Commit | Line | Data |
ba370e9b |
1 | =head1 NAME |
cc0fca54 |
2 | |
f39f21d8 |
3 | perldelta - what is new for perl v5.8.0 |
cc0fca54 |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
44da0e71 |
7 | This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release |
8 | and the 5.8.0 release. |
f39f21d8 |
9 | |
44da0e71 |
10 | Many of the bug fixes in 5.8.0 were already seen in the 5.6.1 |
11 | maintenance release since the two releases were kept closely |
12 | coordinated. |
13 | |
4f8e5944 |
14 | If you are upgrading from Perl 5.005_03, you might also want |
15 | to read L<perl56delta>. |
16 | |
44da0e71 |
17 | =head1 Highlights In 5.8.0 |
76663d67 |
18 | |
19 | =over 4 |
20 | |
21 | =item * |
22 | |
23 | Better Unicode support |
24 | |
25 | =item * |
26 | |
27 | New Thread Implementation |
28 | |
29 | =item * |
30 | |
31 | Many New Modules |
32 | |
33 | =item * |
34 | |
35 | Better Numeric Accuracy |
36 | |
37 | =item * |
38 | |
39 | Safe Signals |
40 | |
41 | =item * |
42 | |
43 | More Extensive Regression Testing |
44 | |
45 | =back |
46 | |
f39f21d8 |
47 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
48 | |
6cc60dfb |
49 | =head2 Binary Incompatibility |
50 | |
764bd7e0 |
51 | B<Perl 5.8 is not binary compatible with earlier releases of Perl.> |
52 | |
53 | B<You have to recompile your XS modules.> |
54 | |
55 | (Pure Perl modules should continue to work.) |
56 | |
57 | The major reason for the discontinity is the new IO architecture |
365d6a78 |
58 | called PerlIO. PerlIO is the default configuration because |
764bd7e0 |
59 | without it many new features of Perl 5.8 cannot be used. In other |
60 | words: you just have to recompile your modules, sorry about that. |
6cc60dfb |
61 | |
365d6a78 |
62 | In future releases of Perl, non-PerlIO aware XS modules may become |
6cc60dfb |
63 | completely unsupported. This shouldn't be too difficult for module |
64 | authors, however: PerlIO has been designed as a drop-in replacement |
65 | (at the source code level) for the stdio interface. |
66 | |
764bd7e0 |
67 | Depending on your platform, there are also other reasons why |
68 | we decided to break binary compatibility, please read on. |
69 | |
77c8cf41 |
70 | =head2 64-bit platforms and malloc |
71 | |
057b7f2b |
72 | If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no longer being |
c2e23569 |
73 | used because it does not work well with 8-byte pointers. Also, |
61947107 |
74 | usually the system mallocs on such platforms are much better optimized |
c2e23569 |
75 | for such large memory models than the Perl malloc. Some memory-hungry |
76 | Perl applications like the PDL don't work well with Perl's malloc. |
77 | Finally, other applications than Perl (like modperl) tend to prefer |
78 | the system malloc. Such platforms include Alpha and 64-bit HPPA, |
79 | MIPS, PPC, and Sparc. |
77c8cf41 |
80 | |
81 | =head2 AIX Dynaloading |
82 | |
83 | The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native |
84 | dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This |
85 | change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled |
86 | modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other |
87 | applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface. |
88 | |
95f0a2f1 |
89 | =head2 Attributes for C<my> variables now handled at run-time. |
90 | |
91 | The C<my EXPR : ATTRS> syntax now applies variable attributes at |
92 | run-time. (Subroutine and C<our> variables still get attributes applied |
93 | at compile-time.) See L<attributes> for additional details. In particular, |
94 | however, this allows variable attributes to be useful for C<tie> interfaces, |
c4f1ce08 |
95 | which was a deficiency of earlier releases. Note that the new semantics |
96 | doesn't work with the Attribute::Handlers module (as of version 0.76). |
95f0a2f1 |
97 | |
77c8cf41 |
98 | =head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS |
99 | |
100 | The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being |
101 | statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient |
102 | TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test |
103 | Perl in such configurations. |
104 | |
00bb525a |
105 | =head2 IEEE-format Floating Point Default on OpenVMS Alpha |
106 | |
107 | Perl now uses IEEE format (T_FLOAT) as the default internal floating |
108 | point format on OpenVMS Alpha, potentially breaking binary compatibility |
109 | with external libraries or existing data. G_FLOAT is still available as |
110 | a configuration option. The default on VAX (D_FLOAT) has not changed. |
111 | |
eb0cc9e3 |
112 | =head2 New Unicode Properties |
113 | |
114 | Unicode I<scripts> are now supported. Scripts are similar to (and superior |
115 | to) Unicode I<blocks>. The difference between scripts and blocks is that |
116 | scripts are the glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while |
117 | the blocks are more artificial groupings of (mostly) 256 characters based |
118 | on the Unicode numbering. |
119 | |
120 | In general, scripts are more inclusive, but not universally so. For |
121 | example, while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin characters and |
122 | their various diacritic-adorned versions, it does not include the various |
123 | punctuation or digits (since they are not solely C<Latin>). |
124 | |
125 | A number of other properties are now supported, including C<\p{L&}>, |
126 | C<\p{Any}> C<\p{Assigned}>, C<\p{Unassigned}>, C<\p{Blank}> and |
127 | C<\p{SpacePerl}> (along with their C<\P{...}> versions, of course). |
128 | See L<perlunicode> for details, and more additions. |
129 | |
130 | The C<In> or C<Is> prefix to names used with the C<\p{...}> and C<\P{...}> |
131 | are now almost always optional. The only exception is that a C<In> prefix |
132 | is required to signify a Unicode block when a block name conflicts with a |
133 | script name. For example, C<\p{Tibetan}> refers to the script, while |
134 | C<\p{InTibetan}> refers to the block. When there is no name conflict, you |
135 | can omit the C<In> from the block name (e.g. C<\p{BraillePatterns}>), but |
136 | to be safe, it's probably best to always use the C<In>). |
77c8cf41 |
137 | |
c2e23569 |
138 | =head2 REF(...) Instead Of SCALAR(...) |
77c8cf41 |
139 | |
057b7f2b |
140 | A reference to a reference now stringifies as "REF(0x81485ec)" instead |
c2e23569 |
141 | of "SCALAR(0x81485ec)" in order to be more consistent with the return |
142 | value of ref(). |
77c8cf41 |
143 | |
79f69e33 |
144 | =head2 pack/unpack D/F recycled |
145 | |
66023b77 |
146 | The undocumented pack/unpack template letters D/F have been recycled |
79f69e33 |
147 | for better use: now they stand for long double (if supported by the |
148 | platform) and NV (Perl internal floating point type). (They used |
6123004a |
149 | to be aliases for d/f, but you never knew that.) |
79f69e33 |
150 | |
c2e23569 |
151 | =head2 Deprecations |
77c8cf41 |
152 | |
61947107 |
153 | =over 4 |
77c8cf41 |
154 | |
61947107 |
155 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
156 | |
61947107 |
157 | The semantics of bless(REF, REF) were unclear and until someone proves |
158 | it to make some sense, it is forbidden. |
f39f21d8 |
159 | |
160 | =item * |
161 | |
c2e23569 |
162 | The obsolete chat2 library that should never have been allowed |
163 | to escape the laboratory has been decommissioned. |
f39f21d8 |
164 | |
165 | =item * |
166 | |
58175c9b |
167 | The builtin dump() function has probably outlived most of its |
168 | usefulness. The core-dumping functionality will remain in future |
169 | available as an explicit call to C<CORE::dump()>, but in future |
170 | releases the behaviour of an unqualified C<dump()> call may change. |
171 | |
172 | =item * |
173 | |
61947107 |
174 | The very dusty examples in the eg/ directory have been removed. |
175 | Suggestions for new shiny examples welcome but the main issue is that |
176 | the examples need to be documented, tested and (most importantly) |
177 | maintained. |
f39f21d8 |
178 | |
179 | =item * |
180 | |
c2e23569 |
181 | The (bogus) escape sequences \8 and \9 now give an optional warning |
182 | ("Unrecognized escape passed through"). There is no need to \-escape |
183 | any C<\w> character. |
f39f21d8 |
184 | |
185 | =item * |
186 | |
c2e23569 |
187 | The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted |
44da0e71 |
188 | alphabetically to be csh-compliant (which is what happened before |
189 | in most UNIX platforms). (bsd_glob() does still sort platform |
c2e23569 |
190 | natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.) |
f39f21d8 |
191 | |
192 | =item * |
193 | |
44da0e71 |
194 | Spurious syntax errors generated in certain situations, when glob() |
195 | caused File::Glob to be loaded for the first time, have been fixed. |
196 | |
197 | =item * |
198 | |
c2e23569 |
199 | Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that |
200 | depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new |
201 | algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order. |
202 | More details are in L</"Performance Enhancements">. |
f39f21d8 |
203 | |
204 | =item * |
205 | |
61947107 |
206 | lstat(FILEHANDLE) now gives a warning because the operation makes no sense. |
207 | In future releases this may become a fatal error. |
f39f21d8 |
208 | |
209 | =item * |
210 | |
057b7f2b |
211 | The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument) has been |
c2e23569 |
212 | deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its |
213 | implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to |
214 | disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead. |
61947107 |
215 | |
216 | =item * |
217 | |
c2e23569 |
218 | The unimplemented POSIX regex features [[.cc.]] and [[=c=]] are still |
219 | recognised but now cause fatal errors. The previous behaviour of |
220 | ignoring them by default and warning if requested was unacceptable |
221 | since it, in a way, falsely promised that the features could be used. |
61947107 |
222 | |
223 | =item * |
224 | |
c2e23569 |
225 | The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird |
226 | use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0 |
227 | and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be |
228 | implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather |
229 | ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash |
230 | use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain |
a6d3fe4f |
231 | available. The I<restricted hashes> interface is expected to |
232 | be the replacement interface (see L<Hash::Util>). |
61947107 |
233 | |
234 | =item * |
235 | |
aecce728 |
236 | The syntaxes C<< @a->[...] >> and C<< %h->{...} >> have now been deprecated. |
61947107 |
237 | |
238 | =item * |
239 | |
c2e23569 |
240 | After years of trying the suidperl is considered to be too complex to |
241 | ever be considered truly secure. The suidperl functionality is likely |
242 | to be removed in a future release. |
243 | |
244 | =item * |
245 | |
6ba475fe |
246 | The 5.005 threads model (module C<Thread>) is deprecated and expected |
247 | to be removed in Perl 5.10. Multithreaded code should be migrated to |
248 | the new ithreads model (see L<threads> and L<threads::shared>). |
249 | |
250 | =item * |
251 | |
c2e23569 |
252 | The long deprecated uppercase aliases for the string comparison |
253 | operators (EQ, NE, LT, LE, GE, GT) have now been removed. |
254 | |
255 | =item * |
256 | |
257 | The tr///C and tr///U features have been removed and will not return; |
258 | the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar |
259 | functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...). |
f39f21d8 |
260 | |
420cdfc1 |
261 | =item * |
262 | |
263 | Earlier Perls treated "sub foo (@bar)" as equivalent to "sub foo (@)". |
264 | The prototypes are now checked at compile-time for invalid characters. |
265 | An optional warning is generated ("Illegal character in prototype...") |
266 | but this may be upgraded to a fatal error in a future release. |
267 | |
f39f21d8 |
268 | =back |
269 | |
61947107 |
270 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
271 | |
77c8cf41 |
272 | =head2 PerlIO is Now The Default |
f39f21d8 |
273 | |
274 | =over 4 |
275 | |
276 | =item * |
277 | |
77c8cf41 |
278 | IO is now by default done via PerlIO rather than system's "stdio". |
279 | PerlIO allows "layers" to be "pushed" onto a file handle to alter the |
280 | handle's behaviour. Layers can be specified at open time via 3-arg |
281 | form of open: |
f39f21d8 |
282 | |
77c8cf41 |
283 | open($fh,'>:crlf :utf8', $path) || ... |
f39f21d8 |
284 | |
77c8cf41 |
285 | or on already opened handles via extended C<binmode>: |
f39f21d8 |
286 | |
77c8cf41 |
287 | binmode($fh,':encoding(iso-8859-7)'); |
f39f21d8 |
288 | |
77c8cf41 |
289 | The built-in layers are: unix (low level read/write), stdio (as in |
290 | previous Perls), perlio (re-implementation of stdio buffering in a |
291 | portable manner), crlf (does CRLF <=> "\n" translation as on Win32, |
292 | but available on any platform). A mmap layer may be available if |
293 | platform supports it (mostly UNIXes). |
f39f21d8 |
294 | |
77c8cf41 |
295 | Layers to be applied by default may be specified via the 'open' pragma. |
296 | |
297 | See L</"Installation and Configuration Improvements"> for the effects |
298 | of PerlIO on your architecture name. |
f39f21d8 |
299 | |
300 | =item * |
301 | |
77c8cf41 |
302 | File handles can be marked as accepting Perl's internal encoding of Unicode |
303 | (UTF-8 or UTF-EBCDIC depending on platform) by a pseudo layer ":utf8" : |
f39f21d8 |
304 | |
77c8cf41 |
305 | open($fh,">:utf8","Uni.txt"); |
f39f21d8 |
306 | |
77c8cf41 |
307 | Note for EBCDIC users: the pseudo layer ":utf8" is erroneously named |
308 | for you since it's not UTF-8 what you will be getting but instead |
309 | UTF-EBCDIC. See L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>, and |
310 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ for more information. |
311 | In future releases this naming may change. |
f39f21d8 |
312 | |
313 | =item * |
314 | |
77c8cf41 |
315 | File handles can translate character encodings from/to Perl's internal |
316 | Unicode form on read/write via the ":encoding()" layer. |
f39f21d8 |
317 | |
318 | =item * |
319 | |
77c8cf41 |
320 | File handles can be opened to "in memory" files held in Perl scalars via: |
321 | |
322 | open($fh,'>', \$variable) || ... |
f39f21d8 |
323 | |
324 | =item * |
325 | |
77c8cf41 |
326 | Anonymous temporary files are available without need to |
327 | 'use FileHandle' or other module via |
f39f21d8 |
328 | |
77c8cf41 |
329 | open($fh,"+>", undef) || ... |
f39f21d8 |
330 | |
77c8cf41 |
331 | That is a literal undef, not an undefined value. |
f39f21d8 |
332 | |
333 | =item * |
334 | |
77c8cf41 |
335 | The list form of C<open> is now implemented for pipes (at least on UNIX): |
f39f21d8 |
336 | |
77c8cf41 |
337 | open($fh,"-|", 'cat', '/etc/motd') |
f39f21d8 |
338 | |
77c8cf41 |
339 | creates a pipe, and runs the equivalent of exec('cat', '/etc/motd') in |
340 | the child process. |
f39f21d8 |
341 | |
b310b053 |
342 | =item * |
343 | |
344 | If your locale environment variables (LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG) |
345 | contain the strings 'UTF-8' or 'UTF8' (case-insensitive matching), |
