ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Download File
/cvs/Coro/Changes
Revision: 1.213
Committed: Sat Mar 17 19:51:57 2007 UTC (17 years, 2 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.212: +4 -0 lines
Log Message:
*** empty log message ***

File Contents

# User Rev Content
1 root 1.1 Revision history for Perl extension Coro.
2 root 1.113
3 root 1.173 TODO: better (earlier) error messages on broken transfer's
4 root 1.191 TODO: destroy gets only called on cancel: fix(?)
5 root 1.173
6 root 1.211 3.52
7     - add count accessor to Coro::Semaphore.
8 root 1.212 - add Coro::State::cctx_stacksize.
9 root 1.213 - just for the fun of it, do not rely on implicit context,
10     which can dramatically improve performance, but people
11     using windows-process-emulation perls do not care much about
12     performance.
13 root 1.211
14 root 1.210 3.51 Sun Mar 4 14:18:04 CET 2007
15 root 1.209 - fixed a problem when you weakened references to Coro::State's
16     (patch by Yuval Kogman).
17    
18 root 1.208 3.501 Wed Feb 28 12:44:07 CET 2007
19     - rename some global symbols as macosx from hell redefines
20     them without asking.
21    
22 root 1.207 3.5 Tue Feb 13 20:22:53 CET 2007
23 root 1.204 - do AnyEvent model detection earlier, avoiding problems
24     caused by first using AnyEvent and later Coro::Event.
25 root 1.205 - implement and document Coro::Event event objects.
26     - fix a potential problem in Coro::Event causing crashes.
27 root 1.206 - initialise PL_comppad when creating a new coroutine,
28     avoids crashes on early coro destruction.
29 root 1.204
30 root 1.203 3.41 Mon Jan 22 19:19:49 CET 2007
31 root 1.202 - readline on Coro::Handle did not support undefined $/,
32     nor did it deliver partial lines on EOF or error.
33 root 1.203 - implement malloc fallback for stack allocation because
34     stupid broken idiotic OSX has a stupid broken
35     idiotic fits-the-whole-os mmap "implementation" and
36     my dick feels longer if Coro is portable even to
37     obsolete platforms.
38 root 1.202
39 root 1.201 3.4 Fri Jan 19 21:52:54 CET 2007
40 root 1.197 - remove t/09_timer.t, as it isn't really testing much
41     but was rather flaky in practise.
42 root 1.198 - async_pool coro would keep arguments and callback alive until
43     it was reused.
44 root 1.199 - cancellation of a coroutine could cause spurious idle calls
45     in cede_notself.
46 root 1.197
47 root 1.196 3.3 Sat Jan 6 03:45:00 CET 2007
48 root 1.187 - implement $coro->on_destroy.
49 root 1.188 - Coro::Event blocking semantics have been changed,
50     documented and - hopefully - improved.
51 root 1.184 - fix nice adding, not subtracting, from priority.
52 root 1.185 - fix ->prio and api_is_ready (patch by Mark Hinds).
53 root 1.190 - fixed an assert ("... == prev__cctx->idle_te")
54     that could errronously trigger.
55 root 1.192 - fix various large and small memleaks.
56 root 1.191 - use a (hopefully) more stable cancel implementation
57     that immediately frees the coroutine data.
58 root 1.194 - cede/cede_notself return a status now.
59 root 1.191 - added Coro::guard function.
60 root 1.193 - added a global coroutine pool for jobs (on my machine,
61     I can create and execute 48k simple coros/s with async,
62     and 128k coros with async_pool).
63 root 1.195 - Coro::AIO now uses the coroutine priority as io priority.
64 root 1.184
65 root 1.183 3.2 Fri Dec 22 05:07:09 CET 2006
66 root 1.179 - improve portability to slightly older perls.
67 root 1.180 - use cleaner coroutine destruction.
68 root 1.182 - simplify configuration for users.
69     - optionally (unrecommended) prefer perl functions over
70     their coro replacements.
71 root 1.179
72 root 1.178 3.11 Tue Dec 5 13:11:24 CET 2006
73     - fixed some bogus assert's, but as perl.h disables assert even
74     without NDEBUG (thank you very much), not too many people should
75     notice (that did include myself). Andreas König noticed, though :)
76     - do not save/restore PL_sortcxix on >= 5.9.x, it doesn't seem to have
77     it. Also noticed by Andreas König :)
78     - save/restore tainted status.
