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POWhat parts of given/when are experimental?
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  1. POWhat parts of given/when are experimental?
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    copied!<p>Has the entire "switch" feature become experimental? Are there parts of it I can rely on using without future versions of Perl breaking my code? In general, what is the policy toward changing stable features to experimental?</p> <h2>Background</h2> <p><code>use feature "switch"</code> has been in Perl since 5.10. From 5.10 to 5.14, <code>perlsyn</code> seems to indicate that this is a stable, supported feature.</p> <p>Starting with 5.16, however, <code>perlsyn</code> <a href="http://perldoc.perl.org/5.16.2/perlsyn.html#Switch-Statements" rel="noreferrer">begins to call it</a> "an <em>experimental</em> switch feature" and gets a lot more confusing about what's considered experimental.</p> <p>Parts of the documentation seem to indicate <em>everything</em> about the feature is experimental:</p> <blockquote> <p>Under the "switch" feature, Perl gains the experimental keywords <code>given</code>, <code>when</code>, <code>default</code>, <code>continue</code>, and <code>break</code>.</p> </blockquote> <p>There's even an entire section about the <a href="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlsyn.html#Experimental-Details-on-given-and-when" rel="noreferrer">Experimental Details on given and when</a>.</p> <p>However, <code>perlsyn</code> <em>also</em> says that "The <code>foreach</code> is the non-experimental way to set a topicalizer" and gives an example that seems to imply that foreach/when is not experimental.</p> <p>As far as I can tell, the "experimental" language came from <a href="https://github.com/mirrors/perl/commit/c2f1e229171d1aa65dacd9b3bb09f4298de8fba7" rel="noreferrer">commit c2f1e22</a> which references <a href="https://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=90926" rel="noreferrer">RT #90926</a> which still doesn't give much context, even when paired with <a href="https://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=90906" rel="noreferrer">RT# 90906</a>.</p>
 

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