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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
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3 | perl572delta - what's new for perl v5.7.2 |
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4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
7 | This document describes differences between the 5.7.1 release and the |
8 | 5.7.2 release. |
9 | |
10 | (To view the differences between the 5.6.0 release and the 5.7.0 |
11 | release, see L<perl570delta>. To view the differences between the |
12 | 5.7.0 release and the 5.7.1 release, see L<perl571delta>.) |
13 | |
14 | =head1 Security Vulnerability Closed |
15 | |
16 | (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.) |
17 | |
18 | A security vulnerability affecting all Perl versions prior to 5.6.1 |
19 | was found in August 2000. The vulnerability does not affect default |
20 | installations and as far as is known affects only the Linux platform. |
21 | |
22 | You should upgrade your Perl to 5.6.1 as soon as possible. Patches |
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23 | for earlier releases exist but using the patches require full |
24 | recompilation from the source code anyway, so 5.6.1 is your best |
25 | choice. |
26 | |
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27 | See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt |
28 | for more information. |
29 | |
30 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
31 | |
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32 | =head2 64-bit platforms and malloc |
33 | |
267a12e6 |
34 | If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no more being |
35 | used because it simply does not work with 8-byte pointers. Also, |
36 | usually the system malloc on such platforms are much better optimized |
37 | for such large memory models than the Perl malloc. |
38 | |
d7b629d9 |
39 | =head2 AIX Dynaloading |
40 | |
12f54d27 |
41 | The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native |
42 | dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This |
43 | change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled |
44 | modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other |
45 | applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface. |
d7b629d9 |
46 | |
47 | =head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS |
48 | |
49 | The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being |
50 | statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient |
51 | TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test |
52 | Perl in such configurations. |
53 | |
2796c109 |
54 | =head2 Different Definition of the Unicode Character Classes \p{In...} |
55 | |
56 | As suggested by the Unicode consortium, the Unicode character classes |
57 | now prefer I<scripts> as opposed to I<blocks> (as defined by Unicode); |
58 | in Perl, when the C<\p{In....}> and the C<\p{In....}> regular expression |
59 | constructs are used. This has changed the definition of some of those |
60 | character classes. |
61 | |
62 | The difference between scripts and blocks is that scripts are the |
63 | glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while the blocks |
64 | are more artificial groupings of 256 characters based on the Unicode |
65 | numbering. |
66 | |
67 | In general this change results in more inclusive Unicode character |
68 | classes, but changes to the other direction also do take place: |
69 | for example while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin |
70 | characters and their various diacritic-adorned versions, it |
71 | does not include the various punctuation or digits (since they |
72 | are not solely C<Latin>). |
73 | |
74 | Changes in the character class semantics may have happened if a script |
75 | and a block happen to have the same name, for example C<Hebrew>. |
76 | In such cases the script wins and C<\p{InHebrew}> now means the script |
77 | definition of Hebrew. The block definition in still available, |
78 | though, by appending C<Block> to the name: C<\p{InHebrewBlock}> means |
79 | what C<\p{InHebrew}> meant in perl 5.6.0. For the full list |
80 | of affected character classes, see L<perlunicode/Blocks>. |
81 | |
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82 | =head2 Deprecations |
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83 | |
84 | The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird |
85 | use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0 |
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86 | and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be |
87 | implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather |
88 | ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash |
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89 | use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain |
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90 | available. |
91 | |
92 | The syntaxes C<@a->[...]> and C<@h->{...}> have now been deprecated. |
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93 | |
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94 | The suidperl is also considered to be too much a risk to continue |
95 | maintaining and the suidperl code is likely to be removed in a future |
96 | release. |
97 | |
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98 | The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument has been |
99 | deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its |
100 | implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to |
101 | disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead. |
102 | |
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103 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
104 | |
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105 | In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's |
106 | understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in |
107 | many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()> |
