3 $utf8::hint_bits
= 0x00800000;
8 $^H
|= $utf8::hint_bits
;
9 $enc{caller()} = $_[1] if $_[1];
13 $^H
&= ~$utf8::hint_bits
;
17 require "utf8_heavy.pl";
18 goto &$AUTOLOAD if defined &$AUTOLOAD;
20 Carp
::croak
("Undefined subroutine $AUTOLOAD called");
28 utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 (or UTF-EBCDIC) in source code
35 # Convert a Perl scalar to/from UTF-8.
36 $num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string);
37 $success = utf8::downgrade($string[, FAIL_OK]);
39 # Change the native bytes of a Perl scalar to/from UTF-8 bytes.
40 utf8::encode($string);
41 utf8::decode($string);
43 $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING); # since Perl 5.8.1
44 $flag = utf8::valid(STRING);
48 The C<use utf8> pragma tells the Perl parser to allow UTF-8 in the
49 program text in the current lexical scope (allow UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC based
50 platforms). The C<no utf8> pragma tells Perl to switch back to treating
51 the source text as literal bytes in the current lexical scope.
53 This pragma is primarily a compatibility device. Perl versions
54 earlier than 5.6 allowed arbitrary bytes in source code, whereas
55 in future we would like to standardize on the UTF-8 encoding for
58 B<Do not use this pragma for anything else than telling Perl that your
59 script is written in UTF-8.> The utility functions described below are
60 useful for their own purposes, but they are not really part of the
63 Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source text, either this
64 pragma or the L<encoding> pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8
65 in the source. When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this
66 pragma will effectively become a no-op. For convenience in what
67 follows the term I<UTF-X> is used to refer to UTF-8 on ASCII and ISO
68 Latin based platforms and UTF-EBCDIC on EBCDIC based platforms.
70 See also the effects of the C<-C> switch and its cousin, the
71 C<$ENV{PERL_UNICODE}>, in L<perlrun>.
73 Enabling the C<utf8> pragma has the following effect:
79 Bytes in the source text that have their high-bit set will be treated
80 as being part of a literal UTF-8 character. This includes most
81 literals such as identifier names, string constants, and constant
82 regular expression patterns.
84 On EBCDIC platforms characters in the Latin 1 character set are
85 treated as being part of a literal UTF-EBCDIC character.
89 Note that if you have bytes with the eighth bit on in your script
90 (for example embedded Latin-1 in your string literals), C<use utf8>
91 will be unhappy since the bytes are most probably not well-formed
92 UTF-8. If you want to have such bytes and use utf8, you can disable
93 utf8 until the end the block (or file, if at top level) by C<no utf8;>.
95 If you want to automatically upgrade your 8-bit legacy bytes to UTF-8,
96 use the L<encoding> pragma instead of this pragma. For example, if
97 you want to implicitly upgrade your ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) bytes to UTF-8
98 as used in e.g. C<chr()> and C<\x{...}>, try this:
100 use encoding "latin-1";
104 In case you are wondering: yes, C<use encoding 'utf8';> works much
105 the same as C<use utf8;>.
107 =head2 Utility functions
109 The following functions are defined in the C<utf8::> package by the
110 Perl core. You do not need to say C<use utf8> to use these and in fact
111 you should not say that unless you really want to have UTF-8 source code.
115 =item * $num_octets = utf8::upgrade($string)
117 Converts in-place the octet sequence in the native encoding
118 (Latin-1 or EBCDIC) to the equivalent character sequence in I<UTF-X>.
119 I<$string> already encoded as characters does no harm.
120 Returns the number of octets necessary to represent the string as I<UTF-X>.
121 Can be used to make sure that the UTF-8 flag is on,
122 so that C<\w> or C<lc()> work as Unicode on strings
123 containing characters in the range 0x80-0xFF (on ASCII and
126 B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
127 Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
129 Affected by the encoding pragma.
131 =item * $success = utf8::downgrade($string[, FAIL_OK])
133 Converts in-place the character sequence in I<UTF-X>
134 to the equivalent octet sequence in the native encoding (Latin-1 or EBCDIC).
135 I<$string> already encoded as octets does no harm.
136 Returns true on success. On failure dies or, if the value of
137 C<FAIL_OK> is true, returns false.
138 Can be used to make sure that the UTF-8 flag is off,
139 e.g. when you want to make sure that the substr() or length() function
140 works with the usually faster byte algorithm.
142 B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
143 Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
145 B<Not> affected by the encoding pragma.
147 B<NOTE:> this function is experimental and may change
148 or be removed without notice.
150 =item * utf8::encode($string)
152 Converts in-place the character sequence to the corresponding octet sequence
153 in I<UTF-X>. The UTF-8 flag is turned off. Returns nothing.
155 B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
156 Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
158 =item * utf8::decode($string)
160 Attempts to convert in-place the octet sequence in I<UTF-X>
161 to the corresponding character sequence. The UTF-8 flag is turned on
162 only if the source string contains multiple-byte I<UTF-X> characters.
163 If I<$string> is invalid as I<UTF-X>, returns false; otherwise returns true.
165 B<Note that this function does not handle arbitrary encodings.>
166 Therefore I<Encode.pm> is recommended for the general purposes.
168 B<NOTE:> this function is experimental and may change
169 or be removed without notice.
171 =item * $flag = utf8::is_utf8(STRING)
173 (Since Perl 5.8.1) Test whether STRING is in UTF-8. Functionally
174 the same as Encode::is_utf8().
176 =item * $flag = utf8::valid(STRING)
178 [INTERNAL] Test whether STRING is in a consistent state regarding
179 UTF-8. Will return true is well-formed UTF-8 and has the UTF-8 flag
180 on B<or> if string is held as bytes (both these states are 'consistent').
181 Main reason for this routine is to allow Perl's testsuite to check
182 that operations have left strings in a consistent state. You most
183 probably want to use utf8::is_utf8() instead.
187 C<utf8::encode> is like C<utf8::upgrade>, but the UTF8 flag is
188 cleared. See L<perlunicode> for more on the UTF8 flag and the C API
189 functions C<sv_utf8_upgrade>, C<sv_utf8_downgrade>, C<sv_utf8_encode>,
190 and C<sv_utf8_decode>, which are wrapped by the Perl functions
191 C<utf8::upgrade>, C<utf8::downgrade>, C<utf8::encode> and
192 C<utf8::decode>. Note that in the Perl 5.8.0 and 5.8.1 implementation
193 the functions utf8::is_utf8, utf8::valid, utf8::encode, utf8::decode,
194 utf8::upgrade, and utf8::downgrade are always available, without a
195 C<require utf8> statement-- this may change in future releases.
199 One can have Unicode in identifier names, but not in package/class or
200 subroutine names. While some limited functionality towards this does
201 exist as of Perl 5.8.0, that is more accidental than designed; use of
202 Unicode for the said purposes is unsupported.
204 One reason of this unfinishedness is its (currently) inherent
205 unportability: since both package names and subroutine names may need
206 to be mapped to file and directory names, the Unicode capability of
207 the filesystem becomes important-- and there unfortunately aren't
212 L<perluniintro>, L<encoding>, L<perlrun>, L<bytes>, L<perlunicode>