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1 | =encoding utf8 |
2 | |
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3 | =head1 NAME |
4 | |
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5 | perl5110delta - what is new for perl v5.11.0 |
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6 | |
7 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
8 | |
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9 | This document describes differences between the 5.10.0 release and |
10 | the 5.11.0 development release. |
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11 | |
12 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
13 | |
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14 | =head2 Unicode interpretation of \w, \d, \s, and the POSIX character classes redefined. |
15 | |
16 | Previous versions of Perl tried to map POSIX style character class definitions onto |
17 | Unicode property names so that patterns would "dwim" when matches were made against latin-1 or |
18 | unicode strings. This proved to be a mistake, breaking character class negation, causing |
19 | forward compatibility problems (as Unicode keeps updating their property definitions and adding |
20 | new characters), and other problems. |
21 | |
22 | Therefore we have now defined a new set of artificial "unicode" property names which will be |
23 | used to do unicode matching of patterns using POSIX style character classes and perl short-form |
24 | escape character classes like \w and \d. |
25 | |
26 | The key change here is that \d will no longer match every digit in the unicode standard |
27 | (there are thousands) nor will \w match every word character in the standard, instead they |
28 | will match precisely their POSIX or Perl definition. |
29 | |
30 | Those needing to match based on Unicode properties can continue to do so by using the \p{} syntax |
31 | to match whichever property they like, including the new artificial definitions. |
32 | |
33 | B<NOTE:> This is a backwards incompatible no-warning change in behaviour. If you are upgrading |
34 | and you process large volumes of text look for POSIX and Perl style character classes and |
35 | change them to the relevent property name (by removing the word 'Posix' from the current name). |
36 | |
37 | The following table maps the POSIX character class names, the escapes and the old and new |
38 | Unicode property mappings: |
39 | |
40 | POSIX Esc Class New-Property ! Old-Property |
41 | ----------------------------------------------+------------- |
42 | alnum [0-9A-Za-z] IsPosixAlnum ! IsAlnum |
43 | alpha [A-Za-z] IsPosixAlpha ! IsAlpha |
44 | ascii [\000-\177] IsASCII = IsASCII |
45 | blank [\011 ] IsPosixBlank ! |
46 | cntrl [\0-\37\177] IsPosixCntrl ! IsCntrl |
47 | digit \d [0-9] IsPosixDigit ! IsDigit |
48 | graph [!-~] IsPosixGraph ! IsGraph |
49 | lower [a-z] IsPosixLower ! IsLower |
50 | print [ -~] IsPosixPrint ! IsPrint |
51 | punct [!-/:-@[-`{-~] IsPosixPunct ! IsPunct |
52 | space [\11-\15 ] IsPosixSpace ! IsSpace |
53 | \s [\11\12\14\15 ] IsPerlSpace ! IsSpacePerl |
54 | upper [A-Z] IsPosixUpper ! IsUpper |
55 | word \w [0-9A-Z_a-z] IsPerlWord ! IsWord |
56 | xdigit [0-9A-Fa-f] IsXDigit = IsXDigit |
57 | |
58 | If you wish to build perl with the old mapping you may do so by setting |
59 | |
60 | #define PERL_LEGACY_UNICODE_CHARCLASS_MAPPINGS 1 |
61 | |
62 | in regcomp.h, and then setting |
63 | |
64 | PERL_TEST_LEGACY_POSIX_CC |
65 | |
66 | to true your enviornment when testing. |
67 | |
68 | |
c3e6c235 |
69 | =head2 @INC reorganization |
70 | |
71 | In @INC, ARCHLIB and PRIVLIB now occur after after the current version's |
72 | site_perl and vendor_perl. |
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73 | |
8b8da387 |
74 | =head2 Switch statement changes |
75 | |
76 | The handling of complex expressions by the C<given>/C<when> switch |
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77 | statement has been enhanced. These enhancements are also available in |
78 | 5.10.1 and subsequent 5.10 releases. There are two new cases where C<when> now |
412304fb |
79 | interprets its argument as a boolean, instead of an expression to be used |
8b8da387 |
80 | in a smart match: |
81 | |
82 | =over 4 |
83 | |
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84 | =item flip-flop operators |
85 | |
98814a2b |
86 | The C<..> and C<...> flip-flop operators are now evaluated in boolean |
87 | context, following their usual semantics; see L<perlop/"Range Operators">. |
88 | |
89 | Note that, as in perl 5.10.0, C<when (1..10)> will not work to test |
90 | whether a given value is an integer between 1 and 10; you should use |
91 | C<when ([1..10])> instead (note the array reference). |
92 | |
93 | However, contrary to 5.10.0, evaluating the flip-flop operators in boolean |
94 | context ensures it can now be useful in a C<when()>, notably for |
95 | implementing bistable conditions, like in: |
96 | |
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97 | when (/^=begin/ .. /^=end/) { |
98 | # do something |
99 | } |
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100 | |
101 | =item defined-or operator |
102 | |
103 | A compound expression involving the defined-or operator, as in |
104 | C<when (expr1 // expr2)>, will be treated as boolean if the first |
105 | expression is boolean. (This just extends the existing rule that applies |
106 | to the regular or operator, as in C<when (expr1 || expr2)>.) |
107 | |
108 | =back |
109 | |
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110 | The next section details more changes brought to the semantics to |
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111 | the smart match operator, that naturally also modify the behaviour |
112 | of the switch statements where smart matching is implicitly used. |
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113 | These changers were also made for the 5.10.1 release, and will remain in |
114 | subsequent 5.10 releases. |
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115 | |
116 | =head2 Smart match changes |
117 | |
118 | =head3 Changes to type-based dispatch |
119 | |
120 | The smart match operator C<~~> is no longer commutative. The behaviour of |
121 | a smart match now depends primarily on the type of its right hand |
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122 | argument. Moreover, its semantics have been adjusted for greater |
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123 | consistency or usefulness in several cases. While the general backwards |
124 | compatibility is maintained, several changes must be noted: |
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125 | |
126 | =over 4 |
127 | |
128 | =item * |
129 | |
130 | Code references with an empty prototype are no longer treated specially. |
131 | They are passed an argument like the other code references (even if they |
132 | choose to ignore it). |
133 | |
134 | =item * |
135 | |
136 | C<%hash ~~ sub {}> and C<@array ~~ sub {}> now test that the subroutine |
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137 | returns a true value for each key of the hash (or element of the |
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138 | array), instead of passing the whole hash or array as a reference to |
139 | the subroutine. |
140 | |
141 | =item * |
142 | |
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143 | Due to the commutativity breakage, code references are no longer |
144 | treated specially when appearing on the left of the C<~~> operator, |
145 | but like any vulgar scalar. |
146 | |
147 | =item * |
148 | |
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149 | C<undef ~~ %hash> is always false (since C<undef> can't be a key in a |
150 | hash). No implicit conversion to C<""> is done (as was the case in perl |
151 | 5.10.0). |
152 | |
153 | =item * |
154 | |
155 | C<$scalar ~~ @array> now always distributes the smart match across the |
156 | elements of the array. It's true if one element in @array verifies |
157 | C<$scalar ~~ $element>. This is a generalization of the old behaviour |
