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=head1 TITLE
Better english names for -X
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: Adam Turoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 24 Sep 2000
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2000
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 290
Version: 3
Status: Frozen
=head1 ABSTRACT
Many programmers who have not used Perl's -X (or sh's -X) file tests
find them to be bizarre, arcane and confusing.
They deserve better 'use english;' names.
=head1 NOTES
The first version of this RFC proposed removing -X entirely, since
it was a throwback to Perl's roots in sh. That proposal was quite
vigorously shot down. The discussion centered around creating
good descriptive names around the -X tests.
While discussing -X, the idea came about to stack multiple tests
into a single tests, e.g. mutate -r && -w && -x into -rwx $file
(or something). See RFC 320 for details.
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Tom Christiansen proposed this in his perl6storm message:
=item perl6storm #0101
Just like the "use english" pragma (the modern not-yet-written
version of "use English" module), make something for legible
fileops.
is_readable(file) is really -r(file)
note that these are hard to write now due to -s(FH)/2 style
parsing bugs and prototype issues on handles vs paths.
Here is a list of possible 'use english;' names for -X:
-r freadable()
-w fwriteable()
-x fexecable()
-o fowned()
-R Freadable()
-W Fwriteable()
-X Fexecable()
-O Fowned()
-e fexists()
-z fzero()
-s fsize()
-f ffile()
-d fdir()
-l flink()
-p fpipe()
-S fsocket()
-b fblock()
-c fchar()
-t ftty()
-u fsetuid()
-g fsetgid()
-k fsticky()
-T ftext()
-B fbinary()
-M fage()
-A faccessed()
-C fchanged()
=head1 MIGRATION ISSUES
None. New symbolic names for -X are being added.
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
Add appropriate hooks into 'use english;', and possibly export
them as 'use english "filetests";'
=head1 REFERENCES
RFC 320:
perl6storm