108 | and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their |
109 | deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers. |
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110 | |
111 | =over 4 |
112 | |
113 | =item * |
114 | |
115 | The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants |
116 | have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore |
117 | B<between digits>. |
118 | |
119 | =item * |
120 | |
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121 | GMAGIC (right-hand side magic) could in many cases such as string |
122 | concatenation be invoked too many times. |
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123 | |
124 | =item * |
125 | |
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126 | Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved |
127 | correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they |
128 | were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code. |
129 | |
130 | =item * |
131 | |
132 | Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that |
133 | were declared before the lexicals. |
134 | |
135 | =item * |
136 | |
137 | Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context. |
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138 | |
139 | =item * |
140 | |
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141 | The C<op_clear> and C<op_null> are now exported. |
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142 | |
143 | =item * |
144 | |
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145 | A new special regular expression variable has been introduced: |
146 | C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch). |
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147 | |
148 | =item * |
149 | |
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150 | L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the |
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151 | file timestamps to the current time. |
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152 | |
153 | =item * |
154 | |
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155 | The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and |
156 | Markov chain input. |
157 | |
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158 | =item * |
159 | |
160 | C<eval "v200"> now works. |
161 | |
162 | =item * |
163 | |
164 | VMS now works under PerlIO. |
165 | |
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166 | =back |
167 | |
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168 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
169 | |
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170 | =head2 New Modules and Distributions |
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171 | |
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172 | =over 4 |
173 | |
174 | =item * |
175 | |
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176 | L<Attribute::Handlers> - Simpler definition of attribute handlers |
177 | |
178 | =item * |
179 | |
180 | L<ExtUtils::Constant> - generate XS code to import C header constants |
181 | |
182 | =item * |
183 | |
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184 | L<I18N::Langinfo> - query locale information |
185 | |
186 | =item * |
187 | |
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188 | L<I18N::LangTags> - functions for dealing with RFC3066-style language tags |
189 | |
190 | =item * |
191 | |
192 | L<libnet> - a collection of perl5 modules related to network programming |
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193 | |
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194 | Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure. |
195 | |
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196 | =item * |
197 | |
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198 | L<List::Util> - selection of general-utility list subroutines |
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199 | |
200 | =item * |
201 | |
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202 | L<Locale::Maketext> - framework for localization |
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203 | |
204 | =item * |
205 | |
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206 | L<Memoize> - Make your functions faster by trading space for time |
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207 | |
208 | =item * |
209 | |
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210 | L<NEXT> - pseudo-class for method redispatch |
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211 | |
212 | =item * |
213 | |
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214 | L<Scalar::Util> - selection of general-utility scalar subroutines |
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215 | |
216 | =item * |
217 | |
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218 | L<Test::More> - yet another framework for writing test scripts |
219 | |
220 | =item * |
221 | |
222 | L<Test::Simple> - Basic utilities for writing tests |
223 | |
224 | =item * |
225 | |
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226 | L<Time::HiRes> - high resolution ualarm, usleep, and gettimeofday |
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227 | |
228 | =item * |
229 | |
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230 | L<Time::Piece> - Object Oriented time objects |
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231 | |
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232 | (Previously known as L<Time::Object>.) |
233 | |
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234 | =item * |
235 | |
236 | L<Time::Seconds> - a simple API to convert seconds to other date values |
237 | |
238 | =item * |
239 | |
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240 | L<UnicodeCD> - Unicode Character Database |
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241 | |
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242 | =back |
243 | |
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244 | =head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata |
245 | |
267a12e6 |
246 | =over 4 |
