Larry Wall wrote in perl.perl6.language : > > Possibly a CHECK block that is compiled after end of main compilation > should translate itself to a UNITCHECK. But maybe it should be an error. > > But it's also possible that CHECK should mean "unit check", and > there should be an explicit MAINCHECK for delegating checks to the > main compilation. In that case, only in the main compilation would > CHECK and MAINCHECK mean the same thing. (And since MAINCHECK is > explicitly requesting a check at the end of main, a late MAINCHECK > should probably be considered an error. (But by that argument, a late > CHECK should probably fail under the current naming scheme.)) > > Anybody got opinions on the naming of these beasts? Certainly *not* > renaming CHECK is more compatible with Perl 5. And I kinda got fond > of UNITCHECK in the last hour or so. :-)
I think I like CHECK and MAINCHECK. (and MAINCHECK being an error after the main compilation phase.) Lots of people who use CHECK (for some value of "lots" -- let's say, Damian and a few others) actually mean UNITCHECK. MAINCHECK is mainly useful for the O compiler backend, which is part of the perl core anyway, thus without any backward-compatility constraint. (I'd like to have opinions about PAR as well.) So I think changing the meaning of CHECK in Perl 5 is feasible. (and I know it would be welcomed by the mod_perl crowd.)