158 | that tested whether the array contained the scalar. |
159 | |
160 | =back |
161 | |
162 | The full dispatch table for the smart match operator is given in |
163 | L<perlsyn/"Smart matching in detail">. |
164 | |
165 | =head3 Smart match and overloading |
166 | |
167 | According to the rule of dispatch based on the rightmost argument type, |
168 | when an object overloading C<~~> appears on the right side of the |
169 | operator, the overload routine will always be called (with a 3rd argument |
170 | set to a true value, see L<overload>.) However, when the object will |
171 | appear on the left, the overload routine will be called only when the |
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172 | rightmost argument is a simple scalar. This way distributivity of smart match |
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173 | across arrays is not broken, as well as the other behaviours with complex |
174 | types (coderefs, hashes, regexes). Thus, writers of overloading routines |
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175 | for smart match mostly need to worry only with comparing against a scalar, |
176 | and possibly with stringification overloading; the other common cases |
177 | will be automatically handled consistently. |
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178 | |
179 | C<~~> will now refuse to work on objects that do not overload it (in order |
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180 | to avoid relying on the object's underlying structure). (However, if the |
181 | object overloads the stringification or the numification operators, and |
182 | if overload fallback is active, it will be used instead, as usual.) |
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183 | |
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184 | =head2 Labels can't be keywords |
185 | |
186 | Labels used as targets for the C<goto>, C<last>, C<next> or C<redo> |
187 | statements cannot be keywords anymore. This restriction will prevent |
188 | potential confusion between the C<goto LABEL> and C<goto EXPR> syntaxes: |
189 | for example, a statement like C<goto print> would jump to a label whose |
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190 | name would be the return value of C<print()>, (usually 1), instead of a |
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191 | label named C<print>. Moreover, the other control flow statements |
192 | would just ignore any keyword passed to them as a label name. Since |
193 | such labels cannot be defined anymore, this kind of error will be |
194 | avoided. |
195 | |
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196 | =head2 Other incompatible changes |
197 | |
198 | =over 4 |
199 | |
200 | =item * |
201 | |
202 | The semantics of C<use feature :5.10*> have changed slightly. |
203 | See L<"Modules and Pragmata"> for more information. |
204 | |
205 | =item * |
206 | |
207 | It is now a run-time error to use the smart match operator C<~~> |
208 | with an object that has no overload defined for it. (This way |
209 | C<~~> will not break encapsulation by matching against the |
210 | object's internal representation as a reference.) |
211 | |
212 | =item * |
213 | |
214 | The version control system used for the development of the perl |
215 | interpreter has been switched from Perforce to git. This is mainly an |
216 | internal issue that only affects people actively working on the perl core; |
217 | but it may have minor external visibility, for example in some of details |
218 | of the output of C<perl -V>. See L<perlrepository> for more information. |
219 | |
220 | =item * |
221 | |
222 | The internal structure of the C<ext/> directory in the perl source has |
223 | been reorganised. In general, a module C<Foo::Bar> whose source was |
224 | stored under F<ext/Foo/Bar/> is now located under F<ext/Foo-Bar/>. Also, |
429ee0aa |
225 | nearly all dual-life modules have been moved from F<lib/> to F<ext/>. This |
226 | is purely a source tarball change, and should make no difference to the |
227 | compilation or installation of perl, unless you have a very customised build |
228 | process that explicitly relies on this structure, or which hard-codes the |
229 | C<nonxs_ext> F<Configure> parameter. Specifically, this change does not by |
230 | default alter the location of any files in the final installation. |
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231 | |
232 | =item * |
233 | |
234 | As part of the C<Test::Harness> 2.x to 3.x upgrade, the experimental |
235 | C<Test::Harness::Straps> module has been removed. |
236 | See L</"Updated Modules"> for more details. |
237 | |
238 | =item * |
239 | |
240 | As part of the C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> upgrade, the |
241 | C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> and C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> modules |
242 | have been removed from this distribution. |
243 | |
244 | =item * |
245 | |
246 | C<Module::CoreList> no longer contains the C<%:patchlevel> hash. |
247 | |
248 | =item * |
249 | |
250 | This one is actually a change introduced in 5.10.0, but it was missed |
251 | from that release's perldelta, so it is mentioned here instead. |
252 | |
253 | A bugfix related to the handling of the C</m> modifier and C<qr> resulted |
254 | in a change of behaviour between 5.8.x and 5.10.0: |
255 | |
256 | # matches in 5.8.x, doesn't match in 5.10.0 |
257 | $re = qr/^bar/; "foo\nbar" =~ /$re/m; |
258 | |
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259 | =item * |
260 | |
261 | C<length undef> now returns undef. |
262 | |
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263 | =item * |
264 | |
265 | Unsupported private C API functions are now declared "static" to prevent |
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266 | leakage to Perl's public API. |
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267 | |
268 | =item * |
269 | |
c3e6c235 |
270 | To support the bootstrapping process, F<miniperl> no longer builds with |
271 | UTF-8 support in the regexp engine. |
272 | |
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273 | This allows a build to complete with PERL_UNICODE set and a UTF-8 locale. |
274 | Without this there's a bootstrapping problem, as miniperl can't load the UTF-8 |
275 | components of the regexp engine, because they're not yet built. |
276 | |
277 | =item * |
278 | |
279 | F<miniperl>'s @INC is now restricted to just -I..., the split of $ENV{PERL5LIB}, and "." |
280 | |
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281 | =item * |
282 | |
283 | A space or a newline is now required after a C<"#line XXX"> directive. |
284 | |
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285 | =item * |
286 | |
287 | Tied filehandles now have an additional method EOF which provides the EOF type |
288 | |
289 | =item * |
290 | |
291 | To better match all other flow control statements, C<foreach> may no longer be used as an attribute. |
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292 | |
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293 | =back |
294 | |
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295 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
296 | |
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297 | =head2 Unicode Character Database 5.1.0 |
298 | |
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299 | The copy of the Unicode Character Database included in Perl 5.11.0 has |
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300 | been updated to 5.1.0 from 5.0.0. See |
301 | L<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.1.0/#Notable_Changes> for the |
302 | notable changes. |
303 | |
304 | =head2 A proper interface for pluggable Method Resolution Orders |
305 | |
3141b5e1 |
306 | As of Perl 5.11.0 there is a new interface for plugging and using method |
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307 | resolution orders other than the default (linear depth first search). |
308 | The C3 method resolution order added in 5.10.0 has been re-implemented as |