247 | |
248 | =item * |
249 | |
250 | L<B::Deparse> module has been significantly enhanced. It now |
251 | can deparse almost all of the standard test suite (so that the |
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252 | tests still succeed). There is a make target "test.deparse" |
253 | for trying this out. |
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254 | |
255 | =item * |
256 | |
257 | L<Class::Struct> now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor |
258 | is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument. |
259 | |
260 | =item * |
261 | |
262 | L<Cwd> extension is now (even) faster. |
263 | |
264 | =item * |
265 | |
266 | L<DB_File> extension has been updated to version 1.77. |
267 | |
268 | =item * |
269 | |
270 | L<Fcntl>, L<Socket>, and L<Sys::Syslog> have been rewritten to use the |
271 | new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>). |
272 | |
273 | =item * |
274 | |
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275 | L<File::Find> is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made |
276 | more portable. |
277 | |
278 | =item * |
279 | |
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280 | L<File::Glob> now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the |
281 | size of the returned list of filenames. |
282 | |
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283 | =item * |
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284 | |
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285 | L<IO::Socket::INET> now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning |
286 | that the operating system will make one up.) |
287 | |
288 | =item * |
289 | |
290 | The L<vars> pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables. |
291 | (Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.) |
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292 | |
293 | =back |
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294 | |
295 | =head1 Utility Changes |
296 | |
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297 | =over 4 |
298 | |
299 | =item * |
300 | |
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301 | The F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster. |
302 | |
303 | =item * |
304 | |
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305 | L<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs. |
306 | |
307 | =item * |
308 | |
267a12e6 |
309 | L<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect |
310 | newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is |
311 | more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a |
312 | prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined), |
313 | less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the |
314 | old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants), |
315 | and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your |
316 | extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy). |
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317 | L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs. |
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318 | |
319 | =item * |
320 | |
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321 | L<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet. |
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322 | |
323 | =item * |
324 | |
325 | The F<Pod::Html> (and thusly L<pod2html>) now allows specifying |
326 | a cache directory. |
327 | |
328 | =back |
329 | |
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330 | =head1 New Documentation |
331 | |
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332 | =over 4 |
333 | |
334 | =item * |
335 | |
336 | L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13> is an article about software localization, |
337 | originally published in The Perl Journal #13, republished here with |
338 | kind permission. |
339 | |
340 | =item * |
341 | |
342 | More README.$PLATFORM files have been converted into pod, which also |
343 | means that they also be installed as perl$PLATFORM documentation |
344 | files. The new files are L<perlapollo>, L<perlbeos>, L<perldgux>, |
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345 | L<perlhurd>, L<perlmint>, L<perlnetware>, L<perlplan9>, L<perlqnx>, |
346 | and L<perltru64>. |
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347 | |
348 | =item * |
349 | |
350 | The F<Todo> and F<Todo-5.6> files have been merged into L<perltodo>. |
351 | |
352 | =item * |
353 | |
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354 | Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in |
355 | L<perlhack>. There is a make target "perl.gprof" for generating a |
356 | gprofiled Perl executable. |
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357 | |
358 | =back |
359 | |
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360 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
361 | |
362 | =head2 New Or Improved Platforms |
363 | |
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364 | =over 4 |
365 | |
366 | =item * |
367 | |
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368 | AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the |
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369 | long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>. |
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370 | |
371 | =item * |
372 | |
373 | AtheOS (http://www.atheos.cx/) is a new platform. |
374 | |
375 | =item * |
376 | |
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377 | DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>. |
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378 | |
379 | =item * |
380 | |
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381 | DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2. |
382 | |
383 | =item * |
384 | |
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385 | Several MacOS (Classic) portability patches have been applied. We |
386 | hope to get a fully working port by 5.8.0. (The remaining problems |
