The reliance on unix in the perldoc(umentation) has always been a pet peeve of mine. On the one hand, a lot of perl's functions are straight from C unix functions, but perldoc still refers you to unix manpages. The first paragraph of the sprintf documentation:

Returns a string formatted by the usual printf() conventions of the C library function sprintf(). See sprintf(3) or printf(3) on your system for an explanation of the general principles.

I mean, that just slams the door in the face of anyone trying to learn perl on a system without manpages. I might expect this for something obscure like setpgrp, but sprintf?. The docs also has very limited examples. I've been using sprintf since before Perl was conceived, so this is not an issue for me, but it's always rubbed me the wrong way when I peruse the perldocs (even ActiveState's Win32 version) and come across references to unix functions and manpages. Surely we (the perl community) can come up with something better? Telling people to learn unix is not a solution: one of the strengths of perl is, IMO, the way it transcends notions of OS and system flavors. It's a better "write once, run everywhere" than Java is (with exceptions). Basic C books take the time to expand on s?printf - why shouldn't we?

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P.S. I know, less talk, more action. Maybe I'll add it to my incredibly long "todo" list. :)