| 1 | Always check out the latest perl5-porters discussions on these subjects |
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| 2 | before embarking on an implementation tour. |
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| 3 | |
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| 4 | Bugs |
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| 5 | remove recursion in regular expression engine |
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| 6 | fix memory leaks during compile failures |
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| 7 | make signal handling safe |
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| 8 | |
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| 9 | Tie Modules |
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| 10 | VecArray Implement array using vec() |
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| 11 | SubstrArray Implement array using substr() |
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| 12 | VirtualArray Implement array using a file |
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| 13 | ShiftSplice Defines shift et al in terms of splice method |
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| 14 | |
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| 15 | Would be nice to have |
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| 16 | pack "(stuff)*", "(stuff)?", "(stuff)+", "(stuff)4", ... |
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| 17 | contiguous bitfields in pack/unpack |
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| 18 | lexperl |
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| 19 | bundled perl preprocessor/macro facility |
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| 20 | this would solve many of the syntactic nice-to-haves |
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| 21 | use posix calls internally where possible |
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| 22 | gettimeofday (possibly best left for a module?) |
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| 23 | format BOTTOM |
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| 24 | -i rename file only when successfully changed |
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| 25 | all ARGV input should act like <> |
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| 26 | report HANDLE [formats]. |
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| 27 | support in perlmain to rerun debugger |
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| 28 | regression tests using __DIE__ hook |
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| 29 | lexically scoped functions: my sub foo { ... } |
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| 30 | the basic concept is easy and sound, |
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| 31 | the difficulties begin with self-referential |
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| 32 | and mutually referential lexical subs: how to |
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| 33 | declare the subs? |
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| 34 | lexically scoped typeglobs? (lexical I/O handles work now) |
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| 35 | wantlvalue? more generalized want()/caller()? |
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| 36 | named prototypes: sub foo ($foo, @bar) { ... } ? |
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| 37 | regression/sanity tests for suidperl |
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| 38 | iterators/lazy evaluation/continuations/first/ |
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| 39 | first_defined/short-circuiting grep/?? |
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| 40 | This is a very thorny and hotly debated subject, |
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| 41 | tread carefully and do your homework first |
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| 42 | generalise Errno way of extracting cpp symbols and use that in |
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| 43 | Errno, Fcntl, POSIX (ExtUtils::CppSymbol?) |
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| 44 | the _r-problem: for all the {set,get,end}*() system database |
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| 45 | calls (and a couple more: readdir, *rand*, crypt, *time, |
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| 46 | tmpnam) there are in many systems the _r versions |
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| 47 | to be used in re-entrant (=multithreaded) code |
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| 48 | Icky things: the _r API is not standardized and |
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| 49 | the _r-forms require per-thread data to store their state |
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| 50 | memory profiler: turn malloc.c:Perl_get_mstats() into |
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| 51 | an extension (Devel::MProf?) that would return the malloc |
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| 52 | stats in a nice Perl datastructure (also a simple interface |
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| 53 | to return just the grand total would be good) |
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| 54 | cross-compilation support |
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| 55 | host vs target: compile in the host, get the executable to |
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| 56 | the target, get the possible input files to the target, |
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| 57 | execute in the target (and do not assume a UNIXish shell |
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| 58 | in the target! e.g. no command redirection can be assumed), |
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| 59 | get possible output files back to to host. this needs to work |
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| 60 | both during Configure and during the build. You cannot assume |
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| 61 | shared filesystems between the host and the target (you may need |
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| 62 | e.g. ftp), executing the target executable may involve e.g. rsh |
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| 63 | a way to make << and >> to shift bitvectors instead of numbers |
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| 64 | |
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| 65 | Possible pragmas |
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| 66 | debugger |
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| 67 | optimize (use less qw[memory cpu]) |
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| 68 | |
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| 69 | Optimizations |
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| 70 | constant function cache |
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| 71 | switch structures |
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| 72 | foreach(reverse...) |
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| 73 | cache eval tree (unless lexical outer scope used (mark in &compiling?)) |
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| 74 | rcatmaybe |
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| 75 | shrink opcode tables via multiple implementations selected in peep |
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| 76 | cache hash value? (Not a win, according to Guido) |
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| 77 | optimize away @_ where possible |
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| 78 | tail recursion removal |
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| 79 | "one pass" global destruction |
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| 80 | rewrite regexp parser for better integrated optimization |
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| 81 | LRU cache of regexp: foreach $pat (@pats) { foo() if /$pat/ } |
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| 82 | |
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| 83 | Vague possibilities |
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| 84 | ref function in list context? |
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| 85 | make tr/// return histogram in list context? |
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| 86 | loop control on do{} et al |
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| 87 | explicit switch statements |
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| 88 | built-in globbing |
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| 89 | compile to real threaded code |
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| 90 | structured types |
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| 91 | autocroak? |
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| 92 | modifiable $1 et al |
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