346 | the default encoding of your STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR, and of |
347 | B<any subsequent file open>, is UTF-8. |
348 | |
e1f170bd |
349 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
350 | |
02e156f1 |
351 | =head2 Restricted Hashes |
352 | |
353 | A restricted hash is restricted to a certain set of keys, no keys |
354 | outside the set can be added. Also individual keys can be restricted |
355 | so that the key cannot be deleted and the value cannot be changed. |
356 | No new syntax is involved: the Hash::Util module is the interface. |
357 | |
3e33716f |
358 | =head2 Safe Signals |
f39f21d8 |
359 | |
e1f170bd |
360 | Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments |
361 | could corrupt Perl's internal state. Now Perl postpones handling of |
3e33716f |
362 | signals until it's safe (between opcodes). |
363 | |
56e5bb57 |
364 | This change may have surprising side effects because signals no longer |
3e33716f |
365 | interrupt Perl instantly. Perl will now first finish whatever it was |
366 | doing, like finishing an internal operation (like sort()) or an |
367 | external operation (like an I/O operation), and only then look at any |
368 | arrived signals (and before starting the next operation). No more corrupt |
369 | internal state since the current operation is always finished first, |
6123004a |
370 | but the signal may take more time to get heard. Note that breaking |
371 | out from potentially blocking operations should still work, though. |
f39f21d8 |
372 | |
e1f170bd |
373 | =head2 Unicode Overhaul |
f39f21d8 |
374 | |
e1f170bd |
375 | Unicode in general should be now much more usable than in Perl 5.6.0 |
376 | (or even in 5.6.1). Unicode can be used in hash keys, Unicode in |
377 | regular expressions should work now, Unicode in tr/// should work now, |
b310b053 |
378 | Unicode in I/O should work now. See L<perluniintro> for introduction |
379 | and L<perlunicode> for details. |
f39f21d8 |
380 | |
e1f170bd |
381 | =over 4 |
f39f21d8 |
382 | |
383 | =item * |
384 | |
e1f170bd |
385 | The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded |
822ebcc8 |
386 | to Unicode 3.2.0. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ . |
f39f21d8 |
387 | |
388 | =item * |
389 | |
77c8cf41 |
390 | For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities: |
391 | almost all the UCD files are included with the Perl distribution in |
58175c9b |
392 | the F<lib/unicore subdirectory>. The most notable omission, for space |
77c8cf41 |
393 | considerations, is the Unihan database. |
f39f21d8 |
394 | |
395 | =item * |
396 | |
eb0cc9e3 |
397 | The properties \p{Blank} and \p{SpacePerl} have been added. "Blank" is like |
398 | C isblank(), that is, it contains only "horizontal whitespace" (the space |
399 | character is, the newline isn't), and the "SpacePerl" is the Unicode |
400 | equivalent of C<\s> (\p{Space} isn't, since that includes the vertical |
401 | tabulator character, whereas C<\s> doesn't.) |
402 | |
403 | See "New Unicode Properties" earlier in this document for additional |
404 | information on changes with Unicode properties. |
f39f21d8 |
405 | |
406 | =back |
407 | |
77c8cf41 |
408 | =head2 Understanding of Numbers |
409 | |
410 | In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's |
411 | understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in |
412 | many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()> |
413 | and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their |
414 | deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers. |
f39f21d8 |
415 | |
e1f170bd |
416 | Perl now tries internally to use integer values in numeric conversions |
417 | and basic arithmetics (+ - * /) if the arguments are integers, and |
418 | tries also to keep the results stored internally as integers. |
057b7f2b |
419 | This change leads to often slightly faster and always less lossy |
e1f170bd |
420 | arithmetics. (Previously Perl always preferred floating point numbers |
421 | in its math.) |
422 | |
58175c9b |
423 | =head2 Miscellaneous Changes |
e1f170bd |
424 | |
f39f21d8 |
425 | =over 4 |
426 | |
427 | =item * |
428 | |
e1f170bd |
429 | AUTOLOAD is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute |
430 | to AUTOLOAD subroutines and you can assign to the AUTOLOAD return value. |
431 | |
432 | =item * |
433 | |
61947107 |
434 | C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass |
435 | in multiple arguments.) |
f39f21d8 |
436 | |
437 | =item * |
438 | |
58175c9b |
439 | The builtin dump() now gives an optional warning |
66023b77 |
440 | C<dump() better written as CORE::dump()>, |
58175c9b |
441 | meaning that by default C<dump(...)> is resolved as the builtin |
442 | dump() which dumps core and aborts, not as (possibly) user-defined |
443 | C<sub dump>. To call the latter, qualify the call as C<&dump(...)>. |
444 | (The whole dump() feature is to considered deprecated, and possibly |
445 | removed/changed in future releases.) |
446 | |
447 | =item * |
448 | |
c2d0fb59 |
449 | chomp() and chop() are now overridable. Note, however, that their |
450 | prototype (as given by C<prototype("CORE::chomp")> is undefined, |
451 | because it cannot be expressed and therefore one cannot really write |
58175c9b |
452 | replacements to override these builtins. |
453 | |
454 | =item * |
455 | |
61947107 |
456 | END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block. |
457 | Internally, the execution of END blocks is now controlled by |
458 | PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new |
459 | behaviour for Perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See |
460 | L<perlembed>. |
f39f21d8 |
461 | |
462 | =item * |
463 | |
e1f170bd |
464 | Formats now support zero-padded decimal fields. |
f39f21d8 |
465 | |
466 | =item * |
467 | |
77c8cf41 |
468 | Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context. |
44da0e71 |
469 | However, the lvalue subroutine feature still remains experimental. |
f39f21d8 |
470 | |
471 | =item * |
472 | |
58175c9b |
473 | A lost warning "Can't declare ... dereference in my" has been |
474 | restored (Perl had it earlier but it became lost in later releases.) |
475 | |
476 | =item * |
477 | |
61947107 |
478 | A new special regular expression variable has been introduced: |
479 | C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch). |
f39f21d8 |
480 | |
481 | =item * |
482 | |
61947107 |
483 | C<no Module;> now works even if there is no "sub unimport" in the Module. |
f39f21d8 |
484 | |
485 | =item * |
486 | |
61947107 |
487 | The numerical comparison operators return C<undef> if either operand |
488 | is a NaN. Previously the behaviour was unspecified. |
f39f21d8 |
489 | |
490 | =item * |
491 | |
e1f170bd |
492 | The following builtin functions are now overridable: each(), keys(), |
493 | pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift(). |
494 | |
495 | =item * |
496 | |
a7bac030 |
497 | C<pack() / unpack()> now can group template letters with C<()> and then |
498 | apply repetition/count modifiers on the groups. |
499 | |
500 | =item * |
501 | |
502 | C<pack() / unpack()> can now process the Perl internal numeric types: |
503 | IVs, UVs, NVs-- and also long doubles, if supported by the platform. |
79f69e33 |
504 | The template letters are C<j>, C<J>, C<F>, and C<D>. |
a7bac030 |
505 | |
506 | =item * |
507 | |
61947107 |
508 | C<pack('U0a*', ...)> can now be used to force a string to UTF8. |
f39f21d8 |
509 | |
510 | =item * |
511 | |
61947107 |
512 | my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works. |
f39f21d8 |
513 | |
514 | =item * |
515 | |
e1f170bd |
516 | The printf() and sprintf() now support parameter reordering using the |
517 | C<%\d+\$> and C<*\d+\$> syntaxes. For example |
518 | |
519 | print "%2\$s %1\$s\n", "foo", "bar"; |
520 | |
da6838c8 |
521 | will print "bar foo\n". This feature helps in writing |
522 | internationalised software, and in general when the order |
523 | of the parameters can vary. |
f39f21d8 |
524 | |
525 | =item * |
526 | |
e1f170bd |
527 | prototype(\&) is now available. |
61947107 |
528 | |
529 | =item * |
530 | |
e1f170bd |
531 | prototype(\[$@%&]) is now available to implicitly create references |
532 | (useful for example if you want to emulate the tie() interface). |
61947107 |
533 | |
534 | =item * |
535 | |
58175c9b |
536 | A new command-line option, C<-t> is available. It is the |
b0c3fc92 |
537 | little brother of C<-T>: instead of dying on taint violations, |
58175c9b |
538 | lexical warnings are given. B<This is only meant as a temporary |
539 | debugging aid while securing the code of old legacy applications. |
540 | This is not a substitute for -T.> |
541 | |
542 | =item * |
543 | |
4956848f |
544 | In other taint news, the C<exec LIST> and C<system LIST> have now been |
545 | considered too risky (think C<exec @ARGV>: it can start any program |
546 | with any arguments), and now the said forms cause a warning. |
547 | You should carefully launder the arguments to guarantee their |
548 | validity. In future releases of Perl the forms will become fatal |
549 | errors so consider starting laundering now. |
550 | |
551 | =item * |
552 | |
159ad915 |
553 | Tied hash interfaces are now required to have the EXISTS and DELETE |
554 | methods (either own or inherited). |
0b2c215a |
555 | |
556 | =item * |
557 | |
58175c9b |
558 | If tr/// is just counting characters, it doesn't attempt to |
559 | modify its target. |
560 | |
561 | =item * |
562 | |
44da0e71 |
563 | untie() will now call an UNTIE() hook if it exists. See L<perltie> |
564 | for details. |
61947107 |
565 | |
566 | =item * |
567 | |
568 | L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the |
569 | file timestamps to the current time. |
570 | |
571 | =item * |
572 | |
e1f170bd |
573 | The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants |
574 | have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore |
575 | simply B<between digits>. |
f39f21d8 |
576 | |
ef985a5e |
577 | =item * |
578 | |
579 | Rather than relying on C's argv[0] (which may not contain a full pathname) |
580 | where possible $^X is now set by asking the operating system. |
581 | (eg by reading F</proc/self/exe> on Linux, F</proc/curproc/file> on FreeBSD) |
582 | |
608dbdb1 |
583 | =item * |
584 | |
585 | A new variable, C<${^TAINT}>, indicates whether taint mode is enabled. |
586 | |
587 | =item * |
588 | |
589 | You can now override the readline() builtin, and this overrides also |
590 | the <FILEHANDLE> angle bracket operator. |
591 | |
592 | =item * |
593 | |
594 | The command-line options -s and -F are now recognized on the shebang |
595 | (#!) line. |
596 | |
4ac733c9 |
597 | =item * |
598 | |
599 | Use of the C</c> match modifier without an accompanying C</g> modifier |
600 | elicits a new warning: C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g>. |
f34840d8 |
601 | |
64e578a2 |
602 | Use of C</c> in substitutions, even with C</g>, elicits |
f34840d8 |
603 | C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///>. |
604 | |
476a4411 |
605 | Use of C</g> with C<split> elicits C<Use of /g modifier is meaningless |
f34840d8 |
606 | in split>. |
4ac733c9 |
607 | |
f39f21d8 |
608 | =back |
609 | |
77c8cf41 |
610 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
f39f21d8 |
611 | |
1e13d81f |
612 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata |
f39f21d8 |
613 | |
614 | =over 4 |
615 | |
616 | =item * |
617 | |
0e9b9e0c |
618 | C<Attribute::Handlers> allows a class to define attribute handlers. |
619 | |
620 | package MyPack; |
621 | use Attribute::Handlers; |
622 | sub Wolf :ATTR(SCALAR) { print "howl!\n" } |
623 | |
624 | # later, in some package using or inheriting from MyPack... |
625 | |
626 | my MyPack $Fluffy : Wolf; # the attribute handler Wolf will be called |
627 | |
628 | Both variables and routines can have attribute handlers. Handlers can |
629 | be specific to type (SCALAR, ARRAY, HASH, or CODE), or specific to the |
630 | exact compilation phase (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, or END). |
631 | |
632 | =item * |
633 | |
61947107 |
634 | B<B::Concise> is a new compiler backend for walking the Perl syntax |
635 | tree, printing concise info about ops, from Stephen McCamant. The |
636 | output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>. |
f39f21d8 |
637 | |
638 | =item * |
639 | |
381874f1 |
640 | The new bignum, bigint, and bigrat pragmas implement transparent |
641 | bignum support (using the Math::BigInt, Math::BigFloat, and |
642 | Math::BigRat backends), by Tels. |
643 | |
644 | =item * |
645 | |
61947107 |
646 | C<Class::ISA> for reporting the search path for a class's ISA tree, |
647 | by Sean Burke, has been added. See L<Class::ISA>. |
f39f21d8 |
648 | |
649 | =item * |
650 | |
61947107 |
651 | C<Cwd> has now a split personality: if possible, an XS extension is |
652 | used, (this will hopefully be faster, more secure, and more robust) |
653 | but if not possible, the familiar Perl implementation is used. |
f39f21d8 |
654 | |
655 | =item * |
656 | |
e1f170bd |
657 | C<Devel::PPPort>, originally from Kenneth Albanowski and now |
658 | maintained by Paul Marquess, has been added. It is primarily used |
66023b77 |
659 | by C<h2xs> to enhance portability of XS modules between different |
e1f170bd |
660 | versions of Perl. |
1e13d81f |
661 | |
662 | =item * |
663 | |
61947107 |
664 | C<Digest>, frontend module for calculating digests (checksums), from |
665 | Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest>. |
f39f21d8 |
666 | |
667 | =item * |
668 | |
61947107 |
669 | C<Digest::MD5> for calculating MD5 digests (checksums) as defined in |
670 | RFC 1321, from Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest::MD5>. |
f39f21d8 |
671 | |
672 | use Digest::MD5 'md5_hex'; |
673 | |
674 | $digest = md5_hex("Thirsty Camel"); |
675 | |
676 | print $digest, "\n"; # 01d19d9d2045e005c3f1b80e8b164de1 |
677 | |
61947107 |
678 | NOTE: the C<MD5> backward compatibility module is deliberately not |
e1f170bd |
679 | included since its further use is discouraged. |
f39f21d8 |
680 | |
f39f21d8 |
681 | =item * |
682 | |
f14caa53 |
683 | C<Encode>, orginally by Nick Ing-Simmons and now maintained by Dan |
684 | Kogai, provides a mechanism to translate between different character |
685 | encodings. Support for Unicode, ISO-8859-1, and ASCII are compiled in |
686 | to the module. Several other encodings (like the rest of the |
687 | ISO-8859, CP*/Win*, Mac, KOI8-R, three variants EBCDIC, Chinese, |
688 | Japanese, and Korean encodings) are included and can be loaded at |
689 | runtime. (For space considerations, the largest Chinese encodings |
690 | have been separated into their own CPAN module, Encode::HanExtra, |
691 | which Encode will use if available). See L<Encode>. |
f39f21d8 |
692 | |
693 | Any encoding supported by Encode module is also available to the |
694 | ":encoding()" layer if PerlIO is used. |
695 | |
61947107 |
696 | =item * |
697 | |
a6d3fe4f |
698 | C<Hash::Util> is the interface to the new I<restricted hashes> |
02e156f1 |
699 | feature. (Implemented by Jeffrey Friedl, Nick Ing-Simmons, and |
a6d3fe4f |
700 | Michael Schwern.) |
701 | |
702 | =item * |
703 | |
61947107 |
704 | C<I18N::Langinfo> can be use to query locale information. |
705 | See L<I18N::Langinfo>. |
f39f21d8 |
706 | |
707 | =item * |
708 | |
61947107 |