387 | relate to the changed IO model of Perl.) See L<perlmacos>. |
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388 | |
389 | =item * |
390 | |
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391 | MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+ |
392 | filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.) |
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393 | |
394 | =item * |
395 | |
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396 | NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>. |
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397 | |
398 | =item * |
399 | |
400 | The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. |
401 | |
402 | =back |
403 | |
43d4bbc8 |
404 | =head2 Generic Improvements |
405 | |
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406 | =over 4 |
407 | |
408 | =item * |
409 | |
267a12e6 |
410 | In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be |
411 | somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure |
412 | parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>. |
413 | |
414 | =item * |
415 | |
416 | The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the |
417 | DB_File extension) was built is now available as |
418 | C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}> |
419 | from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG |
420 | DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C. |
421 | |
422 | =item * |
423 | |
699e893f |
424 | The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads |
425 | (C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the |
426 | Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>). |
267a12e6 |
427 | |
428 | =item * |
429 | |
430 | The C<B::Deparse> compiler backend has been so significantly improved |
431 | that almost the whole Perl test suite passes after being deparsed. A |
432 | make target has been added to help in further testing: C<make test.deparse>. |
433 | |
434 | =back |
435 | |
43d4bbc8 |
436 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
437 | |
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438 | =over 5 |
439 | |
440 | =item * |
441 | |
442 | The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names. |
443 | |
444 | =item * |
445 | |
446 | The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as |
447 | "0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35, |
448 | in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This |
449 | was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation |
450 | where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now |
451 | Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts. |
452 | |
453 | =item * |
454 | |
455 | L<dprofpp> -R didn't work. |
456 | |
457 | =item * |
458 | |
459 | PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work. |
460 | |
461 | =item * |
462 | |
463 | L<Sys::Syslog> ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant. |
464 | |
465 | =back |
466 | |
43d4bbc8 |
467 | =head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes |
468 | |
267a12e6 |
469 | =over 4 |
470 | |
471 | =item * |
472 | |
473 | Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds |
474 | with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness |
475 | and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have |
476 | fixed the modfl() bug. |
477 | |
478 | =back |
479 | |
43d4bbc8 |
480 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
481 | |
267a12e6 |
482 | =over 4 |
483 | |
484 | =item * |
485 | |
486 | In the regular expression diagnostics the C<E<lt>E<lt> HERE> marker |
487 | introduced in 5.7.0 has been changed to be C<E<lt>-- HERE> since too |
488 | many people found the C<E<lt>E<lt>> to be too similar to here-document |
489 | starters. |
490 | |
491 | =item * |
492 | |
493 | If you try to L<perlfunc/pack> a number less than 0 or larger than 255 |
494 | using the C<"C"> format you will get an optional warning. Similarly |
495 | for the C<"c"> format and a number less than -128 or more than 127. |
496 | |
497 | =item * |
498 | |
499 | Certain regex modifiers such as C<(?o)> make sense only if applied to |
500 | the entire regex. You will an optional warning if you try to do otherwise. |
501 | |
502 | =item * |
503 | |
504 | Using arrays or hashes as references (e.g. C<%foo->{bar}> has been |
505 | deprecated for a while. Now you will get an optional warning. |
506 | |
507 | =back |
508 | |
9108dd47 |
509 | =head1 Source Code Enhancements |
510 | |
511 | =head2 MAGIC constants |
512 | |
513 | The MAGIC constants (e.g. C<'P'>) have been macrofied |
514 | (e.g. C<PERL_MAGIC_TIED>) for better source code readability |
515 | and maintainability. |
516 | |
517 | =head2 Better commented code |
518 | |
519 | F<perly.c>, F<sv.c>, and F<sv.h> have now been extensively commented. |
43d4bbc8 |
520 | |
521 | =head2 Regex pre-/post-compilation items matched up |
522 | |
523 | The regex compiler now maintains a structure that identifies nodes in |
524 | the compiled bytecode with the corresponding syntactic features of the |
525 | original regex expression. The information is attached to the new |
526 | C<offsets> member of the C<struct regexp>. See L<perldebguts> for more |
527 | complete information. |
528 | |
9108dd47 |
529 | =head2 gcc -Wall |
530 | |
531 | The C code has been made much more C<gcc -Wall> clean. Some warning |
532 | messages still remain, though, so if you are compiling with gcc you |
533 | will see some warnings about dubious practices. The warnings are |
534 | being worked on. |
535 | |
43d4bbc8 |
536 | =head1 New Tests |
537 | |
267a12e6 |
538 | Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> subsection. |
539 | |
699e893f |
540 | The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls. |
541 | (This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved |
542 | to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.) |
267a12e6 |
543 | |
43d4bbc8 |
544 | =head1 Known Problems |
545 | |
546 | Note that unlike other sections in this document (which describe |
547 | changes since 5.7.0) this section is cumulative containing known |
