RFC 267 (v1) Eliminate dump() function

This and other RFCs are available on the web at
  http://dev.perl.org/rfc/

=head1 TITLE

Eliminate dump() function

=head1 VERSION

  Maintainer: Dominus <[email protected]>
  Date: 20 Sep 2000
  Mailing List: [email protected]
  Number: 267
  Version: 1
  Status: Developing

=head1 ABSTRACT

Get rid of it completely.

=head1 DESCRIPTION

dump is a common subroutine name.  People often try to define a dump
subroutine and then get puzzled by the dump.  They have to name their
dump functions 'Dump' or 'dumper' and then they get annoying errors
when they call dump instead by mistake.

dump is not very useful anyway; see MIGRATION below.

=head1 IMPLEMENTATION

None needed.

=head1 MIGRATION

The translator should translate calls to dump() to 

        kill 6 => $$;

instead.   

If the translator fails on dump LABEL, that is probably all right.
But if not, then it can translate

        ...
        dump LABEL;
        ...

        LABEL: 
        ...

to 

        ...
        ${^Please_Dump} = 1;
        goto LABEL;
        ...

        LABEL:
        kill 6 => $$ if ${^Please_Dump};
        undef ${^Please_Dump};
        ...


=head1 REFERENCES

perlfunc manpage for discussion of dump()