309 | a plugin, without changing its Perl-space interface. See L<perlmroapi> for |
310 | more information. |
311 | |
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312 | =head2 The C<overloading> pragma |
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313 | |
314 | This pragma allows you to lexically disable or enable overloading |
315 | for some or all operations. (Yuval Kogman) |
316 | |
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317 | =head2 C<\N> regex escape |
318 | |
319 | A new regex escape has been added, C<\N>. It will match any character that |
320 | is not a newline, independently from the presence or absence of the single |
321 | line match modifier C</s>. (If C<\N> is followed by an opening brace and |
322 | by a letter, perl will still assume that a Unicode character name is |
323 | coming, so compatibility is preserved.) (Rafael Garcia-Suarez) |
324 | |
4b3db487 |
325 | =head2 Implicit strictures |
326 | |
327 | Using the C<use VERSION> syntax with a version number greater or equal |
328 | to 5.11.0 will also lexically enable strictures just like C<use strict> |
329 | would do (in addition to enabling features.) So, the following: |
330 | |
331 | use 5.11.0; |
332 | |
333 | will now imply: |
334 | |
335 | use strict; |
336 | use feature ':5.11'; |
337 | |
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338 | =head2 Parallel tests |
339 | |
340 | The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on |
341 | Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in |
342 | your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run |
343 | C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as |
344 | |
345 | TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel |
346 | |
347 | An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because |
348 | L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test |
349 | scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to |
350 | interact with their job schedulers. |
351 | |
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352 | Note that currently some test scripts may fail when run in parallel (most |
353 | notably C<ext/IO/t/io_dir.t>). If necessary run just the failing scripts |
354 | again sequentially and see if the failures go away. |
355 | |
044c880b |
356 | =head2 The C<...> operator |
357 | |
358 | A new operator, C<...>, nicknamed the Yada Yada operator, has been added. |
359 | It is intended to mark placeholder code, that is not yet implemented. |
360 | See L<perlop/"Yada Yada Operator">. (chromatic) |
361 | |
5a00ee6a |
362 | =head2 DTrace support |
363 | |
364 | Some support for DTrace has been added. See "DTrace support" in F<INSTALL>. |
365 | |
366 | =head2 Support for C<configure_requires> in CPAN module metadata |
367 | |
368 | Both C<CPAN> and C<CPANPLUS> now support the C<configure_requires> keyword |
038a5866 |
369 | in the F<META.yml> metadata file included in most recent CPAN distributions. |
5a00ee6a |
370 | This allows distribution authors to specify configuration prerequisites that |
371 | must be installed before running F<Makefile.PL> or F<Build.PL>. |
372 | |
373 | See the documentation for C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> or C<Module::Build> for more |
374 | on how to specify C<configure_requires> when creating a distribution for CPAN. |
375 | |
c3e6c235 |
376 | =head2 C<each> is now more flexible |
377 | |
378 | The C<each> function can now operate on arrays. |
379 | |
380 | =head2 Y2038 compliance |
381 | |
382 | Perl's core time-related functions are now Y2038 compliant. (With 29 |
383 | years to spare!) |
384 | |
278eac9e |
385 | =head2 C<$,> flexibility |
c3e6c235 |
386 | |
387 | The variable C<$,> may now be tied. |
388 | |
389 | =head2 // in where clauses |
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390 | |
c3e6c235 |
391 | // now behaves like || in when clauses |
ad1d1c50 |
392 | |
c3e6c235 |
393 | =head2 Enabling warnings from your shell environment |
ad1d1c50 |
394 | |
c3e6c235 |
395 | You can now set C<-W> from the C<PERL5OPT> environment variable |
ad1d1c50 |
396 | |
c3e6c235 |
397 | =head2 C<delete local> |
398 | |
e74a3e73 |
399 | C<delete local> now allows you to locally delete a hash entry. |
c3e6c235 |
400 | |
401 | =head2 New support for Abstract namespace sockets |
7f0da121 |
402 | |
7f0da121 |
403 | Abstract namespace sockets are Linux-specific socket type that live in |
404 | AF_UNIX family, slightly abusing it to be able to use arbitrary |
405 | character arrays as addresses: They start with nul byte and are not |
406 | terminated by nul byte, but with the length passed to the socket() |
407 | system call. |
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408 | |
7120b314 |
409 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
410 | |
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411 | =head2 Dual-lifed modules moved |
412 | |
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413 | Dual-lifed modules maintained primarily in the Perl core now live in dist/. |
7f0da121 |
414 | Dual-lifed modules maintained primarily on CPAN now live in cpan/ |
415 | |
07e28eec |
416 | In previous releases of Perl, it was customary to enumerate all module |
6c79d1d2 |
417 | changes in this section of the C<perldelta> file. From 5.11.0 forward |
418 | only notable updates (such as new or deprecated modules ) will be |
07e28eec |
419 | listed in this section. For a complete reference to the versions of |
6c79d1d2 |
420 | modules shipped in a given release of perl, please see L<Module::CoreList>. |
421 | |
5a00ee6a |
422 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata |
423 | |
424 | =over 4 |
425 | |
426 | =item C<autodie> |
427 | |
428 | This is a new lexically-scoped alternative for the C<Fatal> module. |
429 | The bundled version is 2.06_01. Note that in this release, using a string |
430 | eval when C<autodie> is in effect can cause the autodie behaviour to leak |
431 | into the surrounding scope. See L<autodie/"BUGS"> for more details. |
432 | |
433 | =item C<Compress::Raw::Bzip2> |
434 | |
435 | This has been added to the core (version 2.020). |
436 | |
437 | =item C<parent> |
438 | |
439 | This pragma establishes an ISA relationship with base classes at compile |
440 | time. It provides the key feature of C<base> without the feature creep. |
441 | |
442 | =item C<Parse::CPAN::Meta> |
443 | |
444 | This has been added to the core (version 1.39). |
445 | |
446 | =back |
447 | |
1839a850 |
448 | =head2 Pragmata Changes |
449 | |
450 | =over 4 |
451 | |
452 | =item C<overloading> |
453 | |
454 | See L</"The C<overloading> pragma"> above. |
455 | |
5a00ee6a |
456 | =item C<attrs> |
457 | |
42f099ed |
458 | The C<attrs> pragma has been removed. It had been marked as deprecated since |
459 | 5.6.0. |
5a00ee6a |
460 | |
5a00ee6a |
461 | =item C<charnames> |
462 | |
5a00ee6a |
463 | The Unicode F<NameAliases.txt> database file has been added. This has the |
464 | effect of adding some extra C<\N> character names that formerly wouldn't |
465 | have been recognised; for example, C<"\N{LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GHA}">. |
466 | |
5a00ee6a |
467 | =item C<feature> |
468 | |
469 | The meaning of the C<:5.10> and C<:5.10.X> feature bundles has |
470 | changed slightly. The last component, if any (i.e. C<X>) is simply ignored. |
471 | This is predicated on the assumption that new features will not, in |
472 | general, be added to maintenance releases. So C<:5.10> and C<:5.10.X> |
473 | have identical effect. This is a change to the behaviour documented for |
474 | 5.10.0. |
475 | |
f7fa8439 |
476 | =item C<mro> |
477 | |
478 | Upgraded from version 1.00 to 1.01. Performance for single inheritance is 40% |
479 | faster - see L</"Performance Enhancements"> below. |
480 | |
481 | C<mro> is now implemented as an XS extension. The documented interface has not |
482 | changed. Code relying on the implementation detail that some C<mro::> |
483 | methods happened to be available at all times gets to "keep both pieces". |
484 | |
1839a850 |
485 | =back |
486 | |
5a00ee6a |
487 | =head2 Updated Modules |
02569b83 |