548 | problems for all the 5.7 releases. |
549 | |
81633404 |
550 | =head2 AIX |
551 | |
552 | =over 4 |
553 | |
554 | =item * |
555 | |
d7d85e39 |
556 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics |
557 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. |
558 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with |
559 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library |
560 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time |
561 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and |
562 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. |
81633404 |
563 | |
564 | =item * |
565 | |
566 | vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl |
43d4bbc8 |
567 | |
568 | The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code, |
569 | resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests |
570 | are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least |
571 | vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly. |
572 | "lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell you the vac version. |
573 | |
81633404 |
574 | =back |
575 | |
d7b629d9 |
576 | =head2 Amiga Perl Invoking Mystery |
577 | |
578 | One cannot call Perl using the C<volume:> syntax, that is, C<perl -v> |
579 | works, but for example C<bin:perl -v> doesn't. The exact reason is |
580 | known but the current suspect is the F<ixemul> library. |
581 | |
43d4bbc8 |
582 | =head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure' |
583 | |
584 | Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead. |
585 | |
19d94770 |
586 | =head2 Cygwin intermittent failures of lib/Memoize/t/expire_file 11 and 12 |
81633404 |
587 | |
588 | The subtests 11 and 12 sometimes fail and sometimes work. |
589 | |
590 | =head2 HP-UX lib/io_multihomed Fails When LP64-Configur |
43d4bbc8 |
591 | |
592 | The lib/io_multihomed test may hang in HP-UX if Perl has been |
593 | configured to be 64-bit. Because other 64-bit platforms do not hang in |
594 | this test, HP-UX is suspect. All other tests pass in 64-bit HP-UX. The |
595 | test attempts to create and connect to "multihomed" sockets (sockets |
596 | which have multiple IP addresses). |
597 | |
81633404 |
598 | =head2 HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured |
43d4bbc8 |
599 | |
600 | If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the |
601 | subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the |
602 | subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the |
603 | subtest 9 failed. |
604 | |
43d4bbc8 |
605 | =head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48 |
606 | |
607 | No known fix. |
608 | |
ee9f9f3a |
609 | =head2 OS/390 |
610 | |
611 | OS/390 has rather many test failures but the situation is actually |
612 | better than it was in 5.6.0, it's just that so many new modules and |
613 | tests have been added. |
614 | |
615 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
616 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
617 | ../ext/B/Deparse.t 14 1 7.14% 14 |
618 | ../ext/B/Showlex.t 1 1 100.00% 1 |
619 | ../ext/Encode/Encode/Tcl.t 610 13 2.13% 592 594 596 598 |
620 | 600 602 604-610 |
621 | ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 113 28928 5 3 60.00% 3-5 |
622 | ../ext/POSIX/POSIX.t 29 1 3.45% 14 |
623 | ../ext/Storable/t/lock.t 255 65280 5 3 60.00% 3-5 |
624 | ../lib/locale.t 129 33024 117 19 16.24% 99-117 |
625 | ../lib/warnings.t 434 1 0.23% 75 |
626 | ../lib/ExtUtils.t 27 1 3.70% 25 |
627 | ../lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigintpm.t 1190 1 0.08% 1145 |
628 | ../lib/Unicode/UCD.t 81 48 59.26% 1-16 49-64 66-81 |
629 | ../lib/User/pwent.t 9 1 11.11% 4 |
630 | op/pat.t 660 6 0.91% 242-243 424-425 |
631 | 626-627 |
632 | op/split.t 0 9 ?? ?? % ?? |
633 | op/taint.t 174 3 1.72% 156 162 168 |
634 | op/tr.t 70 3 4.29% 50 58-59 |
635 | Failed 16/422 test scripts, 96.21% okay. 105/23251 subtests failed, 99.55% okay. |
636 | |
c4b279ff |
637 | =head2 op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 |
43d4bbc8 |
638 | |
639 | The op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 are known to fail on some platforms. |
640 | Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX. |
641 | The failing platforms do not comply with the ANSI C Standard, line |
642 | 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to be exact. (They produce |
d5f2cb03 |
643 | something other than "1" and "-1" when formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using |
43d4bbc8 |
644 | the printf format "%.0f", most often they produce "0" and "-0".) |
645 | |
646 | =head2 Failure of Thread tests |
647 | |
45215428 |
648 | B<Note that support for 5.005-style threading remains experimental.> |
649 | |
650 | The following tests are known to fail due to fundamental problems in |
651 | the 5.005 threading implementation. These are not new failures--Perl |
652 | 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have these tests. |
653 | |
c4b279ff |
654 | lib/autouse.t 4 |
655 | t/lib/thr5005.t 19-20 |
656 | |
81633404 |
657 | =head2 UNICOS |
658 | |
659 | =over 4 |
660 | |
661 | =item * |
662 | |
663 | ext/POSIX/sigaction subtests 6 and 13 may fail. |
664 | |
665 | =item * |
666 | |
667 | lib/ExtUtils may spuriously claim that subtest 28 failed, |
668 | which is interesting since the test only has 27 tests. |
669 | |
670 | =item * |
671 | |
672 | Numerous numerical test failures |
c4b279ff |
673 | |
674 | op/numconvert 209,210,217,218 |
81633404 |
675 | op/override 7 |
c4b279ff |
676 | ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes 9 |
677 | lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigintpm 1145 |
678 | lib/Math/Trig 25 |
679 | |
680 | These tests fail because of yet unresolved floating point inaccuracies. |
681 | |
81633404 |
682 | =back |
683 | |
81633404 |
684 | =head2 UTS |
685 | |
91144103 |
686 | There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts>. |
0aa7ccc3 |
687 | |
688 | =head2 VMS |
689 | |
ee9f9f3a |
690 | Rather many tests are failing in VMS but that actually more tests |
