extra code in pp_concat, Take 2
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / pod / perl586delta.pod
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bab9b098 1=head1 NAME
2
3perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7This document describes differences between the 5.8.5 release and
8the 5.8.6 release.
9
10=head1 Incompatible Changes
11
12There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.5.
13
14=head1 Core Enhancements
15
16The perl interpreter is now more tolerant of UTF-16-encoded scripts.
17
18On Win32, Perl can now use non-IFS compatible LSPs, which allows Perl to
19work in conjunction with firewalls such as McAfee Guardian. For full details
20see the file F<README.win32>, particularly if you're running Win95.
21
22=head1 Modules and Pragmata
23
24=over 4
25
26=item *
27
28With the C<base> pragma, an intermediate class with no fields used to messes
29up private fields in the base class. This has been fixed.
30
31=item *
32
33Cwd upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
34
35=item *
36
37Devel::PPPort upgraded to version 3.03
38
39=item *
40
41File::Spec upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
42
43=item *
44
45Encode upgraded to version 2.08
46
47=item *
48
49ExtUtils::MakeMaker remains at version 6.17, as later stable releases currently
50available on CPAN have some issues with core modules on some core platforms.
51
52=item *
53
54I18N::LangTags upgraded to version 0.35
55
56=item *
57
58Math::BigInt upgraded to version 1.73
59
60=item *
61
62Math::BigRat upgraded to version 0.13
63
64=item *
65
66MIME::Base64 upgraded to version 3.05
67
68=item *
69
70POSIX::sigprocmask function can now retrieve the current signal mask without
71also setting it.
72
73=item *
74
75Time::HiRes upgraded to version 1.65
76
77=back
78
79=head1 Utility Changes
80
81Perl has a new -dt command-line flag, which enables threads support in the
82debugger.
83
84=head1 Performance Enhancements
85
86C<reverse sort ...> is now optimized to sort in reverse, avoiding the
87generation of a temporary intermediate list.
88
89C<for (reverse @foo)> now iterates in reverse, avoiding the generation of a
90temporary reversed list.
91
92=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
93
94The regexp engine is now more robust when given invalid utf8 input, as is
95sometimes generated by buggy XS modules.
96
97C<foreach> on threads::shared array used to be able to crash Perl. This bug
98has now been fixed.
99
100A regexp in C<STDOUT>'s destructor used to coredump, because the regexp pad
101was already freed. This has been fixed.
102
103C<goto &> is now more robust - bugs in deep recursion and chained C<goto &>
104have been fixed.
105
106Using C<delete> on an array no longer leaks memory. A C<pop> of an item from a
107shared array reference no longer causes a leak.
108
109C<eval_sv()> failing a taint test could corrupt the stack - this has been
110fixed.
111
112On platforms with 64 bit pointers numeric comparison operators used to
113erroneously compare the addresses of references that are overloaded, rather
114than using the overloaded values. This has been fixed.
115
116C<read> into a UTF8-encoded buffer with an offset off the end of the buffer
117no longer mis-calculates buffer lengths.
118
119Although Perl has promised since version 5.8 that C<sort()> would be
120stable, the two cases C<sort {$b cmp $a}> and C<< sort {$b <=> $a} >> could
121produce non-stable sorts. This is corrected in perl5.8.6.
122
123Localising C<$^D> no longer generates a diagnostic message about valid -D
124flags.
125
126=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
127
128For -t and -T,
129 Too late for "-T" option
130has been changed to the more informative
131 "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
132
133=head1 Changed Internals
134
135From now on all applications embedding perl will behave as if perl
136were compiled with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. See "Environment access" in
137the F<INSTALL> file for details.
138
139Most C<C> source files now have comments at the top explaining their purpose,
140which should help anyone wishing to get an overview of the implementation.
141
142=head1 New Tests
143
144There are significantly more tests for the C<B> suite of modules.
145
146=head1 Reporting Bugs
147
148If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
149recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
150bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be
151information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
152
153If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
154program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
155to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
156output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
157analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search
158the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/
159
160=head1 SEE ALSO
161
162The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
163
164The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
165
166The F<README> file for general stuff.
167
168The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
169
170=cut