io   ---------+--- pipe
          |                  |
          |                  +--- unopened
          |                  |
          |                  +--- closed
          |                  |
          |                  +--- newline
          |                  |
          |                  +--- exec
          |
          +--- syntax    ----+--- ambiguous
          |                  |
          |                  +--- semicolon
          |                  |
          |                  +--- precedence
          |                  |
          |                  +--- reserved
          |                  |
          |                  +--- digit
          |                  |
          |                  +--- parenthesis
          |                  |
          |                  +--- deprecated
          |                  |
          |                  +--- printf
          |
          +--- severe    ----+--- inplace
          |                  |
          |                  +--- internal
          |                  |
          |                  +--- debugging
          |
          |--- uninitialized
          |
          +--- void
          |
          +--- recursion
          |
          +--- redefine
          |
          +--- numeric
          |
          +--- once
          |
          +--- misc

 
Just like the "strict" pragma any of these categories can be
combined

    use warning qw(void redefine) ;
    no warning qw(io syntax untie) ;

=head2 Fatal Warnings
 
This feature is B<very> experimental.
 
The presence of the word "FATAL" in the category list will escalate any
warnings from the category specified that are detected in the lexical
scope into fatal errors. In the code below, there are 3 places where
a deprecated warning will be detected, the middle one will produce a
fatal error.
 
 
    use warning ;
 
    $a = 1 if $a EQ $b ;
 
    {
        use warning qw(FATAL deprecated) ;
        $a = 1 if $a EQ $b ;
    }
 
    $a = 1 if $a EQ $b ;
 
=head1 TODO
 
The experimental features need bottomed out.

  perl5db.pl
    The debugger saves and restores C<$^W> at runtime. I haven't checked
    whether the debugger will still work with the lexical warnings
    patch applied.

  diagnostics.pm
    I *think* I've got diagnostics to work with the lexical warnings
    patch, but there were design decisions made in diagnostics to work
    around the limitations of C<$^W>. Now that those limitations are gone,
    the module should be revisited.

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<warning>.
 
=head1 AUTHOR
 
Paul Marquess