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1 | =head1 NAME |
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2 | |
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3 | perldelta - what is new for perl v5.8.0 |
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4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
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7 | This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release |
8 | and the 5.8.0 release. |
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9 | |
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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 | |
77c8cf41 |
49 | =head2 64-bit platforms and malloc |
50 | |
057b7f2b |
51 | If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no longer being |
c2e23569 |
52 | used because it does not work well with 8-byte pointers. Also, |
61947107 |
53 | usually the system mallocs on such platforms are much better optimized |
c2e23569 |
54 | for such large memory models than the Perl malloc. Some memory-hungry |
55 | Perl applications like the PDL don't work well with Perl's malloc. |
56 | Finally, other applications than Perl (like modperl) tend to prefer |
57 | the system malloc. Such platforms include Alpha and 64-bit HPPA, |
58 | MIPS, PPC, and Sparc. |
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59 | |
60 | =head2 AIX Dynaloading |
61 | |
62 | The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native |
63 | dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This |
64 | change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled |
65 | modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other |
66 | applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface. |
67 | |
95f0a2f1 |
68 | =head2 Attributes for C<my> variables now handled at run-time. |
69 | |
70 | The C<my EXPR : ATTRS> syntax now applies variable attributes at |
71 | run-time. (Subroutine and C<our> variables still get attributes applied |
72 | at compile-time.) See L<attributes> for additional details. In particular, |
73 | however, this allows variable attributes to be useful for C<tie> interfaces, |
c4f1ce08 |
74 | which was a deficiency of earlier releases. Note that the new semantics |
75 | doesn't work with the Attribute::Handlers module (as of version 0.76). |
95f0a2f1 |
76 | |
77c8cf41 |
77 | =head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS |
78 | |
79 | The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being |
80 | statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient |
81 | TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test |
82 | Perl in such configurations. |
83 | |
00bb525a |
84 | =head2 IEEE-format Floating Point Default on OpenVMS Alpha |
85 | |
86 | Perl now uses IEEE format (T_FLOAT) as the default internal floating |
87 | point format on OpenVMS Alpha, potentially breaking binary compatibility |
88 | with external libraries or existing data. G_FLOAT is still available as |
89 | a configuration option. The default on VAX (D_FLOAT) has not changed. |
90 | |
eb0cc9e3 |
91 | =head2 New Unicode Properties |
92 | |
93 | Unicode I<scripts> are now supported. Scripts are similar to (and superior |
94 | to) Unicode I<blocks>. The difference between scripts and blocks is that |
95 | scripts are the glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while |
96 | the blocks are more artificial groupings of (mostly) 256 characters based |
97 | on the Unicode numbering. |
98 | |
99 | In general, scripts are more inclusive, but not universally so. For |
100 | example, while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin characters and |
101 | their various diacritic-adorned versions, it does not include the various |
102 | punctuation or digits (since they are not solely C<Latin>). |
103 | |
104 | A number of other properties are now supported, including C<\p{L&}>, |
105 | C<\p{Any}> C<\p{Assigned}>, C<\p{Unassigned}>, C<\p{Blank}> and |
106 | C<\p{SpacePerl}> (along with their C<\P{...}> versions, of course). |
107 | See L<perlunicode> for details, and more additions. |
108 | |
109 | The C<In> or C<Is> prefix to names used with the C<\p{...}> and C<\P{...}> |
110 | are now almost always optional. The only exception is that a C<In> prefix |
111 | is required to signify a Unicode block when a block name conflicts with a |
112 | script name. For example, C<\p{Tibetan}> refers to the script, while |
113 | C<\p{InTibetan}> refers to the block. When there is no name conflict, you |
114 | can omit the C<In> from the block name (e.g. C<\p{BraillePatterns}>), but |
115 | to be safe, it's probably best to always use the C<In>). |
