NAME constant::tiny - Perl pragma to declare constants DESCRIPTION This module is a lightweight version of the Perl standard module "constant.pm". Here are the keys differences: * only works on Perl 5.10+ in order to simplify a good part of the code * doesn't support Unicode names; please use the standard "constant.pm" module if you need to create constants with Unicode names * stricter rules about valid names, only allow names with alphanums ("[a-zA-Z0-9]" and underscore ("_"), allowing one optional leading underscore In order to simplify its usage, "constant:tiny" uses the normal "constant" API. The main advatange is that switching your code to "constant::tiny" means simply adding it before the first "use constant". The disadvantage is that, obviously, both modules can't be used at the same time. If the normal "constant" was loaded before "constant::tiny", the latter won't do anything, letting the normal "constant" do the work. Other than this, the usage is (nearly) exactly the same as with the standard "constant" module. For more details, please read constant. Rationale The original reason to write this module was that, starting with version 1.24, "constant" always loaded utf8_heavy.pl, which consumes some memory. Usually, this is not problematic, but in some particular cases (embedded Perl, frequently forked programs a la CGI), the increased memory cost can become a concern. Therefore, this module was written as a alternative solution, with no support for Unicode names, so that programs working in memory constrained environments could have a better control. Funnily enough, the day "constant::tiny" was released on CPAN (the code had been written two months earlier as a proof of concept), Brad Gilbert proposed a patch for "constant" in order to delay loading utf8_heavy.pl until necessary. Therefore "constant::tiny" is less useful (which is good news), but can still address specific needs, if you want to restrict constant names to alphanums only. INSTALLATION To install this module, run the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Alternatively, to install with Module::Build, you can use the following commands: perl Build.PL ./Build ./Build test ./Build install SUPPORT You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command. perldoc constant::tiny You can also look for information at: * Search CPAN http://search.cpan.org/dist/constant-tiny/ * Meta CPAN https://metacpan.org/module/constant::tiny * RT: CPAN's request tracker (report bugs here) https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=constant-tiny> * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation http://annocpan.org/dist/constant-tiny * CPAN Ratings http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/constant-tiny ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This module is heavily based on "constant.pm", originaly written by Tom Phoenix, Casey West, Nicholas Clark, Zefram and many other folks from the Perl 5 Porters. AUTHOR Sebastien Aperghis-Tramoni LICENSE This module is free software; you can redistribute it or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.