79     - verified to pass the testsuite on my 5.9.5.
80    
81 root 1.177 3.1 Mon Dec 4 23:03:40 CET 2006
82     - INCOMPATIBLE CHANGE: $/ is now per-coroutine (but slow).
83 root 1.175 - incompatible change: transfer flags are now per-state.
84 root 1.173 - give a better error message on deadlock.
85 root 1.175 - document Coro::nready.
86 root 1.174 - enhanced testsuite.
87 root 1.169
88 root 1.172 3.01 Sun Dec 3 23:47:42 CET 2006
89     - forgot to include Coro::Timer.
90    
91 root 1.171 3.0 Sun Dec 3 22:57:25 CET 2006
92 root 1.163 - the "FINALLY COMPLETELY STABLE" release (coming soon:
93     the "FAMOUS LAST WORDS" release).
94 root 1.166 - implement a new stack sharing algorithm, which uses a stack
95     pool (size currently hardcoded).
96 root 1.155 - make stack sharing mandatory (it no longer uses a heuristic).
97 root 1.157 - eval/die no longer cause weird problems under heavy use.
98 root 1.152 - Coro::Event could cause livelocks if it was used but
99 root 1.161 no Coro::Event watchers were used.
100 root 1.167 - Coro::Event now uses asynccheck as prepare does not
101     check for changed watchers.
102 root 1.170 - Coro::Event allows multiple waiting coros and will wake up one
103     per event.
104 root 1.152 - Coro::Event should be cleaner and more efficient now.
105 root 1.165 - new utility function Coro::unblock_sub.
106 root 1.164 - document the sad fact that Event is no longer reentrant.
107 root 1.163 - putting a coroutine into the ready queue twice could under
108     some circumstances lead to stack corruption.
109 root 1.161 - minor incompatibility: subclassing Coro::State is supported
110     directly now without going through a _coro_state member.
111 root 1.156 - state/coro switching is much faster now.
112 root 1.154 - very minor optimisations and code/documentation cleanup.
113 root 1.153 - avoid problems due to compiler inlining.
114 root 1.154 - removed timers from Coro::Timer -> use AnyEvent instead.
115     - replaced Coro::idle coroutine by (cleaner) idle handler.
116 root 1.156 - updated to newest libcoro.
117 root 1.159 - implement enhanced support for valgrind.
118 root 1.162 - implement is_ready and return value for ready.
119 root 1.168 - removed Coro::Cont, it was a misnomer (it's generators),
120     and it was somewhat annoying to get it right. Will come back
121     if somebody asks for it :)
122 root 1.163 - many ->wait methods and Coro::Event could return
123     spuriously without the event having happened.
124 root 1.146
125 root 1.145 2.5 Tue Nov 7 12:22:33 CET 2006
126 root 1.143 - made Coro::Util, Coro::Select, Coro::Handle and Coro::Socket
127     use AnyEvent, moved them to Coro/.
128 root 1.140 - added Coro::LWP which contains all the uglyness required to
129     make LWP non-blocking.
130     - should work with perl 5.9.x now (Andreas König made me do it).
131 root 1.141 - fixed another bug in Coro::Select when the timeout was undef.
132 root 1.136 - reuse PL_start_env for all coros, saves some memory per coroutine.
133     - manage PL_top_env differently, hopefully to avoid panic: top_env.
134 root 1.137 - timeout argument was not properly used in Coro::Socket.
135     - allow limited forms of subclassing in Coro::Handle/Coro::Socket.
136 root 1.138 - emulate undocumented(!) functionality of IO::Socket required
137     by LWP(!!).
138     - updated eg/lwp to work with newer lwp's.
139 root 1.140 - remove "FATAL: uncaught exception" prefix. Coroutines that die
140     kill the whole process, just as exceptions in the main "coroutine"
141     did already.
142 root 1.135
143 root 1.134 2.1 Wed Nov 1 23:01:13 CET 2006
144     - fix a long-standing bug in Coro::Select where select with
145     zero timeout would instead change the current default filehandle.
146 root 1.132 - use a simpler and hopefully more robust way to clone padlists
147     (uses less memory and a perl function instead of our own).
148     - coro can now create a stack guard area on many architectures.