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116 | |
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117 | =head2 REF(...) Instead Of SCALAR(...) |
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118 | |
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119 | A reference to a reference now stringifies as "REF(0x81485ec)" instead |
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120 | of "SCALAR(0x81485ec)" in order to be more consistent with the return |
121 | value of ref(). |
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122 | |
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123 | =head2 pack/unpack D/F recycled |
124 | |
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125 | The undocumented pack/unpack template letters D/F have been recycled |
79f69e33 |
126 | for better use: now they stand for long double (if supported by the |
127 | platform) and NV (Perl internal floating point type). (They used |
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128 | to be aliases for d/f, but you never knew that.) |
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129 | |
c2e23569 |
130 | =head2 Deprecations |
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131 | |
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132 | =over 4 |
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133 | |
61947107 |
134 | =item * |
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135 | |
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136 | The semantics of bless(REF, REF) were unclear and until someone proves |
137 | it to make some sense, it is forbidden. |
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138 | |
139 | =item * |
140 | |
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141 | The obsolete chat2 library that should never have been allowed |
142 | to escape the laboratory has been decommissioned. |
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143 | |
144 | =item * |
145 | |
58175c9b |
146 | The builtin dump() function has probably outlived most of its |
147 | usefulness. The core-dumping functionality will remain in future |
148 | available as an explicit call to C<CORE::dump()>, but in future |
149 | releases the behaviour of an unqualified C<dump()> call may change. |
150 | |
151 | =item * |
152 | |
61947107 |
153 | The very dusty examples in the eg/ directory have been removed. |
154 | Suggestions for new shiny examples welcome but the main issue is that |
155 | the examples need to be documented, tested and (most importantly) |
156 | maintained. |
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157 | |
158 | =item * |
159 | |
c2e23569 |
160 | The (bogus) escape sequences \8 and \9 now give an optional warning |
161 | ("Unrecognized escape passed through"). There is no need to \-escape |
162 | any C<\w> character. |
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163 | |
164 | =item * |
165 | |
c2e23569 |
166 | The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted |
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167 | alphabetically to be csh-compliant (which is what happened before |
168 | in most UNIX platforms). (bsd_glob() does still sort platform |
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169 | natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.) |
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170 | |
171 | =item * |
172 | |
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173 | Spurious syntax errors generated in certain situations, when glob() |
174 | caused File::Glob to be loaded for the first time, have been fixed. |
175 | |
176 | =item * |
177 | |
c2e23569 |
178 | Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that |
179 | depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new |
180 | algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order. |
181 | More details are in L</"Performance Enhancements">. |
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182 | |
183 | =item * |
184 | |
61947107 |
185 | lstat(FILEHANDLE) now gives a warning because the operation makes no sense. |
186 | In future releases this may become a fatal error. |
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187 | |
188 | =item * |
189 | |
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190 | The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument) has been |
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191 | deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its |
192 | implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to |
193 | disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead. |
61947107 |
194 | |
195 | =item * |
196 | |
