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-rw-r--r-- | INSTALL | 17 |
1 files changed, 11 insertions, 6 deletions
@@ -806,18 +806,23 @@ and the long double support. =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms -Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in -stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allowed alternate IO -mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still -the default and is the only supported mechanism. +Executive summary: in Perl 5.8 you should use the default "PerlIO" +as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to. + +In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO +mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl +introuced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up +until and including Perl 5.6 stdio mechanism was still the default and +the only supported mechanism. Starting from Perl 5.8 the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms, instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O implementations. -This PerlIO abstraction can be disabled either on the Configure -command line with +This PerlIO abstraction can be disabled (but again, unless you know +what you are doing, should not) either on the Configure command line +with sh Configure -Uuseperlio |