488 | |
489 | =over 4 |
490 | |
5a00ee6a |
491 | =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> |
492 | |
493 | Upgraded from version 6.42 to 6.55_02. |
494 | |
495 | Note that C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> and C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> |
496 | have been removed from this distribution. |
497 | |
5a00ee6a |
498 | =item C<Test::Harness> |
499 | |
500 | Upgraded from version 2.64 to 3.17. |
501 | |
502 | Note that one side-effect of the 2.x to 3.x upgrade is that the |
503 | experimental C<Test::Harness::Straps> module (and its supporting |
504 | C<Assert>, C<Iterator>, C<Point> and C<Results> modules) have been |
505 | removed. If you still need this, then they are available in the |
506 | (unmaintained) C<Test-Harness-Straps> distribution on CPAN. |
507 | |
5a00ee6a |
508 | =item C<UNIVERSAL> |
509 | |
510 | Upgraded from version 1.04 to 1.05. |
511 | |
07e28eec |
512 | C<< UNIVERSAL-E<gt>import() >> is now deprecated. |
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513 | |
5a00ee6a |
514 | =back |
515 | |
516 | =head1 Utility Changes |
517 | |
518 | =over 4 |
519 | |
520 | =item F<h2ph> |
521 | |
522 | Now looks in C<include-fixed> too, which is a recent addition to gcc's |
523 | search path. |
524 | |
525 | =item F<h2xs> |
526 | |
527 | No longer incorrectly treats enum values like macros (Daniel Burr). |
528 | |
529 | Now handles C++ style constants (C<//>) properly in enums. (A patch from |
530 | Rainer Weikusat was used; Daniel Burr also proposed a similar fix). |
531 | |
532 | =item F<perl5db.pl> |
533 | |
534 | C<LVALUE> subroutines now work under the debugger. |
535 | |
536 | The debugger now correctly handles proxy constant subroutines, and |
537 | subroutine stubs. |
538 | |
ad1d1c50 |
539 | =item F<perlbug> |
540 | |
038a5866 |
541 | F<perlbug> now uses C<%Module::CoreList::bug_tracker> to print out upstream bug |
76e3c4a8 |
542 | tracker URLs. |
ad1d1c50 |
543 | |
544 | Where the user names a module that their bug report is about, and we know the |
545 | URL for its upstream bug tracker, provide a message to the user explaining |
546 | that the core copies the CPAN version directly, and provide the URL for |
547 | reporting the bug directly to upstream. |
548 | |
5a00ee6a |
549 | =item F<perlthanks> |
550 | |
3141b5e1 |
551 | Perl 5.11.0 added a new utility F<perlthanks>, which is a variant of |
5a00ee6a |
552 | F<perlbug>, but for sending non-bug-reports to the authors and maintainers |
553 | of Perl. Getting nothing but bug reports can become a bit demoralising: |
554 | we'll see if this changes things. |
555 | |
556 | =back |
557 | |
558 | =head1 New Documentation |
559 | |
560 | =over 4 |
561 | |
562 | =item L<perlhaiku> |
563 | |
564 | This contains instructions on how to build perl for the Haiku platform. |
565 | |
566 | =item L<perlmroapi> |
567 | |
568 | This describes the new interface for pluggable Method Resolution Orders. |
569 | |
570 | =item L<perlperf> |
571 | |
572 | This document, by Richard Foley, provides an introduction to the use of |
573 | performance and optimization techniques which can be used with particular |
574 | reference to perl programs. |
575 | |
576 | =item L<perlrepository> |
577 | |
578 | This describes how to access the perl source using the I<git> version |
579 | control system. |
580 | |
5a00ee6a |
581 | =back |
582 | |
583 | =head1 Changes to Existing Documentation |
584 | |
76e3c4a8 |
585 | The various large F<Changes*> files (which listed every change made to perl |
5a00ee6a |
586 | over the last 18 years) have been removed, and replaced by a small file, |
76e3c4a8 |
587 | also called F<Changes>, which just explains how that same information may |
5a00ee6a |
588 | be extracted from the git version control system. |
589 | |
590 | The file F<Porting/patching.pod> has been deleted, as it mainly described |
591 | interacting with the old Perforce-based repository, which is now obsolete. |
592 | Information still relevant has been moved to L<perlrepository>. |
593 | |
594 | L<perlapi>, L<perlintern>, L<perlmodlib> and L<perltoc> are now all |
595 | generated at build time, rather than being shipped as part of the release. |
596 | |
c3e6c235 |
597 | =over |
ad1d1c50 |
598 | |
c3e6c235 |
599 | =item * |
ad1d1c50 |
600 | |
c3e6c235 |
601 | Documented -X overloading. |
ad1d1c50 |
602 | |
c3e6c235 |
603 | =item * |
ad1d1c50 |
604 | |
c3e6c235 |
605 | Documented that C<when()> treats specially most of the filetest operators |
ad1d1c50 |
606 | |
c3e6c235 |
607 | =item * |
608 | |
609 | Documented when as a syntax modifier |
610 | |
611 | =item * |
612 | |
613 | Eliminated "Old Perl threads tutorial", which describes 5005 threads. |
614 | |
615 | F<pod/perlthrtut.pod> is the same material reworked for ithreads. |
616 | |
617 | =item * |
618 | |
619 | Correct previous documentation: v-strings are not deprecated |
ad1d1c50 |
620 | |
621 | With version objects, we need them to use MODULE VERSION syntax. This |
622 | patch removes the deprecation note. |
623 | |
c3e6c235 |
624 | =item * |
625 | |
626 | Added security contact information to L<perlsec> |
627 | |
628 | =back |
7f0da121 |
629 | |
5a00ee6a |
630 | =head1 Performance Enhancements |
631 | |
c3e6c235 |
632 | |
5a00ee6a |
633 | =over 4 |
634 | |
635 | =item * |
636 | |
637 | A new internal cache means that C<isa()> will often be faster. |
638 | |
639 | =item * |
640 | |
6f54462f |
641 | The implementation of C<C3> Method Resolution Order has been optimised - |
c3e6c235 |
642 | linearisation for classes with single inheritance is 40% faster. Performance |
6f54462f |
643 | for multiple inheritance is unchanged. |
644 | |
645 | =item * |
646 | |
5a00ee6a |
647 | Under C<use locale>, the locale-relevant information is now cached on |
648 | read-only values, such as the list returned by C<keys %hash>. This makes |
649 | operations such as C<sort keys %hash> in the scope of C<use locale> much |
650 | faster. |
651 | |
652 | =item * |
653 | |
654 | Empty C<DESTROY> methods are no longer called. |
655 | |
ad1d1c50 |
656 | =item * |
657 | |
7a4b5c08 |
658 | Faster C<Perl_sv_utf8_upgrade()> |
ad1d1c50 |
659 | |
660 | =item * |
661 | |
7a4b5c08 |
662 | Speed up C<keys> on empty hash |
ad1d1c50 |
663 | |
5a00ee6a |
664 | =back |
665 | |
666 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
667 | |
668 | =head2 F<ext/> reorganisation |
669 | |
670 | The layout of directories in F<ext> has been revised. Specifically, all |
671 | extensions are now flat, and at the top level, with C</> in pathnames |
672 | replaced by C<->, so that F<ext/Data/Dumper/> is now F<ext/Data-Dumper/>, |
673 | etc. The names of the extensions as specified to F<Configure>, and as |
674 | reported by C<%Config::Config> under the keys C<dynamic_ext>, |
675 | C<known_extensions>, C<nonxs_ext> and C<static_ext> have not changed, and |
676 | still use C</>. Hence this change will not have any affect once perl is |
429ee0aa |
677 | installed. C<Safe> has been split out from being part of C<Opcode>, and |
c3e6c235 |
678 | C<mro> is now an extension in its own right. |
429ee0aa |
679 | |
680 | Nearly all dual-life modules have been moved from F<lib> to F<ext>, and will |
681 | now appear as known C<nonxs_ext>. This will made no difference to the |
682 | structure of an installed perl, nor will the modules installed differ, |
683 | unless you run F<Configure> with options to specify an exact list of |
684 | extensions to build. In this case, you will rapidly become aware that you |
685 | need to add to your list, because various modules needed to complete the |
686 | build, such as C<ExtUtils::ParseXS>, have now become extensions, and |
687 | without them the build will fail well before it attempts to run the |
688 | regression tests. |
5a00ee6a |
689 | |
690 | =head2 Configuration improvements |
691 | |
692 | If C<vendorlib> and C<vendorarch> are the same, then they are only added to |
693 | C<@INC> once. |
694 | |
695 | C<$Config{usedevel}> and the C-level C<PERL_USE_DEVEL> are now defined if |
696 | perl is built with C<-Dusedevel>. |
697 | |