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197 | The unimplemented POSIX regex features [[.cc.]] and [[=c=]] are still |
198 | recognised but now cause fatal errors. The previous behaviour of |
199 | ignoring them by default and warning if requested was unacceptable |
200 | since it, in a way, falsely promised that the features could be used. |
61947107 |
201 | |
202 | =item * |
203 | |
c2e23569 |
204 | The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird |
205 | use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0 |
206 | and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be |
207 | implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather |
208 | ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash |
209 | use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain |
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210 | available. The I<restricted hashes> interface is expected to |
211 | be the replacement interface (see L<Hash::Util>). |
61947107 |
212 | |
213 | =item * |
214 | |
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215 | The syntaxes C<< @a->[...] >> and C<< %h->{...} >> have now been deprecated. |
61947107 |
216 | |
217 | =item * |
218 | |
c2e23569 |
219 | After years of trying the suidperl is considered to be too complex to |
220 | ever be considered truly secure. The suidperl functionality is likely |
221 | to be removed in a future release. |
222 | |
223 | =item * |
224 | |
225 | The long deprecated uppercase aliases for the string comparison |
226 | operators (EQ, NE, LT, LE, GE, GT) have now been removed. |
227 | |
228 | =item * |
229 | |
230 | The tr///C and tr///U features have been removed and will not return; |
231 | the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar |
232 | functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...). |
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233 | |
420cdfc1 |
234 | =item * |
235 | |
236 | Earlier Perls treated "sub foo (@bar)" as equivalent to "sub foo (@)". |
237 | The prototypes are now checked at compile-time for invalid characters. |
238 | An optional warning is generated ("Illegal character in prototype...") |
239 | but this may be upgraded to a fatal error in a future release. |
240 | |
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241 | =back |
242 | |
61947107 |
243 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
244 | |
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245 | =head2 PerlIO is Now The Default |
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246 | |
247 | =over 4 |
248 | |
249 | =item * |
250 | |
77c8cf41 |
251 | IO is now by default done via PerlIO rather than system's "stdio". |
252 | PerlIO allows "layers" to be "pushed" onto a file handle to alter the |
253 | handle's behaviour. Layers can be specified at open time via 3-arg |
254 | form of open: |
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255 | |
77c8cf41 |
256 | open($fh,'>:crlf :utf8', $path) || ... |
f39f21d8 |
257 | |
77c8cf41 |
258 | or on already opened handles via extended C<binmode>: |
f39f21d8 |
259 | |
77c8cf41 |
260 | binmode($fh,':encoding(iso-8859-7)'); |
f39f21d8 |
261 | |
77c8cf41 |
262 | The built-in layers are: unix (low level read/write), stdio (as in |
263 | previous Perls), perlio (re-implementation of stdio buffering in a |
264 | portable manner), crlf (does CRLF <=> "\n" translation as on Win32, |
265 | but available on any platform). A mmap layer may be available if |
266 | platform supports it (mostly UNIXes). |
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267 | |
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268 | Layers to be applied by default may be specified via the 'open' pragma. |
269 | |
270 | See L</"Installation and Configuration Improvements"> for the effects |
271 | of PerlIO on your architecture name. |
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272 | |
273 | =item * |
274 | |
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275 | File handles can be marked as accepting Perl's internal encoding of Unicode |
276 | (UTF-8 or UTF-EBCDIC depending on platform) by a pseudo layer ":utf8" : |
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277 | |
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278 | open($fh,">:utf8","Uni.txt"); |
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279 | |
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280 | Note for EBCDIC users: the pseudo layer ":utf8" is erroneously named |
281 | for you since it's not UTF-8 what you will be getting but instead |
282 | UTF-EBCDIC. See L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>, and |
283 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ for more information. |