149 root 1.134 - Coro::AIO properly reexports additional functions from IO::AIO.
150 root 1.132 - updated libcoro with a workaround for OS X,
151 root 1.134 pach and testing by Michael Schwern.
152 root 1.130
153 root 1.129 2.0 Tue Oct 24 05:47:17 CEST 2006
154 root 1.128 - support additional aio requests in Coro::AIO.
155    
156 root 1.129 1.9 (never properly released due to a glitch)
157    
158 root 1.127 1.8 Thu Feb 2 00:59:06 CET 2006
159 root 1.125 - applied suggested patch by SAMV to avoid problems during stupid
160     mark & sweep gc run.
161 root 1.126 - applied patch by Scott Walters for 5.9.3 compatibility.
162 root 1.125
163 root 1.124 1.7 Tue Dec 27 01:41:58 CET 2005
164 root 1.123 - added Coro::AIO, a thin wrapper around IO::AIO.
165 root 1.122 - improved Makefile.PL explanations.
166    
167 root 1.119 1.6 Mon Dec 12 21:30:05 CET 2005
168 root 1.117 - additionally save PM_curpm might fix as-of-yet
169 root 1.121 unseen problems with regex matches being attributed to the
170 root 1.117 wrong package.
171 root 1.118 - add t/10_bugs.t, which currently checks against imho broken
172     perls that use 0.26MB of stack space per Perl_magic_get
173 root 1.121 invocation (newer linuxes) as opposed to the 0.0002MB perl
174     normally uses.
175 root 1.120 - make stacksize configurable for the ultimate debian experience.
176 root 1.117
177 root 1.116 1.51 Mon Dec 12 18:48:36 CET 2005
178     - remove debugging warn() accidentally left in Coro::Select.
179    
180 root 1.115 1.5 Tue Nov 29 13:32:44 CET 2005
181 root 1.114 - use Coro::Event inside Coro::Select to avoid spurious deadlocks.
182 root 1.115 - fix Coro::Select 'select'.
183     - strict'ify some modules.
184 root 1.112 - libcoro errornously restored the SIGUSR2 handler to SIGUSR1.
185 root 1.115 - use XSLoader in selected modules.
186     - remove some 5.6 compatibility cruft.
187 root 1.112
188 root 1.111 1.4 Tue Sep 6 00:11:05 CEST 2005
189     - libcoro did not take into account the trampoline on amd64,
190     when 'l'inux method was used.
191    
192 root 1.110 1.31 Tue Aug 30 23:31:33 CEST 2005
193     - some portability fixes/workarounds.
194    
195 root 1.107 1.3 Sat Aug 20 03:08:56 CEST 2005
196 root 1.108 - no code changes. module seems to work fine.
197 root 1.106 - improve Coro::State docs, remove reference to nonexisting
198     Coro::State::flush method.
199 root 1.107 - no longer autodetect windows, present it as an option instead.
200 root 1.106
201 root 1.105 1.2 Mon May 16 02:00:55 CEST 2005
202 root 1.100 - included libcoro.c earlier in State.xs, might improve portability.
203 root 1.101 - use a faster and possibly more stable Coro::Cont implementation.
204 root 1.102 - accept x86_64 in addition to amd64 for optimized linux-amd64 support.
205 root 1.104 - fix bugs Coro::SemaphoreSet that could cause locks never to be freed.
206 root 1.105 - fix bugs in CoroAPI.h and document it in Coro::MakeMaker.
207 root 1.100
208 root 1.99 1.11 Thu Mar 3 18:00:52 CET 2005
209     - change of contact address.
210    
211 root 1.98 1.1 Tue Feb 22 20:51:16 CET 2005
212 root 1.97 - support [l]inux method on amd64.
213 root 1.109 - allow some context switches while compiling/eval'ing.
214 root 1.97
215 root 1.96 1.0 Tue Aug 10 03:47:27 CEST 2004
216 root 1.95 - Event 0.89 fixes the bug again.
217 root 1.96 - fix the remaining(??) memleak. I didn't free the cache-AV for
218     padlists, so one AV per created anon-sub leaked.
219 root 1.95
220 pcg 1.94 0.97 Fri May 14 15:23:32 CEST 2004
221     - remove stupid gcc extension that was an experiment only anyway.