698 | F<Configure> will enable use of C<-fstack-protector>, to provide protection |
699 | against stack-smashing attacks, if the compiler supports it. |
700 | |
701 | F<Configure> will now determine the correct prototypes for re-entrant |
702 | functions, and for C<gconvert>, if you are using a C++ compiler rather |
703 | than a C compiler. |
704 | |
705 | On Unix, if you build from a tree containing a git repository, the |
706 | configuration process will note the commit hash you have checked out, for |
707 | display in the output of C<perl -v> and C<perl -V>. Unpushed local commits |
708 | are automatically added to the list of local patches displayed by |
709 | C<perl -V>. |
710 | |
711 | =head2 Compilation improvements |
712 | |
713 | As part of the flattening of F<ext>, all extensions on all platforms are |
714 | built by F<make_ext.pl>. This replaces the Unix-specific |
715 | F<ext/util/make_ext>, VMS-specific F<make_ext.com> and Win32-specific |
716 | F<win32/buildext.pl>. |
717 | |
718 | =head2 Platform Specific Changes |
719 | |
720 | =over 4 |
721 | |
722 | =item AIX |
723 | |
7a4b5c08 |
724 | Removed F<libbsd> for AIX 5L and 6.1. Only C<flock()> was used from F<libbsd>. |
5a00ee6a |
725 | |
726 | Removed F<libgdbm> for AIX 5L and 6.1. The F<libgdbm> is delivered as an |
c3e6c235 |
727 | optional package with the AIX Toolbox. Unfortunately the 64 bit version |
5a00ee6a |
728 | is broken. |
729 | |
730 | Hints changes mean that AIX 4.2 should work again. |
731 | |
732 | =item Cygwin |
733 | |
734 | On Cygwin we now strip the last number from the DLL. This has been the |
735 | behaviour in the cygwin.com build for years. The hints files have been |
736 | updated. |
737 | |
81afb674 |
738 | =item DomainOS |
739 | |
740 | Support for Apollo DomainOS was removed in Perl 5.11.0 |
741 | |
5a00ee6a |
742 | =item FreeBSD |
743 | |
744 | The hints files now identify the correct threading libraries on FreeBSD 7 |
745 | and later. |
746 | |
747 | =item Irix |
748 | |
749 | We now work around a bizarre preprocessor bug in the Irix 6.5 compiler: |
750 | C<cc -E -> unfortunately goes into K&R mode, but C<cc -E file.c> doesn't. |
751 | |
752 | =item Haiku |
753 | |
754 | Patches from the Haiku maintainers have been merged in. Perl should now |
755 | build on Haiku. |
756 | |
7e35aa2a |
757 | =item MachTen |
758 | |
759 | Support for Tenon Intersystems MachTen Unix layer for MacOS Classic was |
760 | removed in Perl 5.11.0 |
761 | |
81afb674 |
762 | =item MiNT |
763 | |
764 | Support for Atari MiNT was removed in Perl 5.11.0. |
765 | |
5a00ee6a |
766 | =item MirOS BSD |
767 | |
768 | Perl should now build on MirOS BSD. |
769 | |
770 | =item NetBSD |
771 | |
772 | Hints now supports versions 5.*. |
773 | |
774 | =item Stratus VOS |
775 | |
776 | Various changes from Stratus have been merged in. |
777 | |
778 | =item Symbian |
779 | |
780 | There is now support for Symbian S60 3.2 SDK and S60 5.0 SDK. |
781 | |
782 | =item Win32 |
783 | |
784 | Improved message window handling means that C<alarm> and C<kill> messages |
785 | will no longer be dropped under race conditions. |
786 | |
787 | =item VMS |
788 | |
789 | Reads from the in-memory temporary files of C<PerlIO::scalar> used to fail |
790 | if C<$/> was set to a numeric reference (to indicate record-style reads). |
791 | This is now fixed. |
792 | |
793 | VMS now supports C<getgrgid>. |
794 | |
795 | Many improvements and cleanups have been made to the VMS file name handling |
796 | and conversion code. |
797 | |
798 | Enabling the C<PERL_VMS_POSIX_EXIT> logical name now encodes a POSIX exit |
799 | status in a VMS condition value for better interaction with GNV's bash |
800 | shell and other utilities that depend on POSIX exit values. See |
801 | L<perlvms/"$?"> for details. |
802 | |
76e3c4a8 |
803 | C<File::Copy> now detects Unix compatibility mode on VMS. |
ad1d1c50 |
804 | |
5a00ee6a |
805 | =back |
806 | |
807 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
808 | |
809 | =over 4 |
810 | |
038a5866 |
811 | =item * |
5a00ee6a |
812 | |
ce979e27 |
813 | C<-I> on shebang line now adds directories in front of @INC |
5a00ee6a |
814 | as documented, and as does C<-I> when specified on the command-line. |
5a00ee6a |
815 | |
76e3c4a8 |
816 | =item * |
5a00ee6a |
817 | |
76e3c4a8 |
818 | C<kill> is now fatal when called on non-numeric process identifiers. |
5a00ee6a |
819 | Previously, an 'undef' process identifier would be interpreted as a request to |
820 | kill process "0", which would terminate the current process group on POSIX |
821 | systems. Since process identifiers are always integers, killing a non-numeric |
822 | process is now fatal. |
823 | |
824 | =item * |
825 | |
826 | 5.10.0 inadvertently disabled an optimisation, which caused a measurable |
827 | performance drop in list assignment, such as is often used to assign |
828 | function parameters from C<@_>. The optimisation has been re-instated, and |
829 | the performance regression fixed. |
830 | |
831 | =item * |
832 | |
833 | Fixed memory leak on C<while (1) { map 1, 1 }> [RT #53038]. |
834 | |
835 | =item * |
836 | |
837 | Some potential coredumps in PerlIO fixed [RT #57322,54828]. |
838 | |
839 | =item * |
840 | |
841 | The debugger now works with lvalue subroutines. |
842 | |
843 | =item * |
844 | |
845 | The debugger's C<m> command was broken on modules that defined constants |
846 | [RT #61222]. |
847 | |
848 | =item * |
849 | |
7a4b5c08 |
850 | C<crypt> and string complement could return tainted values for untainted |
5a00ee6a |
851 | arguments [RT #59998]. |
852 | |
853 | =item * |
854 | |
038a5866 |
855 | The C<-i>I<.suffix> command-line switch now recreates the file using |
5a00ee6a |
856 | restricted permissions, before changing its mode to match the original |
857 | file. This eliminates a potential race condition [RT #60904]. |
858 | |
859 | =item * |
860 | |
861 | On some UNIX systems, the value in C<$?> would not have the top bit set |
862 | (C<$? & 128>) even if the child core dumped. |
863 | |
864 | =item * |
865 | |
038a5866 |
866 | Under some circumstances, C<$^R> could incorrectly become undefined |
5a00ee6a |
867 | [RT #57042]. |
868 | |
869 | =item * |
870 | |
a048364f |
871 | In the XS API, various hash functions, when passed a pre-computed hash where |
872 | the key is UTF-8, might result in an incorrect lookup. |
5a00ee6a |
873 | |
874 | =item * |
875 | |
a048364f |
876 | XS code including F<XSUB.h> before F<perl.h> gave a compile-time error |
5a00ee6a |
877 | [RT #57176]. |
878 | |
879 | =item * |
880 | |
07e28eec |
881 | C<< $object-E<gt>isa('Foo') >> would report false if the package C<Foo> didn't |
5a00ee6a |
882 | exist, even if the object's C<@ISA> contained C<Foo>. |
883 | |
884 | =item * |
885 | |
886 | Various bugs in the new-to 5.10.0 mro code, triggered by manipulating |
887 | C<@ISA>, have been found and fixed. |
888 | |
889 | =item * |
890 | |
891 | Bitwise operations on references could crash the interpreter, e.g. |
892 | C<$x=\$y; $x |= "foo"> [RT #54956]. |
893 | |
894 | =item * |
895 | |
896 | Patterns including alternation might be sensitive to the internal UTF-8 |
897 | representation, e.g. |
898 | |
899 | my $byte = chr(192); |
900 | my $utf8 = chr(192); utf8::upgrade($utf8); |
901 | $utf8 =~ /$byte|X}/i; # failed in 5.10.0 |
902 | |
903 | =item * |
904 | |
905 | Within UTF8-encoded Perl source files (i.e. where C<use utf8> is in |
906 | effect), double-quoted literal strings could be corrupted where a C<\xNN>, |
907 | C<\0NNN> or C<\N{}> is followed by a literal character with ordinal value |
908 | greater than 255 [RT #59908]. |
909 | |
910 | =item * |
911 | |
912 | C<B::Deparse> failed to correctly deparse various constructs: |
913 | C<readpipe STRING> [RT #62428], C<CORE::require(STRING)> [RT #62488], |
914 | C<sub foo(_)> [RT #62484]. |
915 | |
916 | =item * |
917 | |
7a4b5c08 |
918 | Using C<setpgrp> with no arguments could corrupt the perl stack. |
5a00ee6a |
919 | |
920 | =item * |
921 | |
922 | The block form of C<eval> is now specifically trappable by C<Safe> and |
923 | C<ops>. Previously it was erroneously treated like string C<eval>. |
924 | |