284 | In future releases this naming may change. |
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285 | |
286 | =item * |
287 | |
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288 | File handles can translate character encodings from/to Perl's internal |
289 | Unicode form on read/write via the ":encoding()" layer. |
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290 | |
291 | =item * |
292 | |
77c8cf41 |
293 | File handles can be opened to "in memory" files held in Perl scalars via: |
294 | |
295 | open($fh,'>', \$variable) || ... |
f39f21d8 |
296 | |
297 | =item * |
298 | |
77c8cf41 |
299 | Anonymous temporary files are available without need to |
300 | 'use FileHandle' or other module via |
f39f21d8 |
301 | |
77c8cf41 |
302 | open($fh,"+>", undef) || ... |
f39f21d8 |
303 | |
77c8cf41 |
304 | That is a literal undef, not an undefined value. |
f39f21d8 |
305 | |
306 | =item * |
307 | |
77c8cf41 |
308 | The list form of C<open> is now implemented for pipes (at least on UNIX): |
f39f21d8 |
309 | |
77c8cf41 |
310 | open($fh,"-|", 'cat', '/etc/motd') |
f39f21d8 |
311 | |
77c8cf41 |
312 | creates a pipe, and runs the equivalent of exec('cat', '/etc/motd') in |
313 | the child process. |
f39f21d8 |
314 | |
b310b053 |
315 | =item * |
316 | |
317 | If your locale environment variables (LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG) |
318 | contain the strings 'UTF-8' or 'UTF8' (case-insensitive matching), |
319 | the default encoding of your STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR, and of |
320 | B<any subsequent file open>, is UTF-8. |
321 | |
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322 | =item * |
323 | |
324 | If your filesystem supports returning UTF-8 encoded filenames, |
325 | it is possible to make Perl to understand that the filenames |
326 | returned by readdir() and glob() are in Unicode. |
327 | |
e1f170bd |
328 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
329 | |
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330 | =head2 Safe Signals |
f39f21d8 |
331 | |
e1f170bd |
332 | Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments |
333 | could corrupt Perl's internal state. Now Perl postpones handling of |
3e33716f |
334 | signals until it's safe (between opcodes). |
335 | |
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336 | This change may have surprising side effects because signals no longer |
3e33716f |
337 | interrupt Perl instantly. Perl will now first finish whatever it was |
338 | doing, like finishing an internal operation (like sort()) or an |
339 | external operation (like an I/O operation), and only then look at any |
340 | arrived signals (and before starting the next operation). No more corrupt |
341 | internal state since the current operation is always finished first, |
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342 | but the signal may take more time to get heard. Note that breaking |
343 | out from potentially blocking operations should still work, though. |
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344 | |
e1f170bd |
345 | =head2 Unicode Overhaul |
f39f21d8 |
346 | |
e1f170bd |
347 | Unicode in general should be now much more usable than in Perl 5.6.0 |
348 | (or even in 5.6.1). Unicode can be used in hash keys, Unicode in |
349 | regular expressions should work now, Unicode in tr/// should work now, |
b310b053 |
350 | Unicode in I/O should work now. See L<perluniintro> for introduction |
351 | and L<perlunicode> for details. |
f39f21d8 |
352 | |
e1f170bd |
353 | =over 4 |
f39f21d8 |
354 | |
355 | =item * |
356 | |
e1f170bd |
357 | The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded |
822ebcc8 |
358 | to Unicode 3.2.0. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ . |
f39f21d8 |
359 | |
360 | =item * |
361 | |
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362 | For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities: |
363 | almost all the UCD files are included with the Perl distribution in |
58175c9b |
364 | the F<lib/unicore subdirectory>. The most notable omission, for space |
77c8cf41 |
365 | considerations, is the Unihan database. |
f39f21d8 |
366 | |
367 | =item * |
368 | |
eb0cc9e3 |
369 | The properties \p{Blank} and \p{SpacePerl} have been added. "Blank" is like |
370 | C isblank(), that is, it contains only "horizontal whitespace" (the space |
371 | character is, the newline isn't), and the "SpacePerl" is the Unicode |
372 | equivalent of C<\s> (\p{Space} isn't, since that includes the vertical |
373 | tabulator character, whereas C<\s> doesn't.) |
374 | |
375 | See "New Unicode Properties" earlier in this document for additional |
376 | information on changes with Unicode properties. |