222    
223 pcg 1.93 0.96 Thu May 13 18:09:29 CEST 2004
224 root 1.103 - tell people if they have yet another broken Event variant.
225 pcg 1.91 - made Coro to work _better_ with threads (it seems that, as long
226     as you use Coros in one thread only everything will work fine.
227     Looking at the perl source the problem might be missing locking
228     between Coro and some perl internal routines. That's not easily
229     fixable).
230 pcg 1.92 - (hopefully) got rid of the static xnext inside transfer.
231 pcg 1.91
232 pcg 1.90 0.95 Sun Feb 15 03:20:28 CET 2004
233 pcg 1.86 - removed Coro::State::flush, implemented a new and much
234     faster caching mechanism by attaching magic to the CV.
235 pcg 1.87 - a memleak with (real) closures remains.
236 pcg 1.88 - dramatically reduced size of stacks to 65536 (linux/x86), after
237     observing that even myhttpd never had more than a kilobyte
238     of stack in use (stack is still only physically allocated in
239     pagesize increments for systems suporting mmap).
240 pcg 1.89 - fix for a "cygwin-64" architecture added, proposed by Stefan Traby.
241 pcg 1.90 - fix for threaded perl.
242 pcg 1.86
243 pcg 1.85 0.9 Sun Nov 23 04:32:39 CET 2003
244 pcg 1.84 - fix a few very hard to track down but (of course) stupid
245     memory leaks.
246     - stringify version number to avoid locale problems :(.
247 pcg 1.85 - perl 5.9.0 does not have SvPADBUSY, reported by Scott Walters,
248     hopefully ignoring it "just works".
249 pcg 1.84
250 pcg 1.83 0.8 Wed Nov 5 19:38:40 CET 2003
251     - port to perl5.005_03, but only 5.8.x+ is supported!
252 pcg 1.82 - honor LocalAddr even without LocalPort in Coro::Socket.
253    
254 root 1.81 0.7 Tue May 27 03:12:38 CEST 2003
255     - the version jump indicates some level of testing, not gobs
256     of new features.
257 root 1.80 - uh... I found the prompt function in ExtUtils::MakeMaker.
258     Highly correct stuff, that is...
259 root 1.81 - fixed(?) a bug with die's in coroutines causing "panic: top_env".
260     the fix is not well understood by the author, so beware :(.
261 root 1.80
262 root 1.79 0.652 Thu May 8 02:54:46 CEST 2003
263 root 1.76 - Applied patch by Slaven Rezic to set default to "s" on FreeBSD,
264 root 1.78 cause version 4 doesn't have ucontext.
265 root 1.77 - Benjamin Reed reported that setjmp works fine on darwin,
266     so preselect it.
267 root 1.76
268 root 1.75 0.651 Sat Mar 29 15:00:23 CET 2003
269     - fix a bug in Coro::Handle where some bytes could get lost
270     on reading, reported by jason@nichego.net.
271 root 1.74
272 root 1.73 0.65 Sun Mar 23 00:08:26 CET 2003
273 root 1.72 - added a README.linux-glibc.
274     - new module Coro::Select.
275     - also save/restore PL_comppad, fixes segfaults with 5.8.1.
276     (I never claimed that I know what I am doing ;).
277 root 1.73 - set default to setjmp/longjmp on non-x86-linux.
278 root 1.72
279 root 1.71 0.6 Thu Nov 21 11:09:06 CET 2002
280     - made lazy context switching the default.
281     - fixed the bug where SemaphoreSet::guard
282     was the same as timed_guard and timed_guard was missing.
283     - fix a memleak in Coro::Timer.
284     - reclassified context sharing as not experimental.
285    
286 root 1.70 0.534 Sun Apr 14 03:05:12 CEST 2002
287 root 1.69 - fixed backspace => tab in header parsing (myhttpd).
288 root 1.70 - added eg/readline, for elmex.
289     - Coro::Event now calls ->start on first call instead of
290     ->again, which created wrong timeouts for the first ->next.
291     - fixed a bug where Coro::Socket returned a closed socket instead
292     of nothing on ECONNREFUSED and similar error conditions.
293 root 1.69
294 root 1.68 0.533 Mon Feb 18 18:49:40 CET 2002
295     - adapt to finally working Event-0.85.
296     - fixed buggy event initialization (trapped under windows, but how
297     could it possibly have worked anywhere?)