925 | =item * |
926 | |
927 | In 5.10.0, the two characters C<[~> were sometimes parsed as the smart |
928 | match operator (C<~~>) [RT #63854]. |
929 | |
930 | =item * |
931 | |
932 | In 5.10.0, the C<*> quantifier in patterns was sometimes treated as |
933 | C<{0,32767}> [RT #60034, #60464]. For example, this match would fail: |
934 | |
935 | ("ab" x 32768) =~ /^(ab)*$/ |
936 | |
937 | =item * |
938 | |
939 | C<shmget> was limited to a 32 bit segment size on a 64 bit OS [RT #63924]. |
940 | |
941 | =item * |
942 | |
943 | Using C<next> or C<last> to exit a C<given> block no longer produces a |
944 | spurious warning like the following: |
945 | |
946 | Exiting given via last at foo.pl line 123 |
947 | |
948 | =item * |
949 | |
950 | On Windows, C<'.\foo'> and C<'..\foo'> were treated differently than |
951 | C<'./foo'> and C<'../foo'> by C<do> and C<require> [RT #63492]. |
952 | |
953 | =item * |
954 | |
955 | Assigning a format to a glob could corrupt the format; e.g.: |
956 | |
957 | *bar=*foo{FORMAT}; # foo format now bad |
958 | |
959 | =item * |
960 | |
961 | Attempting to coerce a typeglob to a string or number could cause an |
962 | assertion failure. The correct error message is now generated, |
963 | C<Can't coerce GLOB to I<$type>>. |
964 | |
965 | =item * |
966 | |
967 | Under C<use filetest 'access'>, C<-x> was using the wrong access mode. This |
968 | has been fixed [RT #49003]. |
969 | |
970 | =item * |
971 | |
972 | C<length> on a tied scalar that returned a Unicode value would not be |
973 | correct the first time. This has been fixed. |
974 | |
975 | =item * |
976 | |
977 | Using an array C<tie> inside in array C<tie> could SEGV. This has been |
978 | fixed. [RT #51636] |
979 | |
980 | =item * |
981 | |
982 | A race condition inside C<PerlIOStdio_close()> has been identified and |
983 | fixed. This used to cause various threading issues, including SEGVs. |
984 | |
985 | =item * |
986 | |
987 | In C<unpack>, the use of C<()> groups in scalar context was internally |
988 | placing a list on the interpreter's stack, which manifested in various |
989 | ways, including SEGVs. This is now fixed [RT #50256]. |
990 | |
991 | =item * |
992 | |
993 | Magic was called twice in C<substr>, C<\&$x>, C<tie $x, $m> and C<chop>. |
994 | These have all been fixed. |
995 | |
996 | =item * |
997 | |
998 | A 5.10.0 optimisation to clear the temporary stack within the implicit |
999 | loop of C<s///ge> has been reverted, as it turned out to be the cause of |
c3e6c235 |
1000 | obscure bugs in seemingly unrelated parts of the interpreter [commit |
5a00ee6a |
1001 | ef0d4e17921ee3de]. |
1002 | |
1003 | =item * |
1004 | |
1005 | The line numbers for warnings inside C<elsif> are now correct. |
1006 | |
1007 | =item * |
1008 | |
1009 | The C<..> operator now works correctly with ranges whose ends are at or |
1010 | close to the values of the smallest and largest integers. |
1011 | |
1012 | =item * |
1013 | |
1014 | C<binmode STDIN, ':raw'> could lead to segmentation faults on some platforms. |
1015 | This has been fixed [RT #54828]. |
1016 | |
1017 | =item * |
1018 | |
1019 | An off-by-one error meant that C<index $str, ...> was effectively being |
1020 | executed as C<index "$str\0", ...>. This has been fixed [RT #53746]. |
1021 | |
1022 | =item * |
1023 | |
1024 | Various leaks associated with named captures in regexes have been fixed |
1025 | [RT #57024]. |
1026 | |
1027 | =item * |
1028 | |
1029 | A weak reference to a hash would leak. This was affecting C<DBI> |
1030 | [RT #56908]. |
1031 | |
1032 | =item * |
1033 | |
1034 | Using (?|) in a regex could cause a segfault [RT #59734]. |
1035 | |
1036 | =item * |
1037 | |
1038 | Use of a UTF-8 C<tr//> within a closure could cause a segfault [RT #61520]. |
1039 | |
1040 | =item * |
1041 | |
7a4b5c08 |
1042 | Calling C<Perl_sv_chop()> or otherwise upgrading an SV could result in an |
5a00ee6a |
1043 | unaligned 64-bit access on the SPARC architecture [RT #60574]. |
1044 | |
1045 | =item * |
1046 | |
1047 | In the 5.10.0 release, C<inc_version_list> would incorrectly list |
1048 | C<5.10.*> after C<5.8.*>; this affected the C<@INC> search order |
1049 | [RT #67628]. |
1050 | |
1051 | =item * |
1052 | |
1053 | In 5.10.0, C<pack "a*", $tainted_value> returned a non-tainted value |
1054 | [RT #52552]. |
1055 | |
1056 | =item * |
1057 | |
1058 | In 5.10.0, C<printf> and C<sprintf> could produce the fatal error |
1059 | C<panic: utf8_mg_pos_cache_update> when printing UTF-8 strings |
1060 | [RT #62666]. |
1061 | |
1062 | =item * |
1063 | |
1064 | In the 5.10.0 release, a dynamically created C<AUTOLOAD> method might be |
1065 | missed (method cache issue) [RT #60220,60232]. |
1066 | |
1067 | =item * |
1068 | |
1069 | In the 5.10.0 release, a combination of C<use feature> and C<//ee> could |
1070 | cause a memory leak [RT #63110]. |
1071 | |
1072 | =item * |
1073 | |
1074 | C<-C> on the shebang (C<#!>) line is once more permitted if it is also |
1075 | specified on the command line. C<-C> on the shebang line used to be a |
1076 | silent no-op I<if> it was not also on the command line, so perl 5.10.0 |
1077 | disallowed it, which broke some scripts. Now perl checks whether it is |
1078 | also on the command line and only dies if it is not [RT #67880]. |
1079 | |
1080 | =item * |
1081 | |
1082 | In 5.10.0, certain types of re-entrant regular expression could crash, |
1083 | or cause the following assertion failure [RT #60508]: |
1084 | |
1085 | Assertion rx->sublen >= (s - rx->subbeg) + i failed |
1086 | |
7f0da121 |
1087 | =item * |
1088 | |
1089 | Previously missing files from Unicode 5.1 Character Database are now included. |
1090 | |
01ad23f5 |
1091 | =item * |
1092 | |
1093 | C<TMPDIR> is now honored when opening an anonymous temporary file |
1094 | |
5a00ee6a |
1095 | =back |
1096 | |
1097 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
1098 | |
1099 | =over 4 |
1100 | |
1101 | =item C<panic: sv_chop %s> |
1102 | |
1103 | This new fatal error occurs when the C routine C<Perl_sv_chop()> was |
1104 | passed a position that is not within the scalar's string buffer. This |
1105 | could be caused by buggy XS code, and at this point recovery is not |
1106 | possible. |
1107 | |
1108 | =item C<Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s> |
1109 | |
1110 | This warning has been removed. In general, it only got produced in |
1111 | conjunction with other warnings, and removing it allowed an ISA lookup |
1112 | optimisation to be added. |
1113 | |
1114 | =item C<v-string in use/require is non-portable> |
1115 | |
1116 | This warning has been removed. |
1117 | |
1118 | =item C<Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"> |
1119 | |
1120 | It is now possible to change the depth threshold for this warning from the |
1121 | default of 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary, setting the C |
1122 | pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value. |
1123 | |
1124 | =back |
1125 | |
1126 | =head1 Changed Internals |
1127 | |
1128 | =over 4 |
1129 | |
1130 | =item * |
1131 | |
ef87f8cb |
1132 | TODO: C<SVt_RV> is gone. RVs are now stored in IVs |
1133 | |
1134 | =item * |
1135 | |
1136 | TODO: REGEXPs are first class |
1137 | |
1138 | =item * |
1139 | |
1140 | TODO: OOK is reworked, such that an OOKed scalar is PV not PVIV |
1141 | |
1142 | =item * |
1143 | |
5a00ee6a |
1144 | The J.R.R. Tolkien quotes at the head of C source file have been checked and |
1145 | proper citations added, thanks to a patch from Tom Christiansen. |
1146 | |
1147 | =item * |
1148 | |
7a4b5c08 |
1149 | C<Perl_vcroak()> now accepts a null first argument. In addition, a full audit |
5a00ee6a |
1150 | was made of the "not NULL" compiler annotations, and those for several |
1151 | other internal functions were corrected. |
1152 | |
1153 | =item * |
1154 | |
1155 | New macros C<dSAVEDERRNO>, C<dSAVE_ERRNO>, C<SAVE_ERRNO>, C<RESTORE_ERRNO> |
1156 | have been added to formalise the temporary saving of the C<errno> |
1157 | variable. |
1158 | |
1159 | =item * |
1160 | |
1161 | The function C<Perl_sv_insert_flags> has been added to augment |
