bytes

Section: Perl Programmers Reference Guide (3perl)
Updated: 2001-02-22
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NAME

bytes - Perl pragma to force byte semantics rather than character semantics

SYNOPSIS

    use bytes;
    no bytes;

DESCRIPTION

WARNING: The implementation of Unicode support in Perl is incomplete. See perlunicode for the exact details.

The "use bytes" pragma disables character semantics for the rest of the lexical scope in which it appears. "no bytes" can be used to reverse the effect of "use bytes" within the current lexical scope.

Perl normally assumes character semantics in the presence of character data (i.e. data that has come from a source that has been marked as being of a particular character encoding). When "use bytes" is in effect, the encoding is temporarily ignored, and each string is treated as a series of bytes.

As an example, when Perl sees "$x = chr(400)", it encodes the character in UTF8 and stores it in $x. Then it is marked as character data, so, for instance, "length $x" returns 1. However, in the scope of the "bytes" pragma, $x is treated as a series of bytes - the bytes that make up the UTF8 encoding - and "length $x" returns 2:

    $x = chr(400);
    print "Length is ", length $x, "\n";     # "Length is 1"
    printf "Contents are %vd\n", $x;         # "Contents are 400"
    { 
        use bytes;
        print "Length is ", length $x, "\n"; # "Length is 2"
        printf "Contents are %vd\n", $x;     # "Contents are 198.144"
    }

For more on the implications and differences between character semantics and byte semantics, see perlunicode.

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bytes

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

SEE ALSO

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