298    
299 root 1.67 0.532 Wed Jan 16 02:45:32 CET 2002
300 root 1.66 - removed the reference to pp_entersub, might work on
301     (some) win32 perls now (testsuite works under cygwin,
302     without Event, which freezes).
303 root 1.65
304 root 1.64 0.531 Mon Dec 10 22:18:44 CET 2001
305 root 1.63 - Fixed a bug in SemaphoreSet::timed_down.
306    
307 root 1.64 0.53 Tue Nov 27 21:11:13 CET 2001
308 root 1.60 - some tests for Event.
309 root 1.61 - slightly different internal architecture to get refcnt into the object
310     and not the reference. might fix a few bugs, certainly did introduce
311     new ones.
312     - Coro::Timer (independent of Event).
313 root 1.62 - new timed_wait functions for Coro::Signal, Semaphore, SemaphoreSet.
314 root 1.60
315 root 1.64 0.52 Tue Nov 6 21:36:18 CET 2001
316 root 1.58 - ported to cygwin (trivial).
317     patch by Gerrit P. Haase <gp@familiehaase.de>.
318     - small setjmp code fix by Sullivan.DanielJ@epamail.epa.gov.
319    
320 root 1.64 0.51 Thu Nov 1 20:39:01 CET 2001
321 root 1.54 - terminate/cancel now work properly (otherwise termination
322     could cause a "next coroutine is not and contains not..."
323     error.
324 root 1.55 - added Coro::Socket::shutdown.
325 root 1.56 - Coro::Event::loop no is the same as Event::loop.
326     - implemented terminate with args + join.
327 root 1.54
328 root 1.64 0.5 Fri Sep 28 16:15:35 CEST 2001
329 root 1.53 - fixed "print" on a Coro::Handle. The print method worked.
330 root 1.50 - small tweaks (seem to reduce memory consumption a lot)
331     in various modules.
332     - splendid use of "no warnings" scattered throughout.
333 root 1.52 - added Coro::Handle::rbuf, fixed Coro::Handle::fh.
334 root 1.48
335 root 1.47 0.49 Sun Sep 16 02:42:45 CEST 2001
336 root 1.43 - changed some method calls to function calls for speed
337     inside Coro::Handle.
338 root 1.44 - make Coro::Handle use an array instead of a hash for
339     speed reasons.
340     - IRIX mystery solved: it's SGI's NT, after all: "standard, huh?".
341     sjlj and ucontext should now work.
342     - IRIX-specific port for libcoro.
343 root 1.45 - swapped order of accept results to match IO::Socket.
344 root 1.46 - changed getsock/peername to sock/peername to match IO::Socket.
345     - fixed a bug that caused segfault when returning to main task
346     under some circumstances.
347     - other bugfixes.
348 root 1.43
349 root 1.42 0.45 Sun Sep 2 02:54:01 CEST 2001
350 root 1.36 - new method Coro::Handle::timeout.
351     - corrected speling of set...name to get...name in Coro::Socket.
352     - Coro::Socket::accept now returns a Coro::Socket, not a Coro::Handle.
353     - Coro::Handle now supports fileno and FILENO.
354     - added eg/myhttpd, a web server.
355 root 1.37 - Coro::Socket now accepts numeric ports as well as "port(number)"
356     syntax.
357 root 1.38 - moved some scheduling primitives into xs code. more to come.
358 root 1.39 - new simple priority system.
359 root 1.40 - implemented Coro::Event using XS, almost four times faster!
360 root 1.41 - small memory corruption problem fixed (boy that was difficult).
361 root 1.36
362 root 1.35 0.13 Wed Aug 8 16:53:07 CEST 2001
363 root 1.31 - new method Coro::Handle::readline.
364 root 1.34 - added eg/lwp and Coro::Handle::autoflush, to make LWP work.
365     (see eg/lwp on how to make LWP non-blocking).
366 root 1.31 - renamed Coro::Socket::new_inet to new.
367 root 1.32 - added Coro::Util, some utility functions.
368 root 1.33 - die/eval now works better (still get annoying (but true ;)
369     "Callback called exit" messages).
370 root 1.34 - Coro::Handle now supports timeout, and Coro::Socket Timeout.
371     - much better Coro::Socket support.