709 | C<I18N::LangTags> has functions for dealing with RFC3066-style |
bea4d472 |
710 | language tags, by Sean Burke. See L<I18N::LangTags>. |
61947107 |
711 | |
712 | =item * |
713 | |
714 | C<ExtUtils::Constant> is a new tool for extension writers for |
715 | generating XS code to import C header constants, by Nicholas Clark. |
716 | See L<ExtUtils::Constant>. |
717 | |
718 | =item * |
719 | |
720 | C<Filter::Simple> is an easy-to-use frontend to Filter::Util::Call, |
721 | from Damian Conway. See L<Filter::Simple>. |
f39f21d8 |
722 | |
723 | # in MyFilter.pm: |
724 | |
725 | package MyFilter; |
726 | |
727 | use Filter::Simple sub { |
728 | while (my ($from, $to) = splice @_, 0, 2) { |
729 | s/$from/$to/g; |
730 | } |
731 | }; |
732 | |
733 | 1; |
734 | |
735 | # in user's code: |
736 | |
737 | use MyFilter qr/red/ => 'green'; |
738 | |
739 | print "red\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "green\n" |
740 | print "bored\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "bogreen\n" |
741 | |
742 | no MyFilter; |
743 | |
744 | print "red\n"; # this code is not filtered, will print "red\n" |
745 | |
61947107 |
746 | =item * |
747 | |
748 | C<File::Temp> allows one to create temporary files and directories in |
749 | an easy, portable, and secure way, by Tim Jenness. See L<File::Temp>. |
750 | |
751 | =item * |
752 | |
753 | C<Filter::Util::Call> provides you with the framework to write |
754 | I<Source Filters> in Perl, from Paul Marquess. For most uses the |
755 | frontend Filter::Simple is to be preferred. See L<Filter::Util::Call>. |
756 | |
757 | =item * |
758 | |
79f69e33 |
759 | C<if> is a new pragma for conditional inclusion of modules, from |
760 | Ilya Zakharevich. |
761 | |
762 | =item * |
763 | |
61947107 |
764 | L<libnet> is a collection of perl5 modules related to network |
765 | programming, from Graham Barr. See L<Net::FTP>, L<Net::NNTP>, |
b929be1d |
766 | L<Net::Ping> (not part of libnet, but related), L<Net::POP3>, |
767 | L<Net::SMTP>, and L<Net::Time>. |
61947107 |
768 | |
769 | Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure. |
f39f21d8 |
770 | |
771 | =item * |
772 | |
61947107 |
773 | C<List::Util> is a selection of general-utility list subroutines, like |
bea4d472 |
774 | sum(), min(), first(), and shuffle(), by Graham Barr. See L<List::Util>. |
f39f21d8 |
775 | |
776 | =item * |
777 | |
f14caa53 |
778 | C<Locale::Constants>, C<Locale::Country>, C<Locale::Currency> |
779 | C<Locale::Language>, and L<Locale::Script>, from Neil Bowers, have |
780 | been added. They provide the codes for various locale standards, such |
9d81ddc1 |
781 | as "fr" for France, "usd" for US Dollar, and "ja" for Japanese. |
f39f21d8 |
782 | |
783 | use Locale::Country; |
784 | |
785 | $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan' |
786 | $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no' |
787 | |
788 | See L<Locale::Constants>, L<Locale::Country>, L<Locale::Currency>, |
61947107 |
789 | and L<Locale::Language>. |
790 | |
791 | =item * |
792 | |
793 | C<Locale::Maketext> is localization framework from Sean Burke. See |
794 | L<Locale::Maketext>, and L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13>. The latter is an |
795 | article about software localization, originally published in The Perl |
796 | Journal #13, republished here with kind permission. |
797 | |
798 | =item * |
799 | |
f14caa53 |
800 | C<Math::BigRat> for big rational numbers, to accompany Math::BigInt and |
381874f1 |
801 | Math::BigFloat, from Tels. |
802 | |
803 | =item * |
804 | |
61947107 |
805 | C<Memoize> can make your functions faster by trading space for time, |
806 | from Mark-Jason Dominus. See L<Memoize>. |
f39f21d8 |
807 | |
808 | =item * |
809 | |
61947107 |
810 | C<MIME::Base64> allows you to encode data in base64, from Gisle Aas, |
811 | as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail |
812 | Extensions)>. |
f39f21d8 |
813 | |
814 | use MIME::Base64; |
815 | |
816 | $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame'); |
817 | $decoded = decode_base64($encoded); |
818 | |
819 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==" |
820 | |
61947107 |
821 | See L<MIME::Base64>. |
f39f21d8 |
822 | |
823 | =item * |
824 | |
61947107 |
825 | C<MIME::QuotedPrint> allows you to encode data in quoted-printable |
826 | encoding, as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail |
827 | Extensions)>, from Gisle Aas. |
f39f21d8 |
828 | |
829 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
830 | |
831 | $encoded = encode_qp("Smiley in Unicode: \x{263a}"); |
832 | $decoded = decode_qp($encoded); |
833 | |
834 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "Smiley in Unicode: =263A" |
835 | |
836 | MIME::QuotedPrint has been enhanced to provide the basic methods |
837 | necessary to use it with PerlIO::Via as in : |
838 | |
839 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
057b7f2b |
840 | open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path); |
f39f21d8 |
841 | |
61947107 |
842 | See L<MIME::QuotedPrint>. |
f39f21d8 |
843 | |
844 | =item * |
845 | |
61947107 |
846 | C<NEXT> is pseudo-class for method redispatch, from Damian Conway. |
847 | See L<NEXT>. |
f39f21d8 |
848 | |
849 | =item * |
850 | |
1e13d81f |
851 | C<open> is a new pragma for setting the default I/O disciplines |
852 | for open(). |
853 | |
854 | =item * |
855 | |
61947107 |
856 | C<PerlIO::Scalar> provides the implementation of IO to "in memory" |
857 | Perl scalars as discussed above, from Nick Ing-Simmons. It also |
858 | serves as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future |
859 | possibilities include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. |
860 | See L<PerlIO::Scalar>. |
861 | |
862 | =item * |
863 | |
864 | C<PerlIO::Via> acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps PerlIO layer |
865 | functionality provided by a class (typically implemented in perl |
866 | code), from Nick Ing-Simmons. |
f39f21d8 |
867 | |
868 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
057b7f2b |
869 | open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path); |
f39f21d8 |
870 | |
871 | This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh> |
61947107 |
872 | to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::Via>. |
f39f21d8 |
873 | |
874 | =item * |
875 | |
1e13d81f |
876 | C<Pod::ParseLink>, by Russ Allbery, has been added, |
95f0a2f1 |
877 | to parse LZ<><> links in pods as described in the new |
1e13d81f |
878 | perlpodspec. |
879 | |
880 | =item * |
881 | |
61947107 |
882 | C<Pod::Text::Overstrike>, by Joe Smith, has been added. |
f39f21d8 |
883 | It converts POD data to formatted overstrike text. |
61947107 |
884 | See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike>. |
f39f21d8 |
885 | |
886 | =item * |
887 | |
61947107 |
888 | C<Scalar::Util> is a selection of general-utility scalar subroutines, |
889 | like blessed(), reftype(), and tainted(). See L<Scalar::Util>. |
890 | |
891 | =item * |
892 | |
1e13d81f |
893 | C<sort> is a new pragma for controlling the behaviour of sort(). |
894 | |
895 | =item * |
896 | |
61947107 |
897 | C<Storable> gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the |
898 | storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and |
e27159c9 |
899 | compact binary format. Because in effect Storable does serialisation |
900 | of Perl data structues, with it you can also clone deep, hierarchical |
901 | datastructures. Storable was created by Raphael Manfredi but it is |
902 | now maintained by the Perl development team. Storable has been |
903 | enhanced to understand the two new hash features, Unicode keys and |
904 | restricted hashes. See L<Storable>. |
61947107 |
905 | |
906 | =item * |
907 | |
908 | C<Switch>, from Damian Conway, has been added. Just by saying |
f39f21d8 |
909 | |
910 | use Switch; |
911 | |
912 | you have C<switch> and C<case> available in Perl. |
913 | |
914 | use Switch; |
915 | |
916 | switch ($val) { |
917 | |
918 | case 1 { print "number 1" } |
919 | case "a" { print "string a" } |
920 | case [1..10,42] { print "number in list" } |
921 | case (@array) { print "number in list" } |
922 | case /\w+/ { print "pattern" } |
923 | case qr/\w+/ { print "pattern" } |
924 | case (%hash) { print "entry in hash" } |
925 | case (\%hash) { print "entry in hash" } |
926 | case (\&sub) { print "arg to subroutine" } |
927 | else { print "previous case not true" } |
928 | } |
929 | |
61947107 |
930 | See L<Switch>. |
931 | |
932 | =item * |
933 | |
934 | C<Test::More> is yet another framework for writing test scripts, |
935 | more extensive than Test::Simple, by Michael Schwern. See L<Test::More>. |
936 | |
937 | =item * |
938 | |
aecce728 |
939 | C<Test::Simple> has basic utilities for writing tests, by Michael |
61947107 |
940 | Schwern. See L<Test::Simple>. |
77c8cf41 |
941 | |
942 | =item * |
943 | |
61947107 |
944 | C<Text::Balanced> has been added, for extracting delimited text |
945 | sequences from strings, from Damian Conway. |
77c8cf41 |
946 | |
947 | use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited'; |
948 | |
949 | ($a, $b) = extract_delimited("'never say never', he never said", "'", ''); |
950 | |
951 | $a will be "'never say never'", $b will be ', he never said'. |
952 | |
953 | In addition to extract_delimited() there are also extract_bracketed(), |
954 | extract_quotelike(), extract_codeblock(), extract_variable(), |
955 | extract_tagged(), extract_multiple(), gen_delimited_pat(), and |
956 | gen_extract_tagged(). With these you can implement rather advanced |
61947107 |
957 | parsing algorithms. See L<Text::Balanced>. |
77c8cf41 |
958 | |
959 | =item * |
960 | |
c2e23569 |
961 | C<threads> is an interface to interpreter threads, by Arthur Bergman. |
61947107 |
962 | Interpreter threads (ithreads) is the new thread model introduced in |
c2e23569 |
963 | Perl 5.6 but only available as an internal interface for extension |
964 | writers (and for Win32 Perl for C<fork()> emulation). See L<threads>. |
77c8cf41 |
965 | |
966 | =item * |
967 | |
61947107 |
968 | C<threads::shared> allows data sharing for interpreter threads, from |
969 | Arthur Bergman. In the ithreads model any data sharing between |
970 | threads must be explicit, as opposed to the old 5.005 thread model |
971 | where data sharing was implicit. See L<threads::shared>. |
77c8cf41 |
972 | |
973 | =item * |
974 | |
1f089b22 |
975 | C<Tie::File>, by Mark-Jason Dominus, associates a Perl array with the |
976 | lines of a file. |
b3b08c80 |
977 | |
978 | =item * |
979 | |
79f69e33 |
980 | C<Tie::Memoize>, by Ilya Zakharevich, provides on-demand loaded hashes. |
981 | |
982 | =item * |
983 | |
61947107 |
984 | C<Tie::RefHash::Nestable>, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash |
ba370e9b |
985 | references (unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained |
986 | within Tie::RefHash, see L<Tie::RefHash>. |
77c8cf41 |
987 | |
988 | =item * |
989 | |
61947107 |
990 | C<Time::HiRes> provides high resolution timing (ualarm, usleep, |
991 | and gettimeofday), from Douglas E. Wegscheid. See L<Time::HiRes>. |
77c8cf41 |
992 | |
993 | =item * |
994 | |
61947107 |
995 | C<Unicode::UCD> offers a querying interface to the Unicode Character |
996 | Database. See L<Unicode::UCD>. |
77c8cf41 |
997 | |
998 | =item * |
999 | |
61947107 |
1000 | C<Unicode::Collate> implements the UCA (Unicode Collation Algorithm) |
1001 | for sorting Unicode strings, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Collate>. |
77c8cf41 |
1002 | |
1003 | =item * |
1004 | |
61947107 |
1005 | C<Unicode::Normalize> implements the various Unicode normalization |
1006 | forms, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Normalize>. |
77c8cf41 |
1007 | |
1008 | =item * |
1009 | |
61947107 |
1010 | C<XS::Typemap>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises XS |
1011 | typemaps. Nothing gets installed but for extension writers the code |
1012 | is worth studying. |
77c8cf41 |
1013 | |
1014 | =back |
1015 | |
1016 | =head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata |
1017 | |
1018 | =over 4 |
1019 | |
1020 | =item * |
1021 | |
61947107 |
1022 | The following independently supported modules have been updated to the |
1023 | newest versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, File::Temp, |
1024 | Getopt::Long, Math::BigFloat, Math::BigInt, the podlators bundle |
1025 | (Pod::Man, Pod::Text), Pod::LaTeX, Pod::Parser, Storable, |
1026 | Term::ANSIColor, Test, Text-Tabs+Wrap. |
77c8cf41 |
1027 | |
1028 | =item * |
1029 | |
61947107 |
1030 | The attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments. |
77c8cf41 |
1031 | |
1032 | =item * |
1033 | |
057b7f2b |
1034 | AutoLoader can now be disabled with C<no AutoLoader;>. |
77c8cf41 |
1035 | |
1036 | =item * |
1037 | |
1e13d81f |
1038 | B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced. It now can deparse almost |
1039 | all of the standard test suite (so that the tests still succeed). |
1040 | There is a make target "test.deparse" for trying this out. |
77c8cf41 |
1041 | |
1042 | =item * |
1043 | |
1e13d81f |
1044 | Class::Struct can now define the classes in compile time. |
77c8cf41 |
1045 | |
1046 | =item * |
1047 | |
1e13d81f |
1048 | Class::Struct now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor |
1049 | is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument. |
77c8cf41 |
1050 | |
1051 | =item * |
1052 | |
1e13d81f |
1053 | Data::Dumper has now an option to sort hashes. |
77c8cf41 |
1054 | |
1055 | =item * |
1056 | |
1e13d81f |
1057 | Data::Dumper has now an option to dump code references |
1058 | using B::Deparse. |
77c8cf41 |
1059 | |
1060 | =item * |
1061 | |
44da0e71 |
1062 | DB_File now supports newer Berkeley DB versions, among |
1063 | other improvements. |
1064 | |
1065 | =item * |
1066 | |
1e13d81f |
1067 | The English module can now be used without the infamous performance |
1068 | hit by saying |
77c8cf41 |
1069 | |
66023b77 |
1070 | use English '-no_match_vars'; |
77c8cf41 |
1071 | |
1e13d81f |
1072 | (Assuming, of course, that one doesn't need the troublesome variables |
1073 | C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and |
1074 | C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>. |
77c8cf41 |
1075 | |
1076 | =item * |
1077 | |
1e13d81f |
1078 | Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten to use the |
1079 | new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>). |
1080 | This means that they will be more robust and hopefully faster. |
77c8cf41 |
1081 | |
1082 | =item * |
1083 | |
44da0e71 |
1084 | File::Find now chdir()s correctly when chasing symbolic links. |
1085 | |
1086 | =item * |
1087 | |
1e13d81f |
1088 | File::Find now has pre- and post-processing callbacks. It also |
1089 | correctly changes directories when chasing symbolic links. Callbacks |
1090 | (naughtily) exiting with "next;" instead of "return;" now work. |
61947107 |
1091 | |
1092 | =item * |
1093 | |
1e13d81f |
1094 | File::Find is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made |
1095 | more portable. |
77c8cf41 |
1096 | |
61947107 |
1097 | =item * |
1098 | |
608dbdb1 |
1099 | The warnings issued by File::Find now belong to their own category. |
1100 | You can enable/disable them with C<use/no warnings 'File::Find';>. |
1101 | |
1102 | =item * |
1103 | |
1e13d81f |