1162 | C<Perl_sv_insert>. |
1163 | |
1164 | =item * |
1165 | |
1166 | The function C<Perl_newSV_type(type)> has been added, equivalent to |
1167 | C<Perl_newSV()> followed by C<Perl_sv_upgrade(type)>. |
1168 | |
1169 | =item * |
1170 | |
1171 | The function C<Perl_newSVpvn_flags()> has been added, equivalent to |
1172 | C<Perl_newSVpvn()> and then performing the action relevant to the flag. |
1173 | |
1174 | Two flag bits are currently supported. |
1175 | |
1176 | =over 4 |
1177 | |
1178 | =item C<SVf_UTF8> |
1179 | |
1180 | This will call C<SvUTF8_on()> for you. (Note that this does not convert an |
1181 | sequence of ISO 8859-1 characters to UTF-8). A wrapper, C<newSVpvn_utf8()> |
1182 | is available for this. |
1183 | |
1184 | =item C<SVs_TEMP> |
1185 | |
7a4b5c08 |
1186 | Call C<Perl_sv_2mortal()> on the new SV. |
5a00ee6a |
1187 | |
1188 | =back |
1189 | |
1190 | There is also a wrapper that takes constant strings, C<newSVpvs_flags()>. |
1191 | |
1192 | =item * |
1193 | |
1194 | The function C<Perl_croak_xs_usage> has been added as a wrapper to |
1195 | C<Perl_croak>. |
1196 | |
1197 | =item * |
1198 | |
1199 | The functions C<PerlIO_find_layer> and C<PerlIO_list_alloc> are now |
1200 | exported. |
1201 | |
1202 | =item * |
1203 | |
1204 | C<PL_na> has been exterminated from the core code, replaced by local STRLEN |
1205 | temporaries, or C<*_nolen()> calls. Either approach is faster than C<PL_na>, |
1206 | which is a pointer deference into the interpreter structure under ithreads, |
1207 | and a global variable otherwise. |
1208 | |
1209 | =item * |
1210 | |
7a4b5c08 |
1211 | C<Perl_mg_free()> used to leave freed memory accessible via C<SvMAGIC()> on |
5a00ee6a |
1212 | the scalar. It now updates the linked list to remove each piece of magic |
1213 | as it is freed. |
1214 | |
1215 | =item * |
1216 | |
1217 | Under ithreads, the regex in C<PL_reg_curpm> is now reference counted. This |
1218 | eliminates a lot of hackish workarounds to cope with it not being reference |
1219 | counted. |
1220 | |
1221 | =item * |
1222 | |
1223 | C<Perl_mg_magical()> would sometimes incorrectly turn on C<SvRMAGICAL()>. |
1224 | This has been fixed. |
1225 | |
1226 | =item * |
1227 | |
1228 | The I<public> IV and NV flags are now not set if the string value has |
1229 | trailing "garbage". This behaviour is consistent with not setting the |
1230 | public IV or NV flags if the value is out of range for the type. |
1231 | |
1232 | =item * |
1233 | |
1234 | SV allocation tracing has been added to the diagnostics enabled by C<-Dm>. |
1235 | The tracing can alternatively output via the C<PERL_MEM_LOG> mechanism, if |
1236 | that was enabled when the F<perl> binary was compiled. |
1237 | |
1238 | =item * |
1239 | |
d7ea0f56 |
1240 | Smartmatch resolution tracing has been added as a new diagnostic. Use C<-DM> to |
1241 | enable it. |
1242 | |
7f0da121 |
1243 | |
1244 | =item * |
1245 | |
1246 | A new debugging flag C<-DB> now dumps subroutine definitions, leaving |
1247 | C<-Dx> for its original purpose of dumping syntax trees. |
1248 | |
d7ea0f56 |
1249 | =item * |
1250 | |
5a00ee6a |
1251 | Uses of C<Nullav>, C<Nullcv>, C<Nullhv>, C<Nullop>, C<Nullsv> etc have been |
1252 | replaced by C<NULL> in the core code, and non-dual-life modules, as C<NULL> |
1253 | is clearer to those unfamiliar with the core code. |
1254 | |
1255 | =item * |
1256 | |
1257 | A macro C<MUTABLE_PTR(p)> has been added, which on (non-pedantic) gcc will |
1258 | not cast away C<const>, returning a C<void *>. Macros C<MUTABLE_SV(av)>, |
1259 | C<MUTABLE_SV(cv)> etc build on this, casting to C<AV *> etc without |
1260 | casting away C<const>. This allows proper compile-time auditing of |
1261 | C<const> correctness in the core, and helped picked up some errors (now |
1262 | fixed). |
1263 | |
1264 | =item * |
1265 | |
1266 | Macros C<mPUSHs()> and C<mXPUSHs()> have been added, for pushing SVs on the |
1267 | stack and mortalizing them. |
1268 | |
1269 | =item * |
1270 | |
1271 | Use of the private structure C<mro_meta> has changed slightly. Nothing |
1272 | outside the core should be accessing this directly anyway. |
1273 | |
1274 | =item * |
1275 | |
76e3c4a8 |
1276 | A new tool, F<Porting/expand-macro.pl> has been added, that allows you |
5a00ee6a |
1277 | to view how a C preprocessor macro would be expanded when compiled. |
1278 | This is handy when trying to decode the macro hell that is the perl |
1279 | guts. |
1280 | |
1281 | =back |
1282 | |
1283 | =head1 New Tests |
1284 | |
1285 | Many modules updated from CPAN incorporate new tests. |
1286 | |
1287 | Several tests that have the potential to hang forever if they fail now |
1288 | incorporate a "watchdog" functionality that will kill them after a timeout, |
1289 | which helps ensure that C<make test> and C<make test_harness> run to |
1290 | completion automatically. (Jerry Hedden). |
1291 | |
1292 | Some core-specific tests have been added: |
1293 | |
1294 | =over 4 |
1295 | |
1296 | =item t/comp/retainedlines.t |
1297 | |
1298 | Check that the debugger can retain source lines from C<eval>. |
1299 | |
1300 | =item t/io/perlio_fail.t |
1301 | |
1302 | Check that bad layers fail. |
1303 | |
1304 | =item t/io/perlio_leaks.t |
1305 | |
1306 | Check that PerlIO layers are not leaking. |
1307 | |
1308 | =item t/io/perlio_open.t |
1309 | |
1310 | Check that certain special forms of open work. |
1311 | |
1312 | =item t/io/perlio.t |
1313 | |
1314 | General PerlIO tests. |
1315 | |
1316 | =item t/io/pvbm.t |
1317 | |
1318 | Check that there is no unexpected interaction between the internal types |
1319 | C<PVBM> and C<PVGV>. |
1320 | |
1321 | =item t/mro/package_aliases.t |
1322 | |
1323 | Check that mro works properly in the presence of aliased packages. |
1324 | |
1325 | =item t/op/dbm.t |
1326 | |
1327 | Tests for C<dbmopen> and C<dbmclose>. |
1328 | |
1329 | =item t/op/index_thr.t |
1330 | |
1331 | Tests for the interaction of C<index> and threads. |
1332 | |
1333 | =item t/op/pat_thr.t |
1334 | |
1335 | Tests for the interaction of esoteric patterns and threads. |
1336 | |
1337 | =item t/op/qr_gc.t |
1338 | |
1339 | Test that C<qr> doesn't leak. |
1340 | |
1341 | =item t/op/reg_email_thr.t |
1342 | |
1343 | Tests for the interaction of regex recursion and threads. |
1344 | |
1345 | =item t/op/regexp_qr_embed_thr.t |
1346 | |
1347 | Tests for the interaction of patterns with embedded C<qr//> and threads. |
1348 | |
1349 | =item t/op/regexp_unicode_prop.t |
1350 | |
1351 | Tests for Unicode properties in regular expressions. |
1352 | |
1353 | =item t/op/regexp_unicode_prop_thr.t |
1354 | |
1355 | Tests for the interaction of Unicode properties and threads. |
1356 | |
1357 | =item t/op/reg_nc_tie.t |
1358 | |
1359 | Test the tied methods of C<Tie::Hash::NamedCapture>. |
1360 | |
eeab323f |
1361 | =item t/op/reg_posixcc.t |
5a00ee6a |
1362 | |
1363 | Check that POSIX character classes behave consistently. |
1364 | |
1365 | =item t/op/re.t |
1366 | |
1367 | Check that exportable C<re> functions in F<universal.c> work. |
1368 | |
1369 | =item t/op/setpgrpstack.t |
1370 | |
1371 | Check that C<setpgrp> works. |
1372 | |
1373 | =item t/op/substr_thr.t |
1374 | |
1375 | Tests for the interaction of C<substr> and threads. |
1376 | |
1377 | =item t/op/upgrade.t |
1378 | |
1379 | Check that upgrading and assigning scalars works. |
1380 | |
1381 | =item t/uni/lex_utf8.t |
1382 | |
1383 | Check that Unicode in the lexer works. |
1384 | |
1385 | =item t/uni/tie.t |
1386 | |
1387 | Check that Unicode and C<tie> work. |
1388 | |
1389 | =back |
1390 | |
1391 | =head1 Known Problems |
1392 | |
1393 | This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions |
1394 | from either 5.10.0 or 5.8.x. |
1395 | |
1396 | =over 4 |
1397 | |
1398 | =item * |
1399 | |
1400 | C<List::Util::first> misbehaves in the presence of a lexical C<$_> |
1401 | (typically introduced by C<my $_> or implicitly by C<given>). The variable |
1402 | which gets set for each iteration is the package variable C<$_>, not the |
1403 | lexical C<$_> [RT #67694]. |
1404 | |
1405 | A similar issue may occur in other modules that provide functions which |