372 root 1.31
373     0.12 Fri Jul 27 04:19:01 CEST 2001
374 root 1.29 - do not use mmap if neither MAP_ANON nor MAP_ANONYMOUS is defined.
375 root 1.34 - very experimental stack sharing algorithm. not 100% safe but
376 root 1.28 should work well in practise ;)
377 root 1.30 - added Coro::RWLock.
378 root 1.31 - Coro::Specific now works.
379 root 1.28
380     0.11 Tue Jul 24 22:49:21 CEST 2001
381 root 1.27 - added specialized hack for newer and older linux versions (fast).
382     - renamed Coro::Event::IO to Coro::Handle.
383     - new module Coro::Socket.
384    
385 root 1.26 0.1 Tue Jul 24 01:47:53 CEST 2001
386 root 1.23 - release candidate 3. A rather new internal structure :(
387 root 1.24 - the great renaming: Damian Conway gave me a suitable replacement
388     for yield.
389 root 1.23 - added Coro/libcoro, a portable coroutine implementation for C
390 root 1.22 (not even perl-dependent!!!), which can be used by Coro::State.
391 root 1.20 - renamed SAVE_DEFSV (on xs-level only) to avoid symbol clash in
392     perl-5.6.
393 root 1.16 - new function Coro::Event::idle.
394     - the idle process is now overriden
395     by default in Coro::Event.
396 root 1.17 - Coro::Channel now enforces the size.
397 root 1.18 - canceling events now works in all cases.
398 root 1.19 - Coro state now include $_ and $@.
399     - yet another bug workaround that I do not really understand :(
400 root 1.21 - new module Coro::Event::IO (very undocumented) to do
401     non-blocking i/o.
402 root 1.25 - performance tuning.
403 root 1.16
404 root 1.15 0.08 Thu Jul 19 06:13:25 CEST 2001
405 root 1.14 - release candidate 2 (new functionality).
406 root 1.13 - add Coro::State::flush function.
407     - transfer now supports a flags value (mostly for speed ATM).
408     - might compile and work in the presence of threads now.
409 root 1.14 - continuations have a saner syntax.
410 root 1.19 - no more memleaks.
411 root 1.13
412 root 1.12 0.07 Tue Jul 17 17:40:18 CEST 2001
413     - release candidate 1 ;)
414     - slightly nicer code.
415     - fixed a scheduling bug in Coro::Event.
416    
417 root 1.11 0.06 Tue Jul 17 04:23:24 CEST 2001
418     - ok, I found the showstopper - the same sub must not be
419 root 1.9 re-entered in two different coroutines, otherwise => crash. I
420     see no easy solution to this problem, except by walking the call
421     chaing and saving/restoring the cv's, which is what I do now.
422 root 1.11 - memory leaks still latent, especially at thread termination.
423     - Coro::Event now works (haha).
424 root 1.9
425 root 1.8 0.05 Sun Jul 15 17:32:20 CEST 2001
426     - fixed a few issues in Coro::Event.
427     - I forgot to include Coro::Event in 0.04 :(:(:(
428    
429 root 1.7 0.04 Sun Jul 15 05:24:59 CEST 2001
430 root 1.5 - @_ is now properly localized.
431 root 1.4 - Coro::State is now easier subclassable.
432     - Coro::Cont now coroutine-aware.
433     - Coro::Specific is a low-overhead module to create
434     coroutine-specific vars.
435 root 1.6 - Coro::Event provides a simple interface to Event.
436 root 1.4
437 root 1.3 0.03 Fri Jul 13 14:51:52 CEST 2001
438 root 1.4 - transfer() now implemented in XS (beware).
439     - new module Coro::Cont for really faked continuations.
440     - big internal architecture changes: Coro::State is now
441 root 1.3 really low-level and can thus be used to implement other
442 root 1.4 interesting things, While "Coro::" implements a process-like
443     model. Still crude and subject to change.
444 root 1.3 - $_ and $@ are no longer being localized.
445    
446 root 1.2 0.02 Tue Jul 10 01:38:17 CEST 2001
447     - implemented "async" attribute.
448     - $_ and $@ are now localized.
449     - added Coro::Channel.
450     - more testcases, still no docs.
451    
452 root 1.1 0.01 Tue Jul 3 02:18:41 CEST 2001
453     - original version; copied from Convert::Scalar.
454