1104 | File::Glob::glob() renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob() to avoid |
1105 | prototype mismatch with CORE::glob(). |
61947107 |
1106 | |
1107 | =item * |
1108 | |
1109 | File::Glob now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the size of |
1110 | the returned list of filenames. |
77c8cf41 |
1111 | |
1112 | =item * |
1113 | |
1114 | Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics |
1115 | (this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have |
1116 | compiled with debugging). |
1117 | |
1118 | =item * |
1119 | |
1e13d81f |
1120 | IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors. |
1121 | |
1122 | =item * |
1123 | |
77c8cf41 |
1124 | IO::Socket has now atmark() method, which returns true if the socket |
1125 | is positioned at the out-of-band mark. The method is also exportable |
1126 | as a sockatmark() function. |
1127 | |
1128 | =item * |
1129 | |
1130 | IO::Socket::INET has support for ReusePort option (if your platform |
1131 | supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr. For clarity |
1132 | you may want to prefer ReuseAddr. |
1133 | |
1134 | =item * |
1135 | |
61947107 |
1136 | IO::Socket::INET now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning |
1137 | that the operating system will make one up.) |
77c8cf41 |
1138 | |
1139 | =item * |
1140 | |
1e13d81f |
1141 | use lib now works identically to @INC. Removing directories |
1142 | with 'no lib' now works. |
1143 | |
1144 | =item * |
1145 | |
58175c9b |
1146 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses File::Spec internally, which hopefully |
1147 | leads into better portability. |
1148 | |
1149 | =item * |
1150 | |
1e13d81f |
1151 | Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt have undergone a full rewrite. |
1152 | They are now magnitudes faster, and they support various |
61947107 |
1153 | bignum libraries such as GMP and PARI as their backends. |
f39f21d8 |
1154 | |
1155 | =item * |
1156 | |
44da0e71 |
1157 | Math::Complex handles inf, NaN etc., better. |
1158 | |
1159 | =item * |
1160 | |
b929be1d |
1161 | Net::Ping has been muchly enhanced: multihoming is now supported, |
1162 | Win32 functionality is better, there is now time measuring |
1163 | functionality (optionally high-resolution using Time::HiRes), |
1164 | and there is now "external" protocol which uses Net::Ping::External |
1165 | module which runs your external ping utility and parses the output. |
1166 | A version of Net::Ping::External is available in CPAN. |
1167 | |
1168 | Note that some of the Net::Ping tests are disabled when running |
1169 | under the Perl distribution since one cannot assume one or more |
1170 | of the following: enabled echo port at localhost, full Internet |
1171 | connectivity, or sympathetic firewalls. You can set the environment |
1172 | variable PERL_TEST_Net_Ping to "1" (one) before running the Perl test |
1173 | suite to enable all the Net::Ping tests. |
f39f21d8 |
1174 | |
77c8cf41 |
1175 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1176 | |
da6838c8 |
1177 | POSIX::sigaction() is now much more flexible and robust. |
61947107 |
1178 | You can now install coderef handlers, 'DEFAULT', and 'IGNORE' |
1179 | handlers, installing new handlers was not atomic. |
f39f21d8 |
1180 | |
1181 | =item * |
1182 | |
da6838c8 |
1183 | In Safe the C<%INC> now localised in a Safe compartment so that |
76663d67 |
1184 | use/require work. |
1185 | |
1186 | =item * |
1187 | |
44da0e71 |
1188 | In SDBM_File on dosish platforms, some keys went missing because of |
1189 | lack of support for files with "holes". A workaround for the problem |
1190 | has been added. |
1191 | |
1192 | =item * |
1193 | |
da6838c8 |
1194 | In Search::Dict one can now have a pre-processing hook for the |
76663d67 |
1195 | lines being searched. |
1e13d81f |
1196 | |
1197 | =item * |
1198 | |
1199 | The Shell module now has an OO interface. |
1200 | |
1201 | =item * |
1202 | |
903fdac2 |
1203 | In Sys::Syslog there is now a failover mechanism that will go |
1204 | through alternative connection mechanisms until the message |
1205 | is successfully logged. |
1206 | |
1207 | =item * |
1208 | |
61947107 |
1209 | The Test module has been significantly enhanced. |
f39f21d8 |
1210 | |
1211 | =item * |
1212 | |
1cfd00ad |
1213 | Time::Local::timelocal() does not handle fractional seconds anymore. |
1214 | The rationale is that neither does localtime(), and timelocal() and |
1215 | localtime() are supposed to be inverses of each other. |
1216 | |
1217 | =item * |
1218 | |
da6838c8 |
1219 | The vars pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables. |
77c8cf41 |
1220 | (Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.) |
f39f21d8 |
1221 | |
888aee59 |
1222 | =item * |
1223 | |
58175c9b |
1224 | The C<utf8::> name space (as in the pragma) provides various |
61947107 |
1225 | Perl-callable functions to provide low level access to Perl's |
1226 | internal Unicode representation. At the moment only length() |
1227 | has been implemented. |
888aee59 |
1228 | |
f39f21d8 |
1229 | =back |
1230 | |
77c8cf41 |
1231 | =head1 Utility Changes |
f39f21d8 |
1232 | |
1233 | =over 4 |
1234 | |
1235 | =item * |
1236 | |
61947107 |
1237 | Emacs perl mode (emacs/cperl-mode.el) has been updated to version |
77c8cf41 |
1238 | 4.31. |
f39f21d8 |
1239 | |
1240 | =item * |
1241 | |
61947107 |
1242 | F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster. |
f39f21d8 |
1243 | |
1244 | =item * |
1245 | |
54ba6336 |
1246 | C<enc2xs> is a tool for people adding their own encodings to the |
1247 | Encode module. |
1248 | |
1249 | =item * |
1250 | |
1e13d81f |
1251 | C<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs. |
1252 | |
1253 | =item * |
1254 | |
1255 | C<h2xs> now produces a template README. |
f39f21d8 |
1256 | |
77c8cf41 |
1257 | =item * |
1258 | |
1e13d81f |
1259 | C<h2xs> now uses C<Devel::PPort> for better portability between |
1260 | different versions of Perl. |
f39f21d8 |
1261 | |
1262 | =item * |
1263 | |
1e13d81f |
1264 | C<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect |
61947107 |
1265 | newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is |
1266 | more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a |
1267 | prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined), |
1268 | less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the |
1269 | old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants), |
1270 | and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your |
1271 | extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy). |
1272 | L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs. |
f39f21d8 |
1273 | |
1274 | =item * |
1275 | |
1e13d81f |
1276 | C<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet. |
f39f21d8 |
1277 | |
1278 | =item * |
1279 | |
1e13d81f |
1280 | C<perlbug> is now much more robust. It also sends the bug report to |
61947107 |
1281 | perl.org, not perl.com. |
f39f21d8 |
1282 | |
1283 | =item * |
1284 | |
1e13d81f |
1285 | C<perlcc> has been rewritten and its user interface (that is, |
61947107 |
1286 | command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc. |
44da0e71 |
1287 | (The perlbc tools has been removed. Use C<perlcc -B> instead.) |
f39f21d8 |
1288 | |
1289 | =item * |
1290 | |
aecce728 |
1291 | C<perlivp> is a new Installation Verification Procedure utility |
1292 | for running any time after installing Perl. |
f39f21d8 |
1293 | |
1294 | =item * |
1295 | |
54ba6336 |
1296 | C<piconv> is an implementation of the character conversion utility |
1297 | C<iconv>, demonstrating the new Encode module. |
1298 | |
1299 | =item * |
1300 | |
1e13d81f |
1301 | C<pod2html> now allows specifying a cache directory. |
f39f21d8 |
1302 | |
1303 | =item * |
1304 | |
bbed45f6 |
1305 | C<pod2html> now produces XHTML 1.0. |
1306 | |
1307 | =item * |
1308 | |
9b856ef5 |
1309 | C<pod2html> now understands POD written using different line endings |
bbed45f6 |
1310 | (PC-like CRLF versus UNIX-like LF versus MacClassic-like CR). |
1311 | |
1312 | =item * |
1313 | |
1e13d81f |
1314 | C<s2p> has been completely rewritten in Perl. (It is in fact a full |
1315 | implementation of sed in Perl: you can use the sed functionality by |
1316 | using the C<psed> utility.) |
61947107 |
1317 | |
1318 | =item * |
1319 | |
1e13d81f |
1320 | C<xsubpp> now understands POD documentation embedded in the *.xs files. |
f39f21d8 |
1321 | |
1322 | =item * |
1323 | |
1e13d81f |
1324 | C<xsubpp> now supports OUT keyword. |
f39f21d8 |
1325 | |
1326 | =back |
1327 | |
77c8cf41 |
1328 | =head1 New Documentation |
f39f21d8 |
1329 | |
1330 | =over 4 |
1331 | |
1332 | =item * |
1333 | |
77c8cf41 |
1334 | perl56delta details the changes between the 5.005 release and the |
1335 | 5.6.0 release. |
f39f21d8 |
1336 | |
1337 | =item * |
1338 | |
61947107 |
1339 | perlclib documents the internal replacements for standard C library |
1340 | functions. (Interesting only for extension writers and Perl core |
1341 | hackers.) |
1342 | |
1343 | =item * |
1344 | |
77c8cf41 |
1345 | perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial. |
f39f21d8 |
1346 | |
77c8cf41 |
1347 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1348 | |
77c8cf41 |
1349 | perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms. |
f39f21d8 |
1350 | |
77c8cf41 |
1351 | =item * |
1352 | |
888aee59 |
1353 | perlintro is a gentle introduction to Perl. |
1354 | |
1355 | =item * |
1356 | |
61947107 |
1357 | perliol documents the internals of PerlIO with layers. |
1358 | |
1359 | =item * |
1360 | |
888aee59 |
1361 | perlmodstyle is a style guide for writing modules. |
1362 | |
1363 | =item * |
1364 | |
77c8cf41 |
1365 | perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module. |
f39f21d8 |
1366 | |
1367 | =item * |
1368 | |
34babc16 |
1369 | perlpacktut is a pack() tutorial. |
1370 | |
1371 | =item * |
1372 | |
888aee59 |
1373 | perlpod has been rewritten to be clearer and to record the best |
1374 | practices gathered over the years. |
1375 | |
1376 | =item * |
1377 | |
057b7f2b |
1378 | perlpodspec is a more formal specification of the pod format, |
888aee59 |
1379 | mainly of interest for writers of pod applications, not to |
1380 | people writing in pod. |
1381 | |
1382 | =item * |
1383 | |
77c8cf41 |
1384 | perlretut is a regular expression tutorial. |
f39f21d8 |
1385 | |
1386 | =item * |
1387 | |
77c8cf41 |
1388 | perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide. |
1389 | Yes, much quicker than perlretut. |
f39f21d8 |
1390 | |
77c8cf41 |
1391 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1392 | |
61947107 |
1393 | perltodo has been updated. |
1394 | |
1395 | =item * |
1396 | |
888aee59 |
1397 | perltootc has been renamed as perltooc (to not to conflict |
61947107 |
1398 | with perltoot in filesystems restricted to "8.3" names) |
888aee59 |
1399 | |
1400 | =item * |
1401 | |
58175c9b |
1402 | perluniintro is an introduction to using Unicode in Perl. |
1403 | (perlunicode is more of a detailed reference and background |
1404 | information) |
888aee59 |
1405 | |
1406 | =item * |
1407 | |
77c8cf41 |
1408 | perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl |
1409 | distribution. |
1410 | |
1411 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
1412 | |
61947107 |
1413 | The following platform-specific documents are available before |
1414 | the installation as README.I<platform>, and after the installation |
1415 | as perlI<platform>: |
f39f21d8 |
1416 | |
61947107 |
1417 | perlaix perlamiga perlapollo perlbeos perlbs2000 |
1418 | perlce perlcygwin perldgux perldos perlepoc perlhpux |
1419 | perlhurd perlmachten perlmacos perlmint perlmpeix |
1420 | perlnetware perlos2 perlos390 perlplan9 perlqnx perlsolaris |
1421 | perltru64 perluts perlvmesa perlvms perlvos perlwin32 |
77c8cf41 |
1422 | |
1423 | =over 4 |
1424 | |
1425 | =item * |
1426 | |
61947107 |
1427 | The documentation for the POSIX-BC platform is called "BS2000", to avoid |
1428 | confusion with the Perl POSIX module. |
77c8cf41 |
1429 | |
1430 | =item * |
1431 | |
6cd7d6d6 |
1432 | The documentation for the WinCE platform is called perlce (README.ce |
1433 | in the source code kit), to avoid confusion with the perlwin32 |
1434 | documentation on 8.3-restricted filesystems. |
77c8cf41 |
1435 | |
1436 | =back |
1437 | |
1438 | =head1 Performance Enhancements |
1439 | |
1440 | =over 4 |
1441 | |
1442 | =item * |
1443 | |
44da0e71 |
1444 | map() could get pathologically slow when the result list it generates |
1445 | is larger than the source list. The performance has been improved for |
1446 | common scenarios. |
77c8cf41 |
1447 | |
1448 | =item * |
1449 | |
e1f170bd |
1450 | sort() has been changed to use primarily mergesort internally as |
1451 | opposed to the earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may |
1452 | result in slightly slower sorting times, but in general the speedup |
1453 | should be at least 20%. Additional bonuses are that the worst case |
1454 | behaviour of sort() is now better (in computer science terms it now |
1455 | runs in time O(N log N), as opposed to quicksort's Theta(N**2) |
1456 | worst-case run time behaviour), and that sort() is now stable |
1457 | (meaning that elements with identical keys will stay ordered as they |
1458 | were before the sort). See the C<sort> pragma for information. |
77c8cf41 |
1459 | |
05e25c75 |
1460 | The story in more detail: suppose you want to serve yourself a little |
1461 | slice of Pi. |
1462 | |
1463 | @digits = ( 3,1,4,1,5,9 ); |
1464 | |
1465 | A numerical sort of the digits will yield (1,1,3,4,5,9), as expected. |
1466 | Which C<1> comes first is hard to know, since one C<1> looks pretty |
1467 | much like any other. You can regard this as totally trivial, |
1468 | or somewhat profound. However, if you just want to sort the even |
1469 | digits ahead of the odd ones, then what will |
1470 | |
1471 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } @digits; |
1472 | |
1473 | yield? The only even digit, C<4>, will come first. But how about |
1474 | the odd numbers, which all compare equal? With the quicksort algorithm |
1475 | used to implement Perl 5.6 and earlier, the order of ties is left up |
1476 | to the sort. So, as you add more and more digits of Pi, the order |
1477 | in which the sorted even and odd digits appear will change. |
1478 | and, for sufficiently large slices of Pi, the quicksort algorithm |
1479 | in Perl 5.8 won't return the same results even if reinvoked with the |
1480 | same input. The justification for this rests with quicksort's |
1481 | worst case behavior. If you run |
1482 | |
1483 | sort { $a <=> $b } ( 1 .. $N , 1 .. $N ); |
1484 | |
1485 | (something you might approximate if you wanted to merge two sorted |
1486 | arrays using sort), doubling $N doesn't just double the quicksort time, |
1487 | it I<quadruples> it. Quicksort has a worst case run time that can |
1488 | grow like N**2, so-called I<quadratic> behaviour, and it can happen |
1489 | on patterns that may well arise in normal use. You won't notice this |
1490 | for small arrays, but you I<will> notice it with larger arrays, |
1491 | and you may not live long enough for the sort to complete on arrays |
1492 | of a million elements. So the 5.8 quicksort scrambles large arrays |
1493 | before sorting them, as a statistical defence against quadratic behaviour. |