1406 | take a block as their first argument, like |
1407 | |
1408 | foo { ... $_ ...} list |
1409 | |
1410 | =item * |
1411 | |
1412 | The C<charnames> pragma may generate a run-time error when a regex is |
1413 | interpolated [RT #56444]: |
1414 | |
1415 | use charnames ':full'; |
1416 | my $r1 = qr/\N{THAI CHARACTER SARA I}/; |
1417 | "foo" =~ $r1; # okay |
1418 | "foo" =~ /$r1+/; # runtime error |
1419 | |
1420 | A workaround is to generate the character outside of the regex: |
1421 | |
1422 | my $a = "\N{THAI CHARACTER SARA I}"; |
1423 | my $r1 = qr/$a/; |
1424 | |
1425 | =item * |
1426 | |
1427 | Some regexes may run much more slowly when run in a child thread compared |
1428 | with the thread the pattern was compiled into [RT #55600]. |
1429 | |
5a00ee6a |
1430 | =back |
1431 | |
1432 | =head1 Deprecations |
1433 | |
1434 | The following items are now deprecated. |
1435 | |
1436 | =over 4 |
1437 | |
1438 | =item * |
1439 | |
1440 | C<Switch> is buggy and should be avoided. From perl 5.11.0 onwards, it is |
1441 | intended that any use of the core version of this module will emit a |
1442 | warning, and that the module will eventually be removed from the core |
1443 | (probably in perl 5.14.0). See L<perlsyn/"Switch statements"> for its |
1444 | replacement. |
1445 | |
1446 | =item * |
1447 | |
0f97ff05 |
1448 | The following modules will be removed from the core distribution in a future |
1449 | release, and should be installed from CPAN instead. Distributions on CPAN |
1450 | which require these should add them to their prerequisites. The core versions |
1451 | of these modules warnings will issue a deprecation warning. |
1452 | |
1453 | =over |
1454 | |
1455 | =item * |
1456 | |
3f369777 |
1457 | C<Class::ISA> |
1458 | |
1459 | =item * |
1460 | |
0f97ff05 |
1461 | C<Pod::Plainer> |
1462 | |
3f369777 |
1463 | =item * |
1464 | |
1465 | C<Shell> |
1466 | |
0f97ff05 |
1467 | =back |
1468 | |
20e7cb7b |
1469 | Currently support to install from CPAN without a I<force> is C<TODO> in CPAN |
1470 | and CPANPLUS. This will be addressed before 5.12.0 ships. |
1471 | |
0f97ff05 |
1472 | =item * |
1473 | |
ad1d1c50 |
1474 | C<suidperl> has been removed. It used to provide a mechanism to |
5a00ee6a |
1475 | emulate setuid permission bits on systems that don't support it properly. |
1476 | |
ad1d1c50 |
1477 | =item * |
1478 | |
1479 | Deprecate assignment to $[ |
1480 | |
1481 | =item * |
1482 | |
1483 | Remove attrs, which has been deprecated since 1999/10/02. |
1484 | |
1485 | =item * |
1486 | |
1487 | Deprecate use of the attribute :locked on subroutines. |
1488 | |
1489 | =item * |
1490 | |
1491 | Deprecate using "locked" with the attributes pragma. |
1492 | |
1493 | =item * |
1494 | |
1495 | Deprecate using "unique" with the attributes pragma. |
1496 | |
1497 | =item * |
1498 | |
c3e6c235 |
1499 | warn if ++ or -- are unable to change the value because it's beyond the limit of representation |
ad1d1c50 |
1500 | |
1501 | This uses a new warnings category: "imprecision". |
1502 | |
ad1d1c50 |
1503 | =item * |
1504 | |
1505 | Make lc/uc/lcfirst/ucfirst warn when passed undef. |
1506 | |
1507 | =item * |
1508 | |
1509 | Show constant in "Useless use of a constant in void context" |
1510 | |
1511 | =item * |
1512 | |
1513 | Make the new warning report undef constants as undef |
1514 | |
1515 | =item * |
1516 | |
1517 | Add a new warning, "Prototype after '%s'" |
1518 | |
1519 | =item * |
1520 | |
1521 | Tweak the "Illegal character in prototype" warning so it's more precise when reporting illegal characters after _ |
1522 | |
1523 | =item * |
1524 | |
278eac9e |
1525 | Unintended interpolation of $\ in regex |
ad1d1c50 |
1526 | |
1527 | =item * |
1528 | |
1529 | Make overflow warnings in gmtime/localtime only occur when warnings are on |
1530 | |
1531 | =item * |
1532 | |
1533 | Improve mro merging error messages. |
1534 | |
1535 | They are now very similar to those produced by Algorithm::C3. |
1536 | |
1537 | =item * |
1538 | |
1539 | Amelioration of the error message "Unrecognized character %s in column %d" |
1540 | |
07e28eec |
1541 | Changes the error message to "Unrecognized character %s; marked by E<lt>-- |
1542 | HERE after %sE<lt>-- HERE near column %d". This should make it a little |
ad1d1c50 |
1543 | simpler to spot and correct the suspicious character. |
1544 | |
1545 | =item * |
1546 | |
1547 | Explicitely point to $. when it causes an uninitialized warning for ranges in scalar context |
1548 | |
d7ea0f56 |
1549 | |
c3e6c235 |
1550 | =item * |
d7ea0f56 |
1551 | |
1552 | Deprecated numerous Perl 4-era libraries: |
1553 | |
1554 | F<termcap.pl>, F<tainted.pl>, F<stat.pl>, F<shellwords.pl>, F<pwd.pl>, |
1555 | F<open3.pl>, F<open2.pl>, F<newgetopt.pl>, F<look.pl>, F<find.pl>, |
1556 | F<finddepth.pl>, F<importenv.pl>, F<hostname.pl>, F<getopts.pl>, |
1557 | F<getopt.pl>, F<getcwd.pl>, F<flush.pl>, F<fastcwd.pl>, F<exceptions.pl>, |
1558 | F<ctime.pl>, F<complete.pl>, F<cacheout.pl>, F<bigrat.pl>, F<bigint.pl>, |
1559 | F<bigfloat.pl>, F<assert.pl>, F<abbrev.pl>, F<dotsh.pl>, and |
1560 | F<timelocal.pl> are all now deprecated. Using them will incur a warning. |
1561 | |
5a00ee6a |
1562 | =back |
1563 | |
1564 | =head1 Acknowledgements |
1565 | |
0cd7f36e |
1566 | Some of the work in this release was funded by a TPF grant funded by |
1567 | Dijkmat BV, The Netherlands. |
5a00ee6a |
1568 | |
1569 | Steffen Mueller and David Golden in particular helped getting CPAN modules |
1570 | polished and synchronised with their in-core equivalents. |
1571 | |
1572 | Craig Berry was tireless in getting maint to run under VMS, no matter how |
1573 | many times we broke it for him. |
1574 | |
1575 | The other core committers contributed most of the changes, and applied most |
1576 | of the patches sent in by the hundreds of contributors listed in F<AUTHORS>. |
7120b314 |
1577 | |
ad1d1c50 |
1578 | Much of the work of categorizing changes in this perldelta file was contributed |
1579 | by the following porters using changelogger.bestpractical.com: |
1580 | |
1581 | Nicholas Clark, leon, shawn, alexm, rjbs, rafl, Pedro Melo, brunorc, |
1582 | anonymous, ☄, Tom Hukins, anonymous, Jesse, dagolden, Moritz Onken, |
1583 | Mark Fowler, chorny, anonymous, tmtm |
1584 | |
5a00ee6a |
1585 | Finally, thanks to Larry Wall, without whom none of this would be |
1586 | necessary. |
7120b314 |
1587 | |
1588 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
1589 | |
1590 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
1591 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
5a00ee6a |
1592 | bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be |
7120b314 |
1593 | information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page. |
1594 | |
1595 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
1596 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
1597 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
1598 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
1599 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
1600 | |
49f8307e |
1601 | If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it |
1602 | inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send |
1603 | it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription |
1604 | unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able |
1605 | to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help |
1606 | co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all |
5a00ee6a |
1607 | platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for |
1608 | security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently |
1609 | distributed on CPAN. |
49f8307e |
1610 | |
7120b314 |
1611 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
1612 | |
5a00ee6a |
1613 | The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details |
1614 | on what changed. |
7120b314 |
1615 | |
1616 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
1617 | |
1618 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
1619 | |
1620 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
1621 | |
1622 | =cut |
ad1d1c50 |
1623 | |
1624 | |