f39f21d8 |
377 | |
378 | =back |
379 | |
77c8cf41 |
380 | =head2 Understanding of Numbers |
381 | |
382 | In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's |
383 | understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in |
384 | many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()> |
385 | and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their |
386 | deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers. |
f39f21d8 |
387 | |
e1f170bd |
388 | Perl now tries internally to use integer values in numeric conversions |
389 | and basic arithmetics (+ - * /) if the arguments are integers, and |
390 | tries also to keep the results stored internally as integers. |
057b7f2b |
391 | This change leads to often slightly faster and always less lossy |
e1f170bd |
392 | arithmetics. (Previously Perl always preferred floating point numbers |
393 | in its math.) |
394 | |
58175c9b |
395 | =head2 Miscellaneous Changes |
e1f170bd |
396 | |
f39f21d8 |
397 | =over 4 |
398 | |
399 | =item * |
400 | |
e1f170bd |
401 | AUTOLOAD is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute |
402 | to AUTOLOAD subroutines and you can assign to the AUTOLOAD return value. |
403 | |
404 | =item * |
405 | |
61947107 |
406 | C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass |
407 | in multiple arguments.) |
f39f21d8 |
408 | |
409 | =item * |
410 | |
58175c9b |
411 | The builtin dump() now gives an optional warning |
66023b77 |
412 | C<dump() better written as CORE::dump()>, |
58175c9b |
413 | meaning that by default C<dump(...)> is resolved as the builtin |
414 | dump() which dumps core and aborts, not as (possibly) user-defined |
415 | C<sub dump>. To call the latter, qualify the call as C<&dump(...)>. |
416 | (The whole dump() feature is to considered deprecated, and possibly |
417 | removed/changed in future releases.) |
418 | |
419 | =item * |
420 | |
c2d0fb59 |
421 | chomp() and chop() are now overridable. Note, however, that their |
422 | prototype (as given by C<prototype("CORE::chomp")> is undefined, |
423 | because it cannot be expressed and therefore one cannot really write |
58175c9b |
424 | replacements to override these builtins. |
425 | |
426 | =item * |
427 | |
61947107 |
428 | END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block. |
429 | Internally, the execution of END blocks is now controlled by |
430 | PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new |
431 | behaviour for Perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See |
432 | L<perlembed>. |
f39f21d8 |
433 | |
434 | =item * |
435 | |
e1f170bd |
436 | Formats now support zero-padded decimal fields. |
f39f21d8 |
437 | |
438 | =item * |
439 | |
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440 | Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context. |
44da0e71 |
441 | However, the lvalue subroutine feature still remains experimental. |
f39f21d8 |
442 | |
443 | =item * |
444 | |
58175c9b |
445 | A lost warning "Can't declare ... dereference in my" has been |
446 | restored (Perl had it earlier but it became lost in later releases.) |
447 | |
448 | =item * |
449 | |
61947107 |
450 | A new special regular expression variable has been introduced: |
451 | C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch). |
f39f21d8 |
452 | |
453 | =item * |
454 | |
61947107 |
455 | C<no Module;> now works even if there is no "sub unimport" in the Module. |
f39f21d8 |
456 | |
457 | =item * |
458 | |
61947107 |
459 | The numerical comparison operators return C<undef> if either operand |
460 | is a NaN. Previously the behaviour was unspecified. |
f39f21d8 |
461 | |
462 | =item * |
463 | |
e1f170bd |
464 | The following builtin functions are now overridable: each(), keys(), |
465 | pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift(). |
466 | |
467 | =item * |
468 | |
a7bac030 |
469 | C<pack() / unpack()> now can group template letters with C<()> and then |
470 | apply repetition/count modifiers on the groups. |
471 | |
472 | =item * |
473 | |
474 | C<pack() / unpack()> can now process the Perl internal numeric types: |
475 | IVs, UVs, NVs-- and also long doubles, if supported by the platform. |
79f69e33 |
476 | The template letters are C<j>, C<J>, C<F>, and C<D>. |
a7bac030 |
477 | |
478 | =item * |
479 | |
61947107 |
480 | C<pack('U0a*', ...)> can now be used to force a string to UTF8. |
f39f21d8 |
481 | |
482 | =item * |
483 | |
61947107 |
484 | my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works. |
f39f21d8 |
485 | |
486 | =item * |
487 | |
e1f170bd |
488 | The printf() and sprintf() now support parameter reordering using the |
489 | C<%\d+\$> and C<*\d+\$> syntaxes. For example |
490 | |