1494 | But that means if you sort the same large array twice, ties may be |
1495 | broken in different ways. |
1496 | |
1497 | Because of the unpredictability of tie-breaking order, and the quadratic |
1498 | worst-case behaviour, quicksort was I<almost> replaced completely with |
1499 | a stable mergesort. I<Stable> means that ties are broken to preserve |
1500 | the original order of appearance in the input array. So |
1501 | |
1502 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } (3,1,4,1,5,9); |
1503 | |
1504 | will yield (4,3,1,1,5,9), guaranteed. The even and odd numbers |
1505 | appear in the output in the same order they appeared in the input. |
1506 | Mergesort has worst case O(NlogN) behaviour, the best value |
1507 | attainable. And, ironically, this mergesort does particularly |
1508 | well where quicksort goes quadratic: mergesort sorts (1..$N, 1..$N) |
1509 | in O(N) time. But quicksort was rescued at the last moment because |
1510 | it is faster than mergesort on certain inputs and platforms. |
1511 | For example, if you really I<don't> care about the order of even |
1512 | and odd digits, quicksort will run in O(N) time; it's very good |
1513 | at sorting many repetitions of a small number of distinct elements. |
1514 | The quicksort divide and conquer strategy works well on platforms |
1515 | with relatively small, very fast, caches. Eventually, the problem gets |
1516 | whittled down to one that fits in the cache, from which point it |
1517 | benefits from the increased memory speed. |
1518 | |
1519 | Quicksort was rescued by implementing a sort pragma to control aspects |
1520 | of the sort. The B<stable> subpragma forces stable behaviour, |
1521 | regardless of algorithm. The B<_quicksort> and B<_mergesort> |
1522 | subpragmas are heavy-handed ways to select the underlying implementation. |
1523 | The leading C<_> is a reminder that these subpragmas may not survive |
1524 | beyond 5.8. More appropriate mechanisms for selecting the implementation |
1525 | exist, but they wouldn't have arrived in time to save quicksort. |
1526 | |
77c8cf41 |
1527 | =item * |
1528 | |
1529 | Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm |
f224927c |
1530 | ( http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html ). This algorithm is |
77c8cf41 |
1531 | reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than |
1532 | the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by |
1533 | Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of |
1534 | all 3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the |
1535 | DIEHARD random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this |
1536 | change has not affected the overall speed of Perl. |
1537 | |
1538 | =item * |
1539 | |
1540 | unshift() should now be noticeably faster. |
1541 | |
1542 | =back |
1543 | |
1544 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
1545 | |
1546 | =head2 Generic Improvements |
1547 | |
1548 | =over 4 |
1549 | |
1550 | =item * |
1551 | |
1552 | INSTALL now explains how you can configure Perl to use 64-bit |
1553 | integers even on non-64-bit platforms. |
1554 | |
1555 | =item * |
1556 | |
1557 | Policy.sh policy change: if you are reusing a Policy.sh file |
1558 | (see INSTALL) and you use Configure -Dprefix=/foo/bar and in the old |
1559 | Policy $prefix eq $siteprefix and $prefix eq $vendorprefix, all of |
1560 | them will now be changed to the new prefix, /foo/bar. (Previously |
1561 | only $prefix changed.) If you do not like this new behaviour, |
1562 | specify prefix, siteprefix, and vendorprefix explicitly. |
1563 | |
1564 | =item * |
1565 | |
1566 | A new optional location for Perl libraries, otherlibdirs, is available. |
1567 | It can be used for example for vendor add-ons without disturbing Perl's |
1568 | own library directories. |
1569 | |
1570 | =item * |
1571 | |
1572 | In many platforms the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to |
1573 | build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems |
1574 | to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler |
1575 | 'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead. |
1576 | |
1577 | =item * |
1578 | |
1579 | gcc needs to closely track the operating system release to avoid |
1580 | build problems. If Configure finds that gcc was built for a different |
1581 | operating system release than is running, it now gives a clearly visible |
1582 | warning that there may be trouble ahead. |
1583 | |
1584 | =item * |
1585 | |
1586 | If binary compatibility with the 5.005 release is not wanted, Configure |
1587 | no longer suggests including the 5.005 modules in @INC. |
1588 | |
1589 | =item * |
1590 | |
1591 | Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively. |
1592 | |
1593 | =item * |
1594 | |
44da0e71 |
1595 | Configure support for pdp11-style memory models has been removed due |
1596 | to obsolescence. |
1597 | |
1598 | =item * |
1599 | |
77c8cf41 |
1600 | configure.gnu now works with options with whitespace in them. |
f39f21d8 |
1601 | |
77c8cf41 |
1602 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1603 | |
77c8cf41 |
1604 | installperl now outputs everything to STDERR. |
f39f21d8 |
1605 | |
77c8cf41 |
1606 | =item * |
1607 | |
1608 | $Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically (this is more robust |
1609 | with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries for |
1610 | more than one binary platform.) |
f39f21d8 |
1611 | |
1612 | =item * |
1613 | |
1614 | Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, "-perlio" doesn't |
1615 | get appended to the $Config{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore. |
1616 | Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command |
1617 | line option -Uuseperlio), you will get "-stdio" appended. |
1618 | |
1619 | =item * |
1620 | |
1621 | Another change related to the architecture name is that "-64all" |
1622 | (-Duse64bitall, or "maximally 64-bit") is appended only if your |
1623 | pointers are 64 bits wide. (To be exact, the use64bitall is ignored.) |
1624 | |
1625 | =item * |
1626 | |
77c8cf41 |
1627 | In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be |
1628 | somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure |
1629 | parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>. |
1630 | |
1631 | =item * |
1632 | |
61947107 |
1633 | APPLLIB_EXP, a less-know configuration-time definition, has been |
1634 | documented. It can be used to prepend site-specific directories |
1635 | to Perl's default search path (@INC), see INSTALL for information. |
1636 | |
1637 | =item * |
1638 | |
77c8cf41 |
1639 | The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the |
1640 | DB_File extension) was built is now available as |
1641 | C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}> |
1642 | from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG |
1643 | DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C. |
1644 | |
1645 | =item * |
1646 | |
61947107 |
1647 | Building Berkeley DB3 for compatibility modes for DB, NDBM, and ODBM |
1648 | has been documented in INSTALL. |
77c8cf41 |
1649 | |
1650 | =item * |
1651 | |
61947107 |
1652 | If you have CPAN access (either network or a local copy such as a |
1653 | CD-ROM) you can during specify extra modules to Configure to build and |
1654 | install with Perl using the -Dextras=... option. See INSTALL for |
1655 | more details. |
f39f21d8 |
1656 | |
61947107 |
1657 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1658 | |
61947107 |
1659 | In addition to config.over a new override file, config.arch, is |
1660 | available. That is supposed to be used by hints file writers for |
1661 | architecture-wide changes (as opposed to config.over which is for |
1662 | site-wide changes). |
f39f21d8 |
1663 | |
1664 | =item * |
1665 | |
e1f170bd |
1666 | If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside |
1667 | of the source directory by |
1668 | |
1669 | mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory |
1670 | cd /tmp/perl/build/directory |
1671 | sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ... |
1672 | |
1673 | This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links |
1674 | pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left |
1675 | unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say |
1676 | |
1677 | make all test |
1678 | |
1679 | and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory. |
1680 | |
1681 | =item * |
1682 | |
61947107 |
1683 | For Perl developers several new make targets for profiling |
1684 | and debugging have been added, see L<perlhack>. |
1685 | |
1686 | =over 8 |
f39f21d8 |
1687 | |
1688 | =item * |
1689 | |
61947107 |
1690 | Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in |
1691 | L<perlhack>. There is a make target called "perl.gprof" for |
1692 | generating a gprofiled Perl executable. |
f39f21d8 |
1693 | |
1694 | =item * |
1695 | |
61947107 |
1696 | If you have GCC 3, there is a make target called "perl.gcov" for |
1697 | creating a gcoved Perl executable for coverage analysis. See |
1698 | L<perlhack>. |
f39f21d8 |
1699 | |
1700 | =item * |
1701 | |
61947107 |
1702 | If you are on IRIX or Tru64 platforms, new profiling/debugging options |
1703 | have been added, see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and |
1704 | Third Degree. |
1705 | |
1706 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
1707 | |
1708 | =item * |
1709 | |
61947107 |
1710 | Guidelines of how to construct minimal Perl installations have |
1711 | been added to INSTALL. |
f39f21d8 |
1712 | |
1713 | =item * |
1714 | |
61947107 |
1715 | The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads |
1716 | (C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the |
1717 | Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>). |
f39f21d8 |
1718 | |
61947107 |
1719 | But note that the Thread.pm interface is now shared by both |
1720 | thread models. |
f39f21d8 |
1721 | |
d1eb8299 |
1722 | =item * |
1723 | |
1724 | The Gconvert macro ($Config{d_Gconvert}) used by perl for stringifying |
1725 | floating-point numbers is now more picky about using sprintf %.*g |
1726 | rules for the conversion. Some platforms that used to use gcvt may |
1727 | now resort to the slower sprintf. |
1728 | |
61947107 |
1729 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
1730 | |
61947107 |
1731 | =head2 New Or Improved Platforms |
f39f21d8 |
1732 | |
61947107 |
1733 | For the list of platforms known to support Perl, |
1734 | see L<perlport/"Supported Platforms">. |
1735 | |
1736 | =over 4 |
f39f21d8 |
1737 | |
1738 | =item * |
1739 | |
61947107 |
1740 | AIX dynamic loading should be now better supported. |
f39f21d8 |
1741 | |
f39f21d8 |
1742 | =item * |
1743 | |
77c8cf41 |
1744 | AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the |
1745 | long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>. |
f39f21d8 |
1746 | |
1747 | =item * |
1748 | |
f224927c |
1749 | AtheOS ( http://www.atheos.cx/ ) is a new platform. |
f39f21d8 |
1750 | |
77c8cf41 |
1751 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1752 | |
58175c9b |
1753 | BeOS has been reclaimed. |
1754 | |
1755 | =item * |
1756 | |
77c8cf41 |
1757 | DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>. |
f39f21d8 |
1758 | |
1759 | =item * |
1760 | |
77c8cf41 |
1761 | DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2. |
f39f21d8 |
1762 | |
1763 | =item * |
1764 | |
61947107 |
1765 | EBCDIC platforms (z/OS, also known as OS/390, POSIX-BC, and VM/ESA) |
1766 | have been regained. Many test suite tests still fail and the |
1767 | co-existence of Unicode and EBCDIC isn't quite settled, but the |
1768 | situation is much better than with Perl 5.6. See L<perlos390>, |
1769 | L<perlbs2000> (for POSIX-BC), and L<perlvmesa> for more information. |
f39f21d8 |
1770 | |
1771 | =item * |
1772 | |
61947107 |
1773 | Building perl with -Duseithreads or -Duse5005threads now works under |
1774 | HP-UX 10.20 (previously it only worked under 10.30 or later). You will |
1775 | need a thread library package installed. See README.hpux. |
f39f21d8 |
1776 | |
77c8cf41 |
1777 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1778 | |
61947107 |
1779 | MacOS Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since |
1780 | perl 5.004 but now the source code bases of standard Perl |
1781 | and MacPerl have been synchronised) |
f39f21d8 |
1782 | |
77c8cf41 |
1783 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1784 | |
61947107 |
1785 | MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+ |
1786 | filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.) |
f39f21d8 |
1787 | |
888aee59 |
1788 | =item * |
1789 | |
61947107 |
1790 | NCR MP-RAS is now supported. |
888aee59 |
1791 | |
1792 | =item * |
1793 | |
58175c9b |
1794 | All the NetBSD specific patches (except for the installation |
1795 | specific ones) have been merged back to the main distribution. |
1796 | |
1797 | =item * |
1798 | |
61947107 |
1799 | NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>. |
888aee59 |
1800 | |
1801 | =item * |
1802 | |
61947107 |
1803 | NonStop-UX is now supported. |
888aee59 |
1804 | |
1805 | =item * |
1806 | |
44da0e71 |
1807 | NEC SUPER-UX is now supported. |
1808 | |
1809 | =item * |
1810 | |
58175c9b |
1811 | All the OpenBSD specific patches (except for the installation |
1812 | specific ones) have been merged back to the main distribution. |
1813 | |
1814 | =item * |
1815 | |
1816 | Perl has been tested with the GNU pth userlevel thread package |
1817 | ( http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/pth.html ) . All but one thread |
1818 | test worked, and that one failure was because of test results arriving |
1819 | in unexpected order. |
1820 | |
1821 | =item * |
1822 | |
61947107 |
1823 | Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. |
888aee59 |
1824 | |
1825 | =item * |
1826 | |
61947107 |
1827 | WinCE is now supported. See L<perlce>. |
1828 | |
1829 | =item * |
1830 | |
1831 | z/OS (formerly known as OS/390, formerly known as MVS OE) has now |
1832 | support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default, |
1833 | however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure. |
888aee59 |
1834 | |
f39f21d8 |
1835 | =back |
1836 | |
1837 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
1838 | |
e1f170bd |
1839 | Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been |
1840 | hunted down. Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite |
1841 | a bit. |
ba370e9b |
1842 | |
f39f21d8 |
1843 | =over 4 |
1844 | |
1845 | =item * |
1846 | |
e1f170bd |
1847 | The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names. |
f39f21d8 |
1848 | |
1849 | =item * |
1850 | |
44da0e71 |
1851 | caller() could cause core dumps in certain situations. Carp was sometimes |
1852 | affected by this problem. |
1853 | |
1854 | =item * |
1855 | |
e1f170bd |
1856 | chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in |
1857 | reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order. |
f39f21d8 |
1858 | |
1859 | =item * |
1860 | |
e1f170bd |
1861 | Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm) |
1862 | when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x, |
1863 | which needs them. |
f39f21d8 |
1864 | |
1865 | =item * |
1866 | |
e1f170bd |
1867 | The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as |
