From siegel@zrz.tu-berlin.de

This is a bug report for perl from anno4000@​lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de,
generated with the help of perlbug 1.34 running under perl v5.8.1.

The constant pragma warns

  Constant name '_123_456' has unknown problems at...

when you try to define a constant that begins with "_" and consists
only of digits and "_". In other contexts, these are valid identifiers,
and the wording in perldata

  ... identifier, that is, a string beginning with a letter or underscore,
  and containing letters, underscores, and digits.

seems to indicate the same. I suggest dropping the corresponding
clause from warnings.pm.

I had a little correspondence with Tom Phoenix about this, and he
agrees. In particular​:

  If you submit a patch to the Perl developers (via perlbug), I would
  greatly appreciate it if you remove my e-mail address from that
  comment in your patch.

...so it's no problem when his address disappears along with the comment.

Regards,

Anno

--- orig/lib/constant.pm	Wed Nov 10 18:32:43 2004
+++ perl-5.8.5/lib/constant.pm	Wed Nov 10 19:16:05 2004
@@ -71,11 +71,6 @@
 		} elsif ($forced_into_main{$name}) {
 		    warnings::warn("Constant name '$name' is " .
 			"forced into package main::");
-		} else {
-		    # Catch-all - what did I miss? If you get this error,
-		    # please let me know what your constant's name was.
-		    # Write to <rootbeer@redcat.com>. Thanks!
-		    warnings::warn("Constant name '$name' has unknown problems");
 		}
 	    }
 
--- orig/lib/constant.t	Wed Nov 10 18:32:43 2004
+++ perl-5.8.5/lib/constant.t	Wed Nov 10 19:20:34 2004
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 
 ######################### We start with some black magic to print on failure.
 
-BEGIN { $| = 1; print "1..82\n"; }
+BEGIN { $| = 1; print "1..83\n"; }
 END {print "not ok 1\n" unless $loaded;}
 use constant 1.01;
 $loaded = 1;
@@ -249,3 +249,12 @@
 test 80, @{+PHFAM} == SPIT->(THREE+1);
 test 81, THREE**3 eq SPIT->(@{+FAMILY}**3);
 test 82, AGES->{FAMILY->[THREE-1]} == PHFAM->[THREE];
+
+# Allow name of digits/underscores only if it begins with underscore
+{
+    use warnings FATAL => 'constant';
+    eval q{
+        use constant _1_2_3 => 'allowed';
+    };
+}
+test 83, length( $@) == 0;
---

Site configuration information for perl v5.8.1​:

Configured by anno4000 at Wed Oct 1 12​:15​:29 MEST 2003.

Summary of my perl5 (revision 5.0 version 8 subversion 1) configuration​:
  Platform​:
  osname=linux, osvers=2.0.36, archname=i586-linux
  uname='linux lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de 2.0.36 #2 mon jun 26 12​:24​:02 mest 2000 i586 unknown '
  config_args='-des'
  hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
  usethreads=undef use5005threads=undef useithreads=undef usemultiplicity=undef
  useperlio=define d_sfio=undef uselargefiles=define usesocks=undef
  use64bitint=undef use64bitall=undef uselongdouble=undef
  usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
  Compiler​:
  cc='cc', ccflags ='-I/usr/local/include -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64',
  optimize='-O2',
  cppflags='-I/usr/local/include'
  ccversion='', gccversion='2.7.2.3', gccosandvers=''
  intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8, byteorder=1234
  d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=12
  ivtype='long', ivsize=4, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='off_t', lseeksize=4
  alignbytes=4, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries​:
  ld='cc', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib'
  libpth=/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib
  libs=-lnsl -lndbm -lgdbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc -lposix
  perllibs=-lnsl -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc -lposix
  libc=/lib/libc-2.0.7.so, so=so, useshrplib=false, libperl=libperl.a
  gnulibc_version='2.0'
  Dynamic Linking​:
  dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags='-rdynamic'
  cccdlflags='-fpic', lddlflags='-shared -L/usr/local/lib'

Locally applied patches​:
 

@​INC for perl v5.8.1​:
  /opt/home/anno4000/lib/perl
  /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.1/i586-linux
  /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.1
  /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux
  /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
  /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
  .

Environment for perl v5.8.1​:
  HOME=/opt/home/anno4000
  LANG (unset)
  LANGUAGE (unset)
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib​:/usr/local/LessTif/Motif1.2/lib
  LOGDIR (unset)
  PATH=/opt/home/anno4000/bin​:/sbin​:/usr/local/bin​:/bin​:/usr/bin​:/usr/sbin​:/usr/X11R6/bin​:/usr/openwin/bin​:/usr/games
  PERL5LIB=/opt/home/anno4000/lib/perl
  PERL_BADLANG (unset)
  PERL_PRIVLIB=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.1
  PERL_SITELIB=/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
  SHELL=/bin/tcsh

From @rgs

Anno Siegel (via RT) wrote​:

The constant pragma warns

Constant name '\_123\_456' has unknown problems at\.\.\.

when you try to define a constant that begins with "_" and consists
only of digits and "_". In other contexts, these are valid identifiers,
and the wording in perldata

\.\.\. identifier\, that is\, a string beginning with a letter or underscore\,
and containing letters\, underscores\, and digits\.

seems to indicate the same. I suggest dropping the corresponding
clause from warnings.pm.

Thanks, applied as #23497 to bleadperl, after proper adjustment of the
regression test.

The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

@rgs - Status changed from 'open' to 'resolved'