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Generate complete Perl Unicode aliases and wildcard candidates

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
java, perl
Domain
compilers

Research direction

The issue involves the Unicode data import and table generation system in PerlOnJava. Start by examining the current property lookup and wildcard resolution code, likely in modules handling Unicode property matching. Review the generator scripts that create tables from PropValueAliases.txt. The goal is to extend these tables to include all Perl aliases and use them for wildcard enumeration. 'Done' means all tests in the Unicode property UAT pass, and the generator validation checks are implemented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Problem

PerlOnJava imports current Perl Unicode data, but several generated tables expose only the subset required for direct property lookup. Callers that need value enumeration, especially \p{Property=:\A...\z:} wildcards, can fall back to ICU aliases. ICU may be older than the imported Perl UCD and does not necessarily contain Perl's complete short-alias surface.

The recent Block failures demonstrate the gap: Bengali_Sup, Misc_Arrows_Ext, and Music_Sup are current Perl PropValueAliases.txt aliases, but wildcard matching did not consistently enumerate them.

Proposed work

  • Make each generated enumerated-property table expose canonical values and every Perl value alias from the same source data.
  • Generate wildcard candidate lists from those aliases, and route wildcard resolution through them ahead of ICU.
  • Add generator validation that every accepted alias reaches a generated value set and that aliases are unambiguous.
  • Add focused generated-data tests for direct aliases, loose aliases, and anchored wildcards.
  • Record which Perl-specific behavior remains handwritten: property grammar, warning categories and wording, case-fold policy, and diagnostics.

Acceptance criteria

  • No UCD-version-dependent property lookup or wildcard path uses ICU as its authority when an imported Perl table is available.
  • Refreshing imported Unicode data updates value aliases and wildcard coverage without hand-maintained lists.
  • Generator checks fail clearly on missing, duplicate, or unreachable aliases.
  • The Unicode property UAT remains green for generated direct and wildcard aliases.
Dominant language
Perl
Stars
64
Forks
6
Avg merge
5h 11m
Merged PRs (30d)
168

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