1868 | "0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35, |
1869 | in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This |
1870 | was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation |
1871 | where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now |
1872 | Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts. |
f39f21d8 |
1873 | |
1874 | =item * |
1875 | |
e1f170bd |
1876 | The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable. |
f39f21d8 |
1877 | |
1878 | =item * |
1879 | |
e1f170bd |
1880 | Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code, |
1881 | condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks |
44da0e71 |
1882 | line number, the C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, all debugger output |
1883 | now goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set. |
1884 | |
1885 | =item * |
1886 | |
1887 | Perl 5.6.0 could emit spurious warnings about redefinition of dl_error() |
1888 | when statically building extensions into perl. This has been corrected. |
f39f21d8 |
1889 | |
1890 | =item * |
1891 | |
e1f170bd |
1892 | L<dprofpp> -R didn't work. |
f39f21d8 |
1893 | |
1894 | =item * |
1895 | |
e1f170bd |
1896 | C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works. |
44da0e71 |
1897 | =item * |
1898 | |
1899 | Infinity is now recognized as a number. |
f39f21d8 |
1900 | |
1901 | =item * |
1902 | |
e1f170bd |
1903 | UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke |
1904 | the Tk extension with 5.6.0.) |
f39f21d8 |
1905 | |
1906 | =item * |
1907 | |
e1f170bd |
1908 | Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved |
1909 | correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they |
1910 | were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code. |
f39f21d8 |
1911 | |
1912 | =item * |
1913 | |
e1f170bd |
1914 | Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that |
1915 | were declared before the lexicals. |
f39f21d8 |
1916 | |
1917 | =item * |
1918 | |
44da0e71 |
1919 | Lexical warnings now propagating correctly between scopes |
1920 | and into C<eval "...">. |
1921 | |
1922 | =item * |
1923 | |
1924 | C<use warnings qw(FATAL all)> did not work as intended. This has been |
1925 | corrected. |
1926 | |
1927 | =item * |
1928 | |
1929 | warnings::enabled() now reports the state of $^W correctly if the caller |
1930 | isn't using lexical warnings. |
f39f21d8 |
1931 | |
1932 | =item * |
1933 | |
e1f170bd |
1934 | Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works. |
f39f21d8 |
1935 | |
1936 | =item * |
1937 | |
e1f170bd |
1938 | Fixed numerous memory leaks, especially in eval "". |
f39f21d8 |
1939 | |
1940 | =item * |
1941 | |
0b2c215a |
1942 | Localised tied variables no more leak memory |
1943 | |
1944 | use Tie::Hash; |
1945 | tie my %tied_hash => 'Tie::StdHash'; |
1946 | |
1947 | ... |
1948 | |
1949 | # Used to leak memory every time local() was called, |
1950 | # in a loop this added up. |
1951 | local($tied_hash{Foo}) = 1; |
1952 | |
1953 | =item * |
1954 | |
159ad915 |
1955 | Localised hash elements (and %ENV) are correctly unlocalised to not to |
136430a4 |
1956 | exist, if that's what they were. |
0b2c215a |
1957 | |
1958 | |
1959 | use Tie::Hash; |
1960 | tie my %tied_hash => 'Tie::StdHash'; |
1961 | |
1962 | ... |
1963 | |
1964 | # Nothing has set the FOO element so far |
1965 | |
1966 | { local $tied_hash{FOO} = 'Bar' } |
1967 | |
1968 | # Here the FOO element would have been C<undef>, |
1969 | # but no more so. |
1970 | |
1971 | As a side effect of this fix, tied hash interfaces B<must> define |
159ad915 |
1972 | the EXISTS and DELETE methods. |
0b2c215a |
1973 | |
1974 | =item * |
1975 | |
e1f170bd |
1976 | mkdir() now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name, |
1977 | as mandated by POSIX. |
f39f21d8 |
1978 | |
1979 | =item * |
1980 | |
e1f170bd |
1981 | Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds |
1982 | with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness |
1983 | and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have |
1984 | fixed the modfl() bug. |
f39f21d8 |
1985 | |
1986 | =item * |
1987 | |
e1f170bd |
1988 | Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to |
1989 | return 27406, instead of 27047). |
f39f21d8 |
1990 | |
1991 | =item * |
1992 | |
e1f170bd |
1993 | Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be |
1994 | more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number. |
f39f21d8 |
1995 | |
77c8cf41 |
1996 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1997 | |
44da0e71 |
1998 | Numeric conversions did not recognize changes in the string value |
1999 | properly in certain circumstances. |
2000 | |
2001 | =item * |
2002 | |
e1f170bd |
2003 | Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with our(). |
f39f21d8 |
2004 | |
2005 | =item * |
2006 | |
e1f170bd |
2007 | our() variables will not cause "will not stay shared" warnings. |
f39f21d8 |
2008 | |
2009 | =item * |
2010 | |
44da0e71 |
2011 | "our" variables of the same name declared in two sibling blocks |
2012 | resulted in bogus warnings about "redeclaration" of the variables. |
2013 | The problem has been corrected. |
2014 | |
2015 | =item * |
2016 | |
e1f170bd |
2017 | pack "Z" now correctly terminates the string with "\0". |
f39f21d8 |
2018 | |
2019 | =item * |
2020 | |
e1f170bd |
2021 | Fix password routines which in some shadow password platforms |
2022 | (e.g. HP-UX) caused getpwent() to return every other entry. |
f39f21d8 |
2023 | |
77c8cf41 |
2024 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2025 | |
e1f170bd |
2026 | The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments |
2027 | to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options. |
f39f21d8 |
2028 | |
77c8cf41 |
2029 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2030 | |
e1f170bd |
2031 | PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work. |
f39f21d8 |
2032 | |
77c8cf41 |
2033 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2034 | |
e1f170bd |
2035 | printf() no longer resets the numeric locale to "C". |
f39f21d8 |
2036 | |
77c8cf41 |
2037 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2038 | |
44da0e71 |
2039 | C<qw(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>. |
2040 | |
2041 | =item * |
2042 | |
2043 | pos() did not return the correct value within s///ge in earlier |
2044 | versions. This is now handled correctly. |
f39f21d8 |
2045 | |
77c8cf41 |
2046 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2047 | |
e1f170bd |
2048 | Printing quads (64-bit integers) with printf/sprintf now works |
2049 | without the q L ll prefixes (assuming you are on a quad-capable platform). |
f39f21d8 |
2050 | |
77c8cf41 |
2051 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2052 | |
e1f170bd |
2053 | Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work. |
f39f21d8 |
2054 | |
ba370e9b |
2055 | =item * |
2056 | |
e1f170bd |
2057 | Right-hand side magic (GMAGIC) could in many cases such as string |
2058 | concatenation be invoked too many times. |
ba370e9b |
2059 | |
2060 | =item * |
2061 | |
e1f170bd |
2062 | scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context. |
ba370e9b |
2063 | |
2064 | =item * |
2065 | |
e1f170bd |
2066 | SOCKS support is now much more robust. |
ba370e9b |
2067 | |
2068 | =item * |
2069 | |
e1f170bd |
2070 | sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context |
2071 | (they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself). |
44da0e71 |
2072 | The comparison block is now run in scalar context, and the arguments |
2073 | to be sorted are always provided list context. |
ba370e9b |
2074 | |
2075 | =item * |
2076 | |
e1f170bd |
2077 | Changed the POSIX character class C<[[:space:]]> to include the (very |
c2e23569 |
2078 | rarely used) vertical tab character. Added a new POSIX-ish character |
2079 | class C<[[:blank:]]> which stands for horizontal whitespace |
2080 | (currently, the space and the tab). |
ba370e9b |
2081 | |
2082 | =item * |
2083 | |
2084 | The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does |
2085 | not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the |
2086 | behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation. |
2087 | |
2088 | =item * |
2089 | |
44da0e71 |
2090 | Some cases of inconsistent taint propagation (such as within hash |
2091 | values) have been fixed. |
2092 | |
2093 | =item * |
2094 | |
2095 | The RE engine found in Perl 5.6.0 accidentally pessimised certain kinds |
2096 | of simple pattern matches. These are now handled better. |
2097 | |
2098 | =item * |
2099 | |
2100 | Regular expression debug output (whether through C<use re 'debug'> |
2101 | or via C<-Dr>) now looks better. |
2102 | |
2103 | =item * |
2104 | |
2105 | Multi-line matches like C<"a\nxb\n" =~ /(?!\A)x/m> were flawed. The |
2106 | bug has been fixed. |
2107 | |
2108 | =item * |
2109 | |
2110 | Use of $& could trigger a core dump under some situations. This |
2111 | is now avoided. |
2112 | |
2113 | =item * |
2114 | |
c2e23569 |
2115 | The regular expression captured submatches ($1, $2, ...) are now |
2116 | more consistently unset if the match fails, instead of leaving false |
2117 | data lying around in them. |
2118 | |
2119 | =item * |
2120 | |
44da0e71 |
2121 | readline() on files opened in "slurp" mode could return an extra "" at |
2122 | the end in certain situations. This has been corrected. |
2123 | |
2124 | =item * |
2125 | |
2126 | Autovivification of symbolic references of special variables described |
2127 | in L<perlvar> (as in C<${$num}>) was accidentally disabled. This works |
2128 | again now. |
2129 | |
2130 | =item * |
2131 | |
da6838c8 |
2132 | Sys::Syslog ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant. |
ba370e9b |
2133 | |
2134 | =item * |
2135 | |
e1f170bd |
2136 | All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional. |
ba370e9b |
2137 | |
2138 | =item * |
2139 | |
e1f170bd |
2140 | $AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses |
2141 | in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe. |
ba370e9b |
2142 | |
2143 | =item * |
2144 | |
e1f170bd |
2145 | Tie::ARRAY SPLICE method was broken. |
ba370e9b |
2146 | |
2147 | =item * |
2148 | |
e1f170bd |
2149 | Allow read-only string on left hand side of non-modifying tr///. |
ba370e9b |
2150 | |
2151 | =item * |
2152 | |
ed788108 |
2153 | If C<STDERR> is tied, warnings caused by C<warn> and C<die> now |
2154 | correctly pass to it. |
2155 | |
2156 | =item * |
2157 | |
e1f170bd |
2158 | Several Unicode fixes. |
ba370e9b |
2159 | |
2160 | =over 8 |
2161 | |
2162 | =item * |
2163 | |
e1f170bd |
2164 | BOMs (byte order marks) in the beginning of Perl files |
2165 | (scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped. |
2166 | UTF-16 (UCS-2) encoded Perl files should now be read correctly. |
ba370e9b |
2167 | |
2168 | =item * |
2169 | |
26f08e12 |
2170 | The character tables have been updated to Unicode 3.2.0. |
ba370e9b |
2171 | |
2172 | =item * |
2173 | |
e1f170bd |
2174 | Comparing with utf8 data does not magically upgrade non-utf8 data |
58175c9b |
2175 | into utf8. (This was a problem for example if you were mixing data |
2176 | from I/O and Unicode data: your output might have got magically encoded |
2177 | as UTF-8.) |
2178 | |
2179 | =item * |
2180 | |
2181 | Generating illegal Unicode code points like U+FFFE, or the UTF-16 |
2182 | surrogates, now also generates an optional warning. |
ba370e9b |
2183 | |
2184 | =item * |
2185 | |
e1f170bd |
2186 | C<IsAlnum>, C<IsAlpha>, and C<IsWord> now match titlecase. |
f39f21d8 |
2187 | |
77c8cf41 |
2188 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2189 | |
e1f170bd |
2190 | Concatenation with the C<.> operator or via variable interpolation, |
2191 | C<eq>, C<substr>, C<reverse>, C<quotemeta>, the C<x> operator, |
2192 | substitution with C<s///>, single-quoted UTF8, should now work. |
f39f21d8 |
2193 | |
77c8cf41 |
2194 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2195 | |
e1f170bd |
2196 | The C<tr///> operator now works. Note that the C<tr///CU> |
2197 | functionality has been removed (but see pack('U0', ...)). |
f39f21d8 |
2198 | |
77c8cf41 |
2199 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2200 | |
e1f170bd |
2201 | C<eval "v200"> now works. |
f39f21d8 |
2202 | |
77c8cf41 |
2203 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2204 | |
44da0e71 |
2205 | Perl 5.6.0 parsed m/\x{ab}/ incorrectly, leading to spurious warnings. |
2206 | This has been corrected. |
2207 | |
2208 | =item * |
2209 | |
e1f170bd |
2210 | Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes like C<IsDigit>. |
f39f21d8 |
2211 | |
e1f170bd |
2212 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2213 | |
44da0e71 |
2214 | =item * |
2215 | |
2216 | Large unsigned numbers (those above 2**31) could sometimes lose their |
2217 | unsignedness, causing bogus results in arithmetic operations. |
2218 | |
77c8cf41 |
2219 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2220 | |
77c8cf41 |
2221 | =head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes |
f39f21d8 |
2222 | |
2223 | =over 4 |
2224 | |
2225 | =item * |
2226 | |
77c8cf41 |
2227 | BSDI 4.* |
f39f21d8 |
2228 | |
77c8cf41 |
2229 | Perl now works on post-4.0 BSD/OSes. |
f39f21d8 |
2230 | |
2231 | =item * |
2232 | |
77c8cf41 |
2233 | All BSDs |
f39f21d8 |
2234 | |
057b7f2b |
2235 | Setting C<$0> now works (as much as possible; see L<perlvar> for details). |
f39f21d8 |
2236 | |
2237 | =item * |
2238 | |
77c8cf41 |
2239 | Cygwin |
f39f21d8 |
2240 | |
439f2f5c |
2241 | Numerous updates; currently synchronised with Cygwin 1.3.10. |
f39f21d8 |
2242 | |
2243 | =item * |
2244 | |
e1f170bd |
2245 | Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O. |
2246 | |
2247 | =item * |
2248 | |
77c8cf41 |
2249 | EPOC |
f39f21d8 |
2250 | |
77c8cf41 |
2251 | EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc. |
f39f21d8 |
2252 | |
2253 | =item * |
2254 | |
77c8cf41 |
2255 | FreeBSD 3.* |
f39f21d8 |
2256 | |
77c8cf41 |
2257 | Perl now works on post-3.0 FreeBSDs. |
f39f21d8 |
2258 | |
2259 | =item * |
2260 | |
77c8cf41 |
2261 | HP-UX |
2262 | |
439f2f5c |
2263 | README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now works. |
f39f21d8 |
2264 | |
2265 | =item * |
2266 | |
77c8cf41 |
2267 | IRIX |
f39f21d8 |
2268 | |
77c8cf41 |
2269 | Numerous compilation flag and hint enhancements; accidental mixing |
2270 | of 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (a doomed attempt) made much harder. |
f39f21d8 |
2271 | |
77c8cf41 |
2272 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2273 | |
77c8cf41 |
2274 | Linux |
f39f21d8 |
2275 | |
e1f170bd |
2276 | =over 8 |
2277 | |
2278 | =item * |
2279 | |
77c8cf41 |
2280 | Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL). |
f39f21d8 |
2281 | |
2282 | =item * |
2283 | |
e1f170bd |
2284 | Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using |
2285 | accept(), revcfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and getsockname(). |
2286 | |
2287 | =back |
2288 | |
2289 | =item * |
2290 | |
77c8cf41 |
2291 | MacOS Classic |
f39f21d8 |
2292 | |
77c8cf41 |
2293 | Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in MacOS Classic should |
2294 | now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and |
2295 | the missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing |
2296 | list for details. |
f39f21d8 |
2297 | |
2298 | =item * |
2299 | |
77c8cf41 |
