[patch] beginnings of the macro rewrite

[Russ Allbery]

Michael Meissner <meissner@cygnus.com> writes:

> I know in the past perl 4.036 used it too, but I don't know if modern
> perl's currently use it.

It's still there:

     -P   causes your script to be run through the C preprocessor before
          compilation by Perl.  (Because both comments and cpp directives
          begin with the # character, you should avoid starting comments with
          any words recognized by the C preprocessor such as "if", "else", or
          "define".)

These days, it's mostly only used for very special applications and
obfuscated code, as the C preprocessor isn't really designed for
preprocessing other languages (some Perl constructs confuse it), and of
course Perl's use of # as a comment character conflicts pretty badly with
the use of the preprocessor.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             < http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ >