NAME
    any::feature - Backwards-compatible handling of new syntactic features

SYNOPSIS
        use any::feature 'say';
        say 'Hello, world!';

DESCRIPTION
  THE PROBLEM
    Perl 5.10 introduces new syntactic features which you can activate and
    deactivate with the "feature" module. You want to use the "say" feature
    in a program that's supposed to run under both Perl 5.8 and 5.10. So
    your program looks like this:

        use feature 'say';
        say 'Hello, world!';

    But this only works in Perl 5.10, because there is no "feature" module
    in Perl 5.8. So you write

        use Perl6::Say;
        say 'Hello, world!';

    This works, but it's strange to force Perl 5.10 users to install
    Perl6::Say when the "say" feature is included in Perl 5.10.

  THE SOLUTION
    Use "any::feature"!

    WARNING: This is just a proof-of-concept.

    "any::feature" can be used like Perl 5.10's "feature" and will try to
    "do the right thing", regardless of whether you use Perl 5.8 or Perl
    5.10.

    At the moment, this is just a proof-of-concept and only handles the
    "say" feature. If things work out, I plan to extend it with other Perl
    5.10 features.

    The following programs should work and exhibit the same behaviour both
    in Perl 5.8 and Perl 5.10.

    This program will work:

        use any::feature 'say';
        say 'Hello, world!';

    This program will fail at compile-time:

        use any::feature 'say';
        say 'Hello, world!';

        no any::feature 'say';
        say 'Oops';

    The features are lexically scoped, which is how they work in Perl 5.10:

        {
            use any::feature 'say';
            say 'foo';
        }
        say 'bar';     # dies at compile-time

SUBROUTINES
    "dispatch"
        Takes as arguments a direction ("activate" or "deactivate"), a
        package name and a feature name. Activates or deactivates the given
        feature for the given package.

    "activate"
        Takes as arguments a package name and a feature name. Uses
        "dispatch()" to activate the given feature in the given package.

    "deactivate"
        Takes as arguments a package name and a feature name. Uses
        "dispatch()" to deactivate the given feature in the given package.

    "import"
        Takes the same arguments as Perl 5.10's "use feature" pragma. Uses
        "activate()" and "deactivate()" to do its job.

    "unimport"
        Takes the same arguments as Perl 5.10's "no feature" pragma. Uses
        "activate()" and "deactivate()" to do its job.

    "get_effective_version"
        Uses Perl::Version to get the version number of the current perl
        interpreter. This is used to decide the course of action.

    "get_effective_revision"
        Uses Perl::Version to get the revision number of the current perl
        interpreter. This is used to decide the course of action.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
    No bugs have been reported.

    Please report any bugs or feature requests through the web interface at
    <http://rt.cpan.org>.

INSTALLATION
    See perlmodinstall for information and options on installing Perl
    modules.

AVAILABILITY
    The latest version of this module is available from the Comprehensive
    Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Visit <http://www.perl.com/CPAN/> to find a
    CPAN site near you. Or see <http://search.cpan.org/dist/any-feature/>.

    The development version lives at
    <http://github.com/hanekomu/any-feature/>. Instead of sending patches,
    please fork this project using the standard git and github
    infrastructure.

AUTHORS
    Marcel Grnauer, "<marcel@cpan.org>"

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    Copyright 2009 by Marcel Grnauer

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