491 | print "%2\$s %1\$s\n", "foo", "bar"; |
492 | |
da6838c8 |
493 | will print "bar foo\n". This feature helps in writing |
494 | internationalised software, and in general when the order |
495 | of the parameters can vary. |
f39f21d8 |
496 | |
497 | =item * |
498 | |
e1f170bd |
499 | prototype(\&) is now available. |
61947107 |
500 | |
501 | =item * |
502 | |
e1f170bd |
503 | prototype(\[$@%&]) is now available to implicitly create references |
504 | (useful for example if you want to emulate the tie() interface). |
61947107 |
505 | |
506 | =item * |
507 | |
58175c9b |
508 | A new command-line option, C<-t> is available. It is the |
b0c3fc92 |
509 | little brother of C<-T>: instead of dying on taint violations, |
58175c9b |
510 | lexical warnings are given. B<This is only meant as a temporary |
511 | debugging aid while securing the code of old legacy applications. |
512 | This is not a substitute for -T.> |
513 | |
514 | =item * |
515 | |
4956848f |
516 | In other taint news, the C<exec LIST> and C<system LIST> have now been |
517 | considered too risky (think C<exec @ARGV>: it can start any program |
518 | with any arguments), and now the said forms cause a warning. |
519 | You should carefully launder the arguments to guarantee their |
520 | validity. In future releases of Perl the forms will become fatal |
521 | errors so consider starting laundering now. |
522 | |
523 | =item * |
524 | |
58175c9b |
525 | If tr/// is just counting characters, it doesn't attempt to |
526 | modify its target. |
527 | |
528 | =item * |
529 | |
44da0e71 |
530 | untie() will now call an UNTIE() hook if it exists. See L<perltie> |
531 | for details. |
61947107 |
532 | |
533 | =item * |
534 | |
535 | L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the |
536 | file timestamps to the current time. |
537 | |
538 | =item * |
539 | |
e1f170bd |
540 | The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants |
541 | have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore |
542 | simply B<between digits>. |
f39f21d8 |
543 | |
ef985a5e |
544 | =item * |
545 | |
546 | Rather than relying on C's argv[0] (which may not contain a full pathname) |
547 | where possible $^X is now set by asking the operating system. |
548 | (eg by reading F</proc/self/exe> on Linux, F</proc/curproc/file> on FreeBSD) |
549 | |
608dbdb1 |
550 | =item * |
551 | |
552 | A new variable, C<${^TAINT}>, indicates whether taint mode is enabled. |
553 | |
554 | =item * |
555 | |
556 | You can now override the readline() builtin, and this overrides also |
557 | the <FILEHANDLE> angle bracket operator. |
558 | |
559 | =item * |
560 | |
561 | The command-line options -s and -F are now recognized on the shebang |
562 | (#!) line. |
563 | |
4ac733c9 |
564 | =item * |
565 | |
566 | Use of the C</c> match modifier without an accompanying C</g> modifier |
567 | elicits a new warning: C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g>. |
f34840d8 |
568 | |
64e578a2 |
569 | Use of C</c> in substitutions, even with C</g>, elicits |
f34840d8 |
570 | C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///>. |
571 | |
476a4411 |
572 | Use of C</g> with C<split> elicits C<Use of /g modifier is meaningless |
f34840d8 |
573 | in split>. |
4ac733c9 |
574 | |
f39f21d8 |
575 | =back |
576 | |
77c8cf41 |
577 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
f39f21d8 |
578 | |
1e13d81f |
579 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata |
f39f21d8 |
580 | |
581 | =over 4 |
582 | |
583 | =item * |
584 | |
0e9b9e0c |
585 | C<Attribute::Handlers> allows a class to define attribute handlers. |
586 | |
587 | package MyPack; |
588 | use Attribute::Handlers; |
589 | sub Wolf :ATTR(SCALAR) { print "howl!\n" } |
590 | |
591 | # later, in some package using or inheriting from MyPack... |
592 | |
593 | my MyPack $Fluffy : Wolf; # the attribute handler Wolf will be called |
594 | |
595 | Both variables and routines can have attribute handlers. Handlers can |
596 | be specific to type (SCALAR, ARRAY, HASH, or CODE), or specific to the |
597 | exact compilation phase (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, or END). |
598 | |
599 | =item * |
600 | |
61947107 |
601 | B<B::Concise> is a new compiler backend for walking the Perl syntax |
602 | tree, printing concise info about ops, from Stephen McCamant. The |
603 | output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>. |
f39f21d8 |
604 | |
605 | =item * |
606 | |
381874f1 |
607 | The new bignum, bigint, and bigrat pragmas implement transparent |
608 | bignum support (using the Math::BigInt, Math::BigFloat, and |
609 | Math::BigRat backends), by Tels. |
610 | |
611 | =item * |
612 | |
61947107 |
