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=head1 TITLE
Filehandles should use C<*> as a type prefix if typeglobs are eliminated.
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: Peter Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 4 Aug 2000
Version: 2
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 10
=head1 ABSTRACT
Version 1 of this RFC stated: "The lack of a type-defining punctuation
character prefix for filehandles makes them second-class variables in Perl.
If typeglobs are eliminated in Perl 6, the C<*> character would become
available as a type prefix character and could be used for filehandles."
Version 2 withdraws this request, contingent upon the removal of bareword
filehandles in Perl 6. If scalars or objects in scalars (C<$fh>) are used
for filehandles everywhere then there is no need to make a new type out of
them. The rest of the original RFC is left below for archival purposes.
=head1 DESCRIPTION
To pass filehandles around one either has to use a typeglob (C<local *FH>)
or put them in a scalar (C<my $fh = new FileHandle> or the 5.6 C<open $fh,
...>), at which point you can't tell that they're filehandles without the
right context.
There have been serious proposals to eliminate typeglobs in Perl 6. If they
get axed, the C<*> character could be reused for another datatype and the
filehandle is fortuitously closely related.
The mental jump is fairly small, since most people other than module
developers only ever saw C<*> used for filehandles anyway:
local *FH;
open (FH, ...);
This proposal would change that to
open (my *fh, ...);
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
Backwards compatibility takes a hit unless the current filehandle syntax is
grandfathered in; I am not taking a position on whether it should be. Since
it is contingent upon typeglobs being eliminated, it won't break any
existing code that already uses typeglobs that won't be broken anyway.
Use of C<readline>s will now look like
while (<*fh>) { ...
which means that the use of the angle operator for globbing also has to go.
As if an excuse were needed.
This proposal also applies to directory handles.
=head1 REFERENCES
L<perlopentut>