691 | succeed in VMS than they used to, it's just that there are many, |
692 | many more tests than there used to be. |
693 | |
694 | Here are the known failures from some compiler/platform combinations. |
695 | |
0aa7ccc3 |
696 | DEC C V5.3-006 on OpenVMS VAX V6.2 |
697 | |
698 | [-.ext.list.util.t]tainted..............FAILED on test 3 |
699 | [-.ext.posix]sigaction..................FAILED on test 7 |
50bd9457 |
700 | [-.ext.time.hires]hires.................FAILED on test 14 |
0aa7ccc3 |
701 | [-.lib.file.find]taint..................FAILED on test 17 |
702 | [-.lib.math.bigint.t]bigintpm...........FAILED on test 1183 |
703 | [-.lib.test.simple.t]exit...............FAILED on test 1 |
704 | [.lib]vmsish............................FAILED on test 13 |
705 | [.op]sprintf............................FAILED on test 12 |
706 | Failed 8/399 tests, 91.23% okay. |
707 | |
d5f2cb03 |
708 | DEC C V6.0-001 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.2-1 and |
709 | Compaq C V6.2-008 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.1 |
0aa7ccc3 |
710 | |
711 | [-.ext.list.util.t]tainted..............FAILED on test 3 |
712 | [-.lib.file.find]taint..................FAILED on test 17 |
713 | [-.lib.test.simple.t]exit...............FAILED on test 1 |
714 | [.lib]vmsish............................FAILED on test 13 |
715 | Failed 4/399 tests, 92.48% okay. |
81633404 |
716 | |
20a07785 |
717 | Compac C V6.4-005 on OpenVMS Alpha 7.2.1 |
718 | |
719 | [-.ext.b]showlex........................FAILED on test 1 |
720 | [-.ext.list.util.t]tainted..............FAILED on test 3 |
721 | [-.lib.file.find]taint..................FAILED on test 17 |
722 | [-.lib.test.simple.t]exit...............FAILED on test 1 |
723 | [.lib]vmsish............................FAILED on test 13 |
724 | [.op]misc...............................FAILED on test 49 |
725 | Failed 6/401 tests, 92.77% okay. |
726 | |
d0c93ae9 |
727 | =head2 Win32 |
728 | |
729 | In multi-CPU boxes there are some problems with the I/O buffering: |
730 | some output may appear twice. |
731 | |
43d4bbc8 |
732 | =head2 Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory |
733 | |
734 | use Tie::Hash; |
735 | tie my %tie_hash => 'Tie::StdHash'; |
736 | |
737 | ... |
738 | |
739 | local($tie_hash{Foo}) = 1; # leaks |
740 | |
741 | Code like the above is known to leak memory every time the local() |
742 | is executed. |
743 | |
744 | =head2 Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden |
745 | |
746 | Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and |
747 | hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting |
748 | frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is |
749 | for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt). |
750 | |
699e893f |
751 | =head2 Variable Attributes are not Currently Usable for Tieing |
752 | |
753 | This limitation will hopefully be fixed in future. (Subroutine |
754 | attributes work fine for tieing, see L<Attribute::Handlers>). |
755 | |
43d4bbc8 |
756 | =head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles |
757 | |
758 | Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with |
759 | `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets |
760 | default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile |
761 | at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good |
762 | solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate |
763 | non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config |
764 | hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are |
765 | having problems can try configuring themselves without the |
766 | largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the |
767 | solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether |
768 | one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at |
769 | all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is |
770 | platform-dependent. |
771 | |
772 | =head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental |
773 | |
774 | The compiler suite is slowly getting better but is nowhere near |
775 | working order yet. |
776 | |
81633404 |
777 | =head2 The Long Double Support is Still Experimental |
778 | |
779 | The ability to configure Perl's numbers to use "long doubles", |
780 | floating point numbers of hopefully better accuracy, is still |
781 | experimental. The implementations of long doubles are not yet |
782 | widespread and the existing implementations are not quite mature |
783 | or standardised, therefore trying to support them is a rare |
784 | and moving target. The gain of more precision may also be offset |
785 | by slowdown in computations (more bits to move around, and the |
786 | operations are more likely to be executed by less optimised |
787 | libraries). |
788 | |
43d4bbc8 |
789 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
790 | |
791 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
792 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
793 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be |
794 | information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl Home Page. |
795 | |
796 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
797 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
798 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
799 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
800 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
801 | |
802 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
803 | |
804 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
805 | |
806 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
807 | |
808 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
809 | |
810 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
811 | |
812 | =head1 HISTORY |
813 | |
814 | Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <F<jhi@iki.fi>>, with many contributions |
815 | from The Perl Porters and Perl Users submitting feedback and patches. |
816 | |
817 | Send omissions or corrections to <F<perlbug@perl.org>>. |
818 | |
819 | =cut |