2300 | MPE/iX |
f39f21d8 |
2301 | |
77c8cf41 |
2302 | MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix. |
f39f21d8 |
2303 | |
2304 | =item * |
2305 | |
27cc4b77 |
2306 | NetBSD/threads: try installing the GNU pth (should be in the |
2307 | packages collection, or http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/), |
2308 | and Configure with -Duseithreads. |
2309 | |
2310 | =item * |
2311 | |
77c8cf41 |
2312 | NetBSD/sparc |
f39f21d8 |
2313 | |
77c8cf41 |
2314 | Perl now works on NetBSD/sparc. |
f39f21d8 |
2315 | |
2316 | =item * |
2317 | |
77c8cf41 |
2318 | OS/2 |
f39f21d8 |
2319 | |
77c8cf41 |
2320 | Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL). |
f39f21d8 |
2321 | |
2322 | =item * |
2323 | |
77c8cf41 |
2324 | Solaris |
f39f21d8 |
2325 | |
77c8cf41 |
2326 | 64-bitness using the Sun Workshop compiler now works. |
f39f21d8 |
2327 | |
2328 | =item * |
2329 | |
77c8cf41 |
2330 | Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1) |
f39f21d8 |
2331 | |
77c8cf41 |
2332 | The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}. |
2333 | Allow compiling with gcc (previously explicitly forbidden). Compiling |
2334 | with gcc still not recommended because buggy code results, even with |
2335 | gcc 2.95.2. |
f39f21d8 |
2336 | |
2337 | =item * |
2338 | |
77c8cf41 |
2339 | Unicos |
2340 | |
2341 | Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either |
2342 | during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime; |
2343 | now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using |
2344 | only 46 bit integers for speed. |
f39f21d8 |
2345 | |
2346 | =item * |
2347 | |
77c8cf41 |
2348 | VMS |
2349 | |
2350 | chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY |
2351 | (see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc. |
f39f21d8 |
2352 | |
00bb525a |
2353 | The tainting of C<%ENV> elements via C<keys> or C<values> was previously |
2354 | unimplemented. It now works as documented. |
2355 | |
2356 | The C<waitpid> emulation has been improved. The worst bug (now fixed) |
2357 | was that a pid of -1 would cause a wildcard search of all processes on |
2358 | the system. The most significant enhancement is that we can now |
2359 | usually get the completion status of a terminated process. |
2360 | |
2361 | POSIX-style signals are now emulated much better on VMS versions prior |
2362 | to 7.0. |
2363 | |
2364 | The C<system> function and backticks operator have improved |
2365 | functionality and better error handling. |
2366 | |
161720b2 |
2367 | File access tests now use current process privileges rather than the |
2368 | user's default privileges, which could sometimes result in a mismatch |
2369 | between reported access and actual access. |
2370 | |
f39f21d8 |
2371 | =item * |
2372 | |
77c8cf41 |
2373 | Windows |
f39f21d8 |
2374 | |
77c8cf41 |
2375 | =over 8 |
f39f21d8 |
2376 | |
2377 | =item * |
2378 | |
77c8cf41 |
2379 | accept() no longer leaks memory. |
f39f21d8 |
2380 | |
2381 | =item * |
2382 | |
e1f170bd |
2383 | Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl. |
2384 | However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those |
2385 | generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). |
2386 | |
2387 | =item * |
2388 | |
77c8cf41 |
2389 | Better chdir() return value for a non-existent directory. |
f39f21d8 |
2390 | |
77c8cf41 |
2391 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2392 | |
e1f170bd |
2393 | Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x. |
2394 | |
2395 | =item * |
2396 | |
77c8cf41 |
2397 | New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. |
f39f21d8 |
2398 | |
2399 | =item * |
2400 | |
44da0e71 |
2401 | Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child |
2402 | processes. |
2403 | |
2404 | =item * |
2405 | |
77c8cf41 |
2406 | $ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C. |
2407 | |
2408 | =item * |
2409 | |
44da0e71 |
2410 | fork() emulation has been improved in various ways, but still continues |
2411 | to be experimental. See L<perlfork> for known bugs and caveats. |
e1f170bd |
2412 | |
2413 | =item * |
2414 | |
77c8cf41 |
2415 | A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN. |
f39f21d8 |
2416 | |
2417 | =item * |
2418 | |
44da0e71 |
2419 | Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root. |
2420 | Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. |
2421 | |
2422 | =item * |
2423 | |
e1f170bd |
2424 | HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html |
2425 | |
2426 | =item * |
2427 | |
2428 | The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features |
2429 | enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary distribution). |
2430 | |
2431 | =item * |
2432 | |
77c8cf41 |
2433 | Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry. |
f39f21d8 |
2434 | |
2435 | =item * |
2436 | |
77c8cf41 |
2437 | Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. |
f39f21d8 |
2438 | |
2439 | =item * |
2440 | |
77c8cf41 |
2441 | Fake signal handling reenabled, bugs and all. |
f39f21d8 |
2442 | |
2443 | =item * |
2444 | |
44da0e71 |
2445 | %SIG has been enabled under USE_ITHREADS, but its use is completely |
2446 | unsupported under all configurations. |
2447 | |
2448 | =item * |
2449 | |
77c8cf41 |
2450 | Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run |
2451 | concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.) |
f39f21d8 |
2452 | |
2453 | =item * |
2454 | |
c2e23569 |
2455 | C<File::Spec->tmpdir()> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp |
77c8cf41 |
2456 | (works better when perl is running as service). |
f39f21d8 |
2457 | |
2458 | =item * |
2459 | |
77c8cf41 |
2460 | Better UNC path handling under ithreads. |
f39f21d8 |
2461 | |
2462 | =item * |
2463 | |
44da0e71 |
2464 | wait(), waitpid() and backticks now return the correct exit status under |
2465 | Windows 9x. |
f39f21d8 |
2466 | |
2467 | =item * |
2468 | |
77c8cf41 |
2469 | winsock handle leak fixed. |
f39f21d8 |
2470 | |
d1eb8299 |
2471 | =item * |
2472 | |
2473 | The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and |
2474 | Markov chain input and the few found crashes and lockups have been |
2475 | fixed. |
2476 | |
f39f21d8 |
2477 | =back |
2478 | |
77c8cf41 |
2479 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2480 | |
77c8cf41 |
2481 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
f39f21d8 |
2482 | |
ba370e9b |
2483 | =over 4 |
2484 | |
2485 | =item * |
2486 | |
12bcd1a6 |
2487 | The lexical warnings category "deprecated" is no longer a sub-category |
2488 | of the "syntax" category. It is now a top-level category in its own |
2489 | right. |
2490 | |
2491 | =item * |
2492 | |
77c8cf41 |
2493 | All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully |
2494 | easier to understand both because the error message now comes before |
2495 | the failed regex and because the point of failure is now clearly |
ba370e9b |
2496 | marked by a C<E<lt>-- HERE> marker. |
2497 | |
2498 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2499 | |
77c8cf41 |
2500 | The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings |
2501 | drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package, |
bea4d472 |
2502 | for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>. |
f39f21d8 |
2503 | |
ba370e9b |
2504 | =item * |
2505 | |
77c8cf41 |
2506 | The "Unrecognized escape" warning has been extended to include C<\8>, |
2507 | C<\9>, and C<\_>. There is no need to escape any of the C<\w> characters. |
f39f21d8 |
2508 | |
ba370e9b |
2509 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2510 | |
77c8cf41 |
2511 | Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your |
2512 | Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace |
2513 | tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables, |
2514 | respectively. |
f39f21d8 |
2515 | |
2516 | =item * |
2517 | |
2bcb0b45 |
2518 | The debugger (perl5db.pl) has been modified to present a more |
2519 | consistent commands interface, via (CommandSet=580). perl5db.t was |
2520 | also added to test the changes, and as a placeholder for further tests. |
492652be |
2521 | |
2bcb0b45 |
2522 | See L<perldebug>. |
492652be |
2523 | |
2524 | =item * |
2525 | |
9000bd02 |
2526 | The debugger has a new C<dumpDepth> option to control the maximum |
2527 | depth to which nested structures are dumped. The C<x> command has |
2528 | been extended so that C<x N EXPR> dumps out the value of I<EXPR> to a |
2529 | depth of at most I<N> levels. |
2530 | |
2531 | =item * |
2532 | |
2bcb0b45 |
2533 | The debugger can now show lexical variables if you have the CPAN |
2534 | module PadWalker installed. |
2535 | |
2536 | =item * |
2537 | |
77c8cf41 |
2538 | If an attempt to use a (non-blessed) reference as an array index |
2539 | is made, a warning is given. |
f39f21d8 |
2540 | |
2541 | =item * |
2542 | |
77c8cf41 |
2543 | C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift) |
6e6372ba |
2544 | now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled |
77c8cf41 |
2545 | code. |
f39f21d8 |
2546 | |
ba370e9b |
2547 | =item * |
2548 | |
2549 | If you try to L<perlfunc/pack> a number less than 0 or larger than 255 |
2550 | using the C<"C"> format you will get an optional warning. Similarly |
2551 | for the C<"c"> format and a number less than -128 or more than 127. |
2552 | |
2553 | =item * |
2554 | |
2555 | Certain regex modifiers such as C<(?o)> make sense only if applied to |
0d4213c3 |
2556 | the entire regex. You will get an optional warning if you try to do |
2557 | otherwise. |
ba370e9b |
2558 | |
2559 | =item * |
2560 | |
0d4213c3 |
2561 | Using arrays or hashes as references (e.g. C<< %foo->{bar} >> |
c2e23569 |
2562 | has been deprecated for a while. Now you will get an optional warning. |
ba370e9b |
2563 | |
608dbdb1 |
2564 | =item * |
2565 | |
2566 | Using C<sort> in scalar context now issues an optional warning. |
2567 | This didn't do anything useful, as the sort was not performed. |
2568 | |
f39f21d8 |
2569 | =back |
2570 | |
77c8cf41 |
2571 | =head1 Changed Internals |
f39f21d8 |
2572 | |
2573 | =over 4 |
2574 | |
2575 | =item * |
2576 | |
77c8cf41 |
2577 | perlapi.pod (a companion to perlguts) now attempts to document the |
2578 | internal API. |
f39f21d8 |
2579 | |
2580 | =item * |
2581 | |
77c8cf41 |
2582 | You can now build a really minimal perl called microperl. |
2583 | Building microperl does not require even running Configure; |
2584 | C<make -f Makefile.micro> should be enough. Beware: microperl makes |
2585 | many assumptions, some of which may be too bold; the resulting |
2586 | executable may crash or otherwise misbehave in wondrous ways. |
2587 | For careful hackers only. |
f39f21d8 |
2588 | |
2589 | =item * |
2590 | |
c2e23569 |
2591 | Added rsignal(), whichsig(), do_join(), op_clear, op_null, |
2592 | ptr_table_clear(), ptr_table_free(), sv_setref_uv(), and several UTF-8 |
2593 | interfaces to the publicised API. For the full list of the available |
2594 | APIs see L<perlapi>. |
f39f21d8 |
2595 | |
2596 | =item * |
2597 | |
77c8cf41 |
2598 | Made possible to propagate customised exceptions via croak()ing. |
f39f21d8 |
2599 | |
77c8cf41 |
2600 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2601 | |
95f0a2f1 |
2602 | Now xsubs can have attributes just like subs. (Well, at least the |
2603 | built-in attributes.) |
f39f21d8 |
2604 | |
2605 | =item * |
2606 | |
77c8cf41 |
2607 | dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's |
2608 | a no-op) and the latter replaced with dSP. |
f39f21d8 |
2609 | |
2610 | =item * |
2611 | |
61947107 |
2612 | PERL_OBJECT has been completely removed. |
2613 | |
2614 | =item * |
2615 | |
ba370e9b |
2616 | The MAGIC constants (e.g. C<'P'>) have been macrofied |
2617 | (e.g. C<PERL_MAGIC_TIED>) for better source code readability |
2618 | and maintainability. |
2619 | |
2620 | =item * |
2621 | |
2622 | The regex compiler now maintains a structure that identifies nodes in |
2623 | the compiled bytecode with the corresponding syntactic features of the |
2624 | original regex expression. The information is attached to the new |
2625 | C<offsets> member of the C<struct regexp>. See L<perldebguts> for more |
2626 | complete information. |
2627 | |
2628 | =item * |
2629 | |
2630 | The C code has been made much more C<gcc -Wall> clean. Some warning |
2631 | messages still remain in some platforms, so if you are compiling with |
2632 | gcc you may see some warnings about dubious practices. The warnings |
2633 | are being worked on. |
2634 | |
2635 | =item * |
2636 | |
2637 | F<perly.c>, F<sv.c>, and F<sv.h> have now been extensively commented. |
2638 | |
2639 | =item * |
2640 | |
61947107 |
2641 | Documentation on how to use the Perl source repository has been added |
2642 | to F<Porting/repository.pod>. |
f39f21d8 |
2643 | |
888aee59 |
2644 | =item * |
2645 | |
c2e23569 |
2646 | There are now several profiling make targets. |
888aee59 |
2647 | |
77c8cf41 |
2648 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2649 | |
77c8cf41 |
2650 | =head1 Security Vulnerability Closed |
f39f21d8 |
2651 | |
77c8cf41 |
2652 | (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.) |
f39f21d8 |
2653 | |
77c8cf41 |
2654 | A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component |
2655 | of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor |
2656 | installed by default. As of November 2001 the only known vulnerable |
2657 | platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and |
2658 | various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability. |
2659 | See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt |
2660 | for more information. |
f39f21d8 |
2661 | |
77c8cf41 |
2662 | The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security |
2663 | exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux |
2664 | platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which |
2665 | when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in |
2666 | a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you |
2667 | don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if |
2668 | suidperl is not installed, you are safe. |
f39f21d8 |
2669 | |
77c8cf41 |
2670 | The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from |
2671 | Perl 5.8.0 (and the maintenance release 5.6.1, and it was removed also |
2672 | from all the Perl 5.7 releases), so that particular vulnerability |
2673 | isn't there anymore. However, further security vulnerabilities are, |
ba370e9b |
2674 | unfortunately, always possible. The suidperl functionality is most |
2675 | probably going to be removed in Perl 5.10. In any case, suidperl |
2676 | should only be used by security experts who know exactly what they are |
2677 | doing and why they are using suidperl instead of some other solution |
1577cd80 |
2678 | such as sudo ( see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ). |
77c8cf41 |
2679 | |
2680 | =head1 New Tests |
2681 | |
76663d67 |
2682 | Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> |
d1eb8299 |
2683 | subsection. There are now about 56 000 individual tests (spread over |
2684 | about 620 test scripts), in the regression suite (5.6.1 has about |
76663d67 |
2685 | 11700 tests, in 258 test scripts) Many of the new tests are introduced |
2686 | by the new modules, but still in general Perl is now more thoroughly |
2687 | tested. |
2688 | |
