This and other RFCs are available on the web at
http://dev.perl.org/rfc/
=head1 TITLE
Standardize input record separator (for portability)
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: N. Hao Ching <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 10 Aug 2000
Version: 3
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 69
=head1 ABSTRACT
The default input record separator is not safe for all input files
on all platforms. There should also be support for Unicode line
separator (U+2028) and paragraph separator (U+2029).
=head1 DESCRIPTION
The input record separator should match the platform's C compiler
mappings of "\r\n" (CRLF), "\n" (LF) and "\r" (CR), which are often
(but not always, e.g., EBCDIC-based platforms [Peter Prymmer]):
000D 000A
000A
000D
For Unicode-capable platforms, the input record separator should
also match:
2028
2029
Given this input file:
D O S CR LF 0044 004F 0053 000D 000A
U n i x LF 0055 006E 0069 0078 000A
M a c CR 004D 0061 0063 000D
l i n e LS 006C 0069 006E 0065 2028
p a r a PS 0070 0061 0072 0061 2029
l i n e 006C 0069 006E 0065
This should work as expected on as many platforms as possible:
my @lines = <FH>;
The @lines array should contain six elements.
Bart Lateur has suggested differentiating between ASCII-compatible
and UTF-16. Perhaps a flag?
{
local $utf16 = 1;
my @lines = <FH>;
}
The binmode function should treat data as binary and not translate
line disciplines. (No one objects to this so far?)
Whether $/ will remain in Perl 6 is uncertain, so this is not
necessarily about $/.
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
Bart Lateur suggested using a dedicated DFA regex engine.
=head1 REFERENCES
perlport: http://www.pudge.net/macperl/perlport.html
perlunicode
http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/docs/lib/Pod/perlunicode.html
RFC 58: http://tmtowtdi.perl.org/rfc/58.pod
Larry Wall's response to RFC 58 on 8 Aug 2000
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language%40perl.org/msg01421.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language%40perl.org/msg01423.html
Simon Cozens' work on line disciplines in 5.6 binmode
http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2000-04/msg00807.html
