# New Ticket Created by Zefram # Please include the string: [perl #125420] # in the subject line of all future correspondence about this issue. # <URL: https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=125420 >
I remember when Unix programs used to be 8-bit clean. $ env - ACME=$'L\xe9on' ./perl6-m -e 'say "hi"' Unhandled exception: Malformed UTF-8 at line 1 col 7 at gen/moar/stage2/QRegex.nqp:183 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/QRegex.moarvm::175) from gen/moar/stage2/QRegex.nqp:11 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/QRegex.moarvm:<mainline>:46) from <unknown>:1 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/QRegex.moarvm:<load>:6) from src/vm/moar/ModuleLoader.nqp:51 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/ModuleLoader.moarvm::87) from src/vm/moar/ModuleLoader.nqp:41 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/ModuleLoader.moarvm:load_module:85) from <unknown>:1 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/NQPP6QRegex.moarvm:<dependencies+deserialize>:28) from src/vm/moar/ModuleLoader.nqp:51 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/ModuleLoader.moarvm::87) from src/vm/moar/ModuleLoader.nqp:41 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/install/share/nqp/lib/ModuleLoader.moarvm:load_module:85) from <unknown>:1 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/perl6.moarvm:<dependencies+deserialize>:28) $ env - ./perl6-m -e 'say "hi"' $'L\xe9on' Unhandled exception: Malformed UTF-8 at line 1 col 2 at <unknown>:1 (/home/zefram/usr/rakudo/rakudo/perl6.moarvm:<entry>:4) OK, interpreting arguments as UTF-8 is a convenience for some things, but the values passed between processes here are general octet strings, with only nul excluded. There has to be a way to get at the octets unmolested, as there is when reading from an input handle (.read vs .get). The above exceptions are happening too early for the program to even declare an interest in the command line arguments or environment. The mandatory UTF-8 decoding means that it is impossible to implement such basic Unix tools as echo(1), cat(1) (for the filenames), and env(1) in Perl 6. Not sure which of Rakudo, NQP, and MoarVM to blame for the failures. The one with command line arguments looks like it's happening so early that MoarVM must be the one in control, but the environment one is at a higher level. MoarVM also exhibits failure if the `input.moarvm' filename is non-UTF-8, whether it's an extant file or not, but the error message differs slightly between those two cases. -zefram
