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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perldelta - what is new for perl v5.9.4 |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
7 | This document describes differences between the 5.9.3 and the 5.9.4 |
8 | developement releases. See L<perl590delta>, L<perl591delta>, L<perl592delta> |
9 | and L<perl593delta> for the differences between 5.8.0 and 5.9.3. |
10 | |
11 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
12 | |
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13 | =head2 chdir FOO |
14 | |
15 | A bareword argument to chdir is now recognized as a file handle. |
16 | Earlier releases interpreted the bareword as a directory name. |
17 | |
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18 | =head2 Handling of pmc files |
19 | |
20 | TODO XXX explain what are pmc files |
21 | |
22 | .pmc files are always loaded, even if they are older than a matching .pm |
23 | file. (This trick is used by Pugs.) |
24 | |
25 | =head2 @- and @+ in patterns |
26 | |
27 | The special arrays C<@-> and C<@+> are no longer interpolated in regular |
28 | expressions. |
29 | |
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30 | =head2 $AUTOLOAD can now be tainted |
31 | |
32 | If you call a subroutine by a tainted name, and if it defers to an |
33 | AUTOLOAD function, then $AUTOLOAD will be (correctly) tainted. |
34 | |
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35 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
36 | |
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37 | =head2 state() variables |
38 | |
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39 | =head2 UNIVERSAL:DOES() |
40 | |
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41 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
42 | |
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43 | C<encoding::warnings> is now a lexical pragma. |
44 | |
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45 | C<threads> |
46 | |
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47 | =head2 New Core Modules |
48 | |
49 | =over 4 |
50 | |
51 | =item * |
52 | |
53 | C<Module::Build> has been added. |
54 | |
55 | =item * |
56 | |
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57 | C<Hash::Util::FieldHash> has been added. This module provides support for |
58 | I<field hashes>: hashes that maintain an association of a reference with a |
59 | value, in a thread-safe garbage-collected way. |
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60 | |
61 | =item * |
62 | |
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63 | C<Win32API::File> has been added (for Windows builds). This module |
64 | provides low-level access to Win32 system API calls for files/dirs. |
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65 | |
66 | =back |
67 | |
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68 | =head1 Utility Changes |
69 | |
70 | =head1 Documentation |
71 | |
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72 | =head2 New manpage, perlpragma |
73 | |
74 | =head2 New manpage, perlreguts |
75 | |
76 | =head2 New manpage, perlunitut |
77 | |
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78 | =head1 Performance Enhancements |
79 | |
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80 | Constants (Nicholas) |
81 | |
82 | Regular expressions (Yves) |
83 | |
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84 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
85 | |
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86 | =head2 Ports |
87 | |
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88 | Perl has been reported to work on DragonFlyBSD. |
89 | |
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90 | =head2 Compilation improvements |
91 | |
92 | All F<ppport.h> files in the XS modules bundled with perl are now |
93 | autogenerated at build time. |
94 | |
95 | =head2 New probes |
96 | |
97 | The configuration process now detects whether strlcat and strlcpy are |
98 | available. When they are not available, perl's own version is used (from |
99 | Russ Allbery's public domain implementation). Various places in the perl |
100 | interpreter now uses them. |
101 | |
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102 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
103 | |
104 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
105 | |
106 | =head1 Changed Internals |
107 | |
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108 | Arenas |
109 | |
110 | Mathoms and factorizations (many PP functions are now shared for several ops) |
111 | |
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112 | =head1 Known Problems |
113 | |
114 | =head2 Platform Specific Problems |
115 | |
116 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
117 | |
118 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
119 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
120 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ . There may also be |
121 | information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page. |
122 | |
123 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
124 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
125 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
126 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
127 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
128 | |
129 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
130 | |
131 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
132 | |
133 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
134 | |
135 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
136 | |
137 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
138 | |
139 | =cut |