613 | C<Class::ISA> for reporting the search path for a class's ISA tree, |
614 | by Sean Burke, has been added. See L<Class::ISA>. |
f39f21d8 |
615 | |
616 | =item * |
617 | |
61947107 |
618 | C<Cwd> has now a split personality: if possible, an XS extension is |
619 | used, (this will hopefully be faster, more secure, and more robust) |
620 | but if not possible, the familiar Perl implementation is used. |
f39f21d8 |
621 | |
622 | =item * |
623 | |
e1f170bd |
624 | C<Devel::PPPort>, originally from Kenneth Albanowski and now |
625 | maintained by Paul Marquess, has been added. It is primarily used |
66023b77 |
626 | by C<h2xs> to enhance portability of XS modules between different |
e1f170bd |
627 | versions of Perl. |
1e13d81f |
628 | |
629 | =item * |
630 | |
61947107 |
631 | C<Digest>, frontend module for calculating digests (checksums), from |
632 | Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest>. |
f39f21d8 |
633 | |
634 | =item * |
635 | |
61947107 |
636 | C<Digest::MD5> for calculating MD5 digests (checksums) as defined in |
637 | RFC 1321, from Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest::MD5>. |
f39f21d8 |
638 | |
639 | use Digest::MD5 'md5_hex'; |
640 | |
641 | $digest = md5_hex("Thirsty Camel"); |
642 | |
643 | print $digest, "\n"; # 01d19d9d2045e005c3f1b80e8b164de1 |
644 | |
61947107 |
645 | NOTE: the C<MD5> backward compatibility module is deliberately not |
e1f170bd |
646 | included since its further use is discouraged. |
f39f21d8 |
647 | |
f39f21d8 |
648 | =item * |
649 | |
1e418025 |
650 | C<Encode>, by Nick Ing-Simmons and Dan Kogai, provides a mechanism to |
651 | translate between different character encodings. Support for Unicode, |
652 | ISO-8859-1, and ASCII are compiled in to the module. Several other |
653 | encodings (like the rest of the ISO-8859, CP*/Win*, Mac, KOI8-R, three |
654 | variants EBCDIC, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean encodings) are included |
655 | and can be loaded at runtime. (For space considerations, the largest |
656 | Chinese encodings have been separated into their own CPAN module, |
657 | Encode::HanExtra, which Encode will use if available). See L<Encode>. |
f39f21d8 |
658 | |
659 | Any encoding supported by Encode module is also available to the |
660 | ":encoding()" layer if PerlIO is used. |
661 | |
61947107 |
662 | =item * |
663 | |
a6d3fe4f |
664 | C<Hash::Util> is the interface to the new I<restricted hashes> |
665 | feature. A restricted hash is restricted to a certain set of keys, |
666 | no keys outside the set can be added. Also individual keys can be |
667 | restricted so that the key cannot be deleted and the value cannot be |
668 | changed. (Implemented by Jeffrey Friedl, Nick Ing-Simmons, and |
669 | Michael Schwern.) |
670 | |
671 | =item * |
672 | |
61947107 |
673 | C<I18N::Langinfo> can be use to query locale information. |
674 | See L<I18N::Langinfo>. |
f39f21d8 |
675 | |
676 | =item * |
677 | |
61947107 |
678 | C<I18N::LangTags> has functions for dealing with RFC3066-style |
bea4d472 |
679 | language tags, by Sean Burke. See L<I18N::LangTags>. |
61947107 |
680 | |
681 | =item * |
682 | |
683 | C<ExtUtils::Constant> is a new tool for extension writers for |
684 | generating XS code to import C header constants, by Nicholas Clark. |
685 | See L<ExtUtils::Constant>. |
686 | |
687 | =item * |
688 | |
689 | C<Filter::Simple> is an easy-to-use frontend to Filter::Util::Call, |
690 | from Damian Conway. See L<Filter::Simple>. |
f39f21d8 |
691 | |
692 | # in MyFilter.pm: |
693 | |
694 | package MyFilter; |
695 | |
696 | use Filter::Simple sub { |
697 | while (my ($from, $to) = splice @_, 0, 2) { |
698 | s/$from/$to/g; |
699 | } |
700 | }; |
701 | |
702 | 1; |
703 | |
704 | # in user's code: |
705 | |
706 | use MyFilter qr/red/ => 'green'; |
707 | |
708 | print "red\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "green\n" |
709 | print "bored\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "bogreen\n" |
710 | |
711 | no MyFilter; |
712 | |
713 | print "red\n"; # this code is not filtered, will print "red\n" |
714 | |
61947107 |
715 | =item * |
716 | |
717 | C<File::Temp> allows one to create temporary files and directories in |
718 | an easy, portable, and secure way, by Tim Jenness. See L<File::Temp>. |
719 | |
720 | =item * |
721 | |
722 | C<Filter::Util::Call> provides you with the framework to write |
723 | I<Source Filters> in Perl, from Paul Marquess. For most uses the |
724 | frontend Filter::Simple is to be preferred. See L<Filter::Util::Call>. |
725 | |
726 | =item * |
727 | |
79f69e33 |
728 | C<if> is a new pragma for conditional inclusion of modules, from |
729 | Ilya Zakharevich. |
730 | |
731 | =item * |
732 | |