2689 | Because of the large number of tests, running the regression suite |
2690 | will take considerably longer time than it used to: expect the suite |
2691 | to take up to 4-5 times longer to run than in perl 5.6. In a really |
d1eb8299 |
2692 | fast machine you can hope to finish the suite in about 6-8 minutes |
76663d67 |
2693 | (wallclock time). |
77c8cf41 |
2694 | |
2695 | The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls. |
2696 | (This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved |
2697 | to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.) |
2698 | |
f39f21d8 |
2699 | =head1 Known Problems |
2700 | |
f39f21d8 |
2701 | =head2 AIX |
2702 | |
2703 | =over 4 |
2704 | |
2705 | =item * |
2706 | |
2707 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics |
2708 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. |
2709 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with |
2710 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library |
2711 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time |
2712 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and |
2713 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. |
2714 | |
2715 | =item * |
2716 | |
2717 | vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl |
2718 | |
2719 | The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code, |
2720 | resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests |
2721 | are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least |
2722 | vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly. |
439f2f5c |
2723 | "lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell you the vac version. See README.aix. |
f39f21d8 |
2724 | |
0ea5284e |
2725 | =item * |
2726 | |
2727 | If building threaded Perl, you may get compilation warning from pp_sys.c: |
2728 | |
2729 | "pp_sys.c", line 4651.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed. |
2730 | |
2731 | This is harmless; it is caused by the getnetbyaddr() and getnetbyaddr_r() |
2732 | having slightly different types for their first argument. |
2733 | |
f39f21d8 |
2734 | =back |
2735 | |
2736 | =head2 Amiga Perl Invoking Mystery |
2737 | |
2738 | One cannot call Perl using the C<volume:> syntax, that is, C<perl -v> |
057b7f2b |
2739 | works, but for example C<bin:perl -v> doesn't. The exact reason isn't |
f39f21d8 |
2740 | known but the current suspect is the F<ixemul> library. |
2741 | |
9ffc0d0c |
2742 | =head2 FreeBSD Failing locale Test 117 For ISO8859-15 Locales |
2743 | |
2744 | The ISO8859-15 locales may fail the locale test 117 in FreeBSD. |
2745 | This is caused by the characters \xFF (y with diaeresis) and \xBE |
2746 | (Y with diaeresis) not behaving correctly when being matched |
2747 | case-insensitively. |
2748 | |
be61827f |
2749 | =head2 Modifying $_ Inside for(..) |
2750 | |
2751 | for (1..5) { $_++ } |
2752 | |
2753 | works without complaint. It shouldn't. (You should be able to |
2754 | modify only lvalue elements inside the loops.) You can see the |
2755 | correct behaviour by replacing the 1..5 with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. |
2756 | |
696235b6 |
2757 | =head2 mod_perl 1.26 Doesn't Build With Threaded Perl |
2758 | |
2759 | Use mod_perl 1.27 or higher. |
a08f42e9 |
2760 | |
f39f21d8 |
2761 | =head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure' |
2762 | |
2763 | Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead. |
2764 | |
be61827f |
2765 | =head2 HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured |
f39f21d8 |
2766 | |
2767 | If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the |
2768 | subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the |
2769 | subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the |
2770 | subtest 9 failed. |
2771 | |
2772 | =head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48 |
2773 | |
2774 | No known fix. |
2775 | |
a0aae13b |
2776 | =head2 Mac OS X |
2777 | |
6aaad45d |
2778 | Please remember to set your environment variable LC_ALL to "C" |
2779 | (setenv LC_ALL C) before running "make test" to avoid a lot of |
2780 | warnings about the broken locales of Mac OS X. |
2781 | |
a0aae13b |
2782 | The following tests are known to fail: |
2783 | |
2784 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2785 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
2786 | ../ext/DB_File/t/db-btree.t 0 11 ?? ?? % ?? |
2787 | ../ext/DB_File/t/db-recno.t 149 3 2.01% 61 63 65 |
2788 | ../ext/POSIX/t/posix.t 31 1 3.23% 10 |
a0aae13b |
2789 | |
3f1f789b |
2790 | If you are building on a UFS partition, you will also probably see |
f5dcdc4e |
2791 | t/op/stat.t subtest #9 fail. This is caused by Darwin's UFS not |
2792 | supporting inode change time. |
3f1f789b |
2793 | |
7fc79a86 |
2794 | =head2 op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 |
f39f21d8 |
2795 | |
7fc79a86 |
2796 | The op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 are known to fail on some platforms. |
2797 | Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX. |
f39f21d8 |
2798 | |
7fc79a86 |
2799 | The test 91 is known to fail at QNX6 (nto), because C<sprintf '%e',0> |
2800 | incorrectly produces C<0.000000e+0> instead of C<0.000000e+00>. |
f39f21d8 |
2801 | |
7fc79a86 |
2802 | For the tests 129 and 130 the failing platforms do not comply with |
2803 | the ANSI C Standard, line 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to |
2804 | be exact. (They produce something other than "1" and "-1" when |
2805 | formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using the printf format "%.0f", most often |
2806 | they produce "0" and "-0".) |
f39f21d8 |
2807 | |
0646842f |
2808 | =head2 Solaris 2.5 |
2809 | |
2810 | In case you are still using Solaris 2.5 (aka SunOS 5.5), you may |
2811 | experience failures (the test core dumping) in lib/locale.t. |
2812 | The suggested cure is to upgrade your Solaris. |
2813 | |
7fc79a86 |
2814 | =head2 Failure of Thread (5.005-style) tests |
f39f21d8 |
2815 | |
6ba475fe |
2816 | B<Note that support for 5.005-style threading is deprecated, |
2817 | experimental and practically unsupported. In 5.10 it is expected |
2818 | to be removed.> |
f39f21d8 |
2819 | |
2820 | The following tests are known to fail due to fundamental problems in |
2821 | the 5.005 threading implementation. These are not new failures--Perl |
2822 | 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have these tests. |
2823 | |
6123004a |
2824 | ../ext/List/Util/t/first.t 255 65280 7 4 57.14% 2 5-7 |
2825 | ../lib/English.t 2 512 54 2 3.70% 2-3 |
2826 | ../lib/Filter/Simple/t/data.t 6 3 50.00% 1-3 |
2827 | ../lib/Filter/Simple/t/filter_onl 9 3 33.33% 1-2 5 |
2828 | ../lib/autouse.t 10 1 10.00% 4 |
2829 | op/flip.t 15 1 6.67% 15 |
fedd8cf1 |
2830 | |
8ed7e7ad |
2831 | These failures are unlikely to get fixed as the 5.005-style |
2832 | threads are considered fundamentally broken. |
f39f21d8 |
2833 | |
2834 | =head2 UNICOS |
2835 | |
c0f17b39 |
2836 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2837 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
6123004a |
2838 | ../ext/Socket/socketpair.t 1 256 45 1 2.22% 12 |
2839 | ../lib/Math/Trig.t 26 1 3.85% 25 |
2840 | ../lib/warnings.t 460 1 0.22% 425 |
2841 | io/fs.t 36 1 2.78% 31 |
2842 | op/numconvert.t 1440 13 0.90% 208 509-510 |
2843 | 657-658 665-666 829-830 989-990 1149-1150 |
f39f21d8 |
2844 | |
cb3f5972 |
2845 | =head2 UNICOS/mk |
2846 | |
3d7e8424 |
2847 | =over 4 |
2848 | |
2849 | =item * |
2850 | |
cb3f5972 |
2851 | During Configure the test |
2852 | |
2853 | Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define... |
2854 | |
2855 | will probably fail with error messages like |
2856 | |
2857 | CC-20 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3 |
2858 | The identifier "bad" is undefined. |
2859 | |
2860 | bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79#ifdef A29K |
2861 | ^ |
2862 | |
2863 | CC-65 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3 |
2864 | A semicolon is expected at this point. |
2865 | |
2866 | This is caused by a bug in awk utility of UNICOS/mk. You can ignore |
2867 | the error, but it does cause a slight problem: you cannot fully |
2868 | benefit from the h2ph utility (see L<h2ph>) that can be used to |
2869 | convert C headers to Perl libraries, mainly used to be able to access |
2870 | from Perl the constants defined using C preprocessor, cpp. Because of |
2871 | the above error parts of the converted headers will be invisible. |
2872 | Luckily, these days the need for h2ph is rare. |
2873 | |
3d7e8424 |
2874 | =item * |
2875 | |
2876 | If building Perl with the interpreter threads (ithreads), the |
2877 | getgrent(), getgrnam(), and getgrgid() functions cannot return the |
2878 | list of the group members due to a bug in the multithreaded support of |
2879 | UNICOS/mk. What this means that in list context the functions will |
2880 | return only three values, not four. |
2881 | |
2882 | =back |
2883 | |
f39f21d8 |
2884 | =head2 UTS |
2885 | |
2886 | There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts>. |
2887 | |
2888 | =head2 VMS |
2889 | |
161720b2 |
2890 | There should be no reported test failures with a default configuration, |
2891 | though there are a number of tests marked TODO that point to areas |
2892 | needing further debugging and/or porting work. |
7207e29d |
2893 | |
f39f21d8 |
2894 | =head2 Win32 |
2895 | |
2896 | In multi-CPU boxes there are some problems with the I/O buffering: |
cd34865e |
2897 | some output may appear twice. |
f39f21d8 |
2898 | |
d34c32a4 |
2899 | =head2 XML::Parser not working |
2900 | |
2901 | Use XML::Parser 2.31 or later. |
2902 | |
7fc79a86 |
2903 | =head2 z/OS (OS/390) |
2904 | |
2905 | z/OS has rather many test failures but the situation is actually |
2906 | better than it was in 5.6.0, it's just that so many new modules and |
2907 | tests have been added. |
2908 | |
dad95037 |
2909 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2910 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
84fad863 |
2911 | ../ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.t 339 8 2.36% 311 314 325 327 |
2912 | 331 333 337 339 |
7fc79a86 |
2913 | ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 5 4 80.00% 2-5 |
dad95037 |
2914 | ../ext/Storable/t/utf8hash.t 10 2560 148 10 6.76% 1 5 72 76 143-148 |
7fc79a86 |
2915 | ../lib/utf8.t 94 13 13.83% 27 30-31 43 46 73 |
2916 | 76 79 82 85 88 91 |
2917 | 94 |
84fad863 |
2918 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Constant.t 121 30976 48 48 100.00% 1-48 |
7fc79a86 |
2919 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t 9 9 100.00% 1-9 |
dad95037 |
2920 | op/pat.t 900 9 1.00% 242-243 665 776 |
7fc79a86 |
2921 | 785 832-834 845 |
2922 | op/sprintf.t 224 3 1.34% 98 100 136 |
2923 | op/tr.t 97 5 5.15% 63 71-74 |
dad95037 |
2924 | run/fresh_perl.t 94 3 3.19% 92-94 |
dcdcee7d |
2925 | uni/fold.t 780 6 0.77% 61 169 196 661 |
2926 | 710-711 |
7fc79a86 |
2927 | |
aecce728 |
2928 | =head2 Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken |
2929 | |
2930 | local %tied_array; |
2931 | |
2932 | doesn't work as one would expect: the old value is restored |
2933 | incorrectly. |
2934 | |
f39f21d8 |
2935 | =head2 Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden |
2936 | |
2937 | Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and |
2938 | hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting |
2939 | frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is |
2940 | for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt). |
2941 | |
f39f21d8 |
2942 | =head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles |
2943 | |
2944 | Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with |
2945 | `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets |
2946 | default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile |
2947 | at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good |
2948 | solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate |
2949 | non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config |
2950 | hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are |
2951 | having problems can try configuring themselves without the |
2952 | largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the |
2953 | solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether |
2954 | one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at |
2955 | all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is |
2956 | platform-dependent. |
2957 | |
aecce728 |
2958 | =head2 Unicode Support on EBCDIC Still Spotty |
2959 | |
2960 | Though mostly working, Unicode support still has problem spots on |
2961 | EBCDIC platforms. One such known spot are the C<\p{}> and C<\P{}> |
2962 | regular expression constructs for code points less than 256: the |
2963 | pP are testing for Unicode code points, not knowing about EBCDIC. |
2964 | |
f39f21d8 |
2965 | =head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental |
2966 | |
44da0e71 |
2967 | The compiler suite is slowly getting better but it continues to be |
2968 | highly experimental. Use in production environments is discouraged. |
f39f21d8 |
2969 | |
c4f1ce08 |
2970 | =head2 The Long Double Support Is Still Experimental |
f39f21d8 |
2971 | |
2972 | The ability to configure Perl's numbers to use "long doubles", |
2973 | floating point numbers of hopefully better accuracy, is still |
2974 | experimental. The implementations of long doubles are not yet |
2975 | widespread and the existing implementations are not quite mature |
2976 | or standardised, therefore trying to support them is a rare |
2977 | and moving target. The gain of more precision may also be offset |
2978 | by slowdown in computations (more bits to move around, and the |
2979 | operations are more likely to be executed by less optimised |
2980 | libraries). |
33a87e58 |
2981 | |
c4f1ce08 |
2982 | =head2 Seen In Perl 5.7 But Gone Now |
2983 | |
c4f1ce08 |
2984 | C<Time::Piece> (previously known as C<Time::Object>) was removed |
2985 | because it was felt that it didn't have enough value in it to be a |
2986 | core module. It is still a useful module, though, and is available |
2987 | from the CPAN. |
2988 | |
cc0fca54 |
2989 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
2990 | |
d4ad863d |
2991 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
2992 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
f224927c |
2993 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ There may also be |
2994 | information at http://www.perl.com/ , the Perl Home Page. |
cc0fca54 |
2995 | |
2996 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
2997 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
2998 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
d4ad863d |
2999 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
cc0fca54 |
3000 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
3001 | |
3002 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
3003 | |
3004 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
3005 | |
3006 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
3007 | |
3008 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
3009 | |
3010 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
3011 | |
3012 | =head1 HISTORY |
3013 | |
d468ca04 |
3014 | Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <F<jhi@iki.fi>>. |
cc0fca54 |
3015 | |
3016 | =cut |