61947107 |
733 | L<libnet> is a collection of perl5 modules related to network |
734 | programming, from Graham Barr. See L<Net::FTP>, L<Net::NNTP>, |
b929be1d |
735 | L<Net::Ping> (not part of libnet, but related), L<Net::POP3>, |
736 | L<Net::SMTP>, and L<Net::Time>. |
61947107 |
737 | |
738 | Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure. |
f39f21d8 |
739 | |
740 | =item * |
741 | |
61947107 |
742 | C<List::Util> is a selection of general-utility list subroutines, like |
bea4d472 |
743 | sum(), min(), first(), and shuffle(), by Graham Barr. See L<List::Util>. |
f39f21d8 |
744 | |
745 | =item * |
746 | |
61947107 |
747 | C<Locale::Constants>, C<Locale::Country>, C<Locale::Currency>, and |
748 | C<Locale::Language>, from Neil Bowers, have been added. They provide the |
749 | codes for various locale standards, such as "fr" for France, "usd" for |
750 | US Dollar, and "jp" for Japanese. |
f39f21d8 |
751 | |
752 | use Locale::Country; |
753 | |
754 | $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan' |
755 | $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no' |
756 | |
757 | See L<Locale::Constants>, L<Locale::Country>, L<Locale::Currency>, |
61947107 |
758 | and L<Locale::Language>. |
759 | |
760 | =item * |
761 | |
762 | C<Locale::Maketext> is localization framework from Sean Burke. See |
763 | L<Locale::Maketext>, and L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13>. The latter is an |
764 | article about software localization, originally published in The Perl |
765 | Journal #13, republished here with kind permission. |
766 | |
767 | =item * |
768 | |
381874f1 |
769 | Math::BigRat for big rational numbers, to accompany Math::BigInt and |
770 | Math::BigFloat, from Tels. |
771 | |
772 | =item * |
773 | |
61947107 |
774 | C<Memoize> can make your functions faster by trading space for time, |
775 | from Mark-Jason Dominus. See L<Memoize>. |
f39f21d8 |
776 | |
777 | =item * |
778 | |
61947107 |
779 | C<MIME::Base64> allows you to encode data in base64, from Gisle Aas, |
780 | as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail |
781 | Extensions)>. |
f39f21d8 |
782 | |
783 | use MIME::Base64; |
784 | |
785 | $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame'); |
786 | $decoded = decode_base64($encoded); |
787 | |
788 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==" |
789 | |
61947107 |
790 | See L<MIME::Base64>. |
f39f21d8 |
791 | |
792 | =item * |
793 | |
61947107 |
794 | C<MIME::QuotedPrint> allows you to encode data in quoted-printable |
795 | encoding, as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail |
796 | Extensions)>, from Gisle Aas. |
f39f21d8 |
797 | |
798 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
799 | |
800 | $encoded = encode_qp("Smiley in Unicode: \x{263a}"); |
801 | $decoded = decode_qp($encoded); |
802 | |
803 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "Smiley in Unicode: =263A" |
804 | |
805 | MIME::QuotedPrint has been enhanced to provide the basic methods |
806 | necessary to use it with PerlIO::Via as in : |
807 | |
808 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
057b7f2b |
809 | open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path); |
f39f21d8 |
810 | |
61947107 |
811 | See L<MIME::QuotedPrint>. |
f39f21d8 |
812 | |
813 | =item * |
814 | |
61947107 |
815 | C<NEXT> is pseudo-class for method redispatch, from Damian Conway. |
816 | See L<NEXT>. |
f39f21d8 |
817 | |
818 | =item * |
819 | |
1e13d81f |
820 | C<open> is a new pragma for setting the default I/O disciplines |
821 | for open(). |
822 | |
823 | =item * |
824 | |
61947107 |
825 | C<PerlIO::Scalar> provides the implementation of IO to "in memory" |
826 | Perl scalars as discussed above, from Nick Ing-Simmons. It also |
827 | serves as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future |
828 | possibilities include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. |
829 | See L<PerlIO::Scalar>. |
830 | |
831 | =item * |
832 | |
833 | C<PerlIO::Via> acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps PerlIO layer |
834 | functionality provided by a class (typically implemented in perl |
835 | code), from Nick Ing-Simmons. |
f39f21d8 |
836 | |
837 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
057b7f2b |
838 | open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path); |
f39f21d8 |
839 | |
840 | This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh> |
61947107 |
841 | to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::Via>. |
f39f21d8 |
842 | |
843 | =item * |
844 | |
1e13d81f |
845 | C<Pod::ParseLink>, by Russ Allbery, has been added, |
95f0a2f1 |
846 | to parse LZ<><> links in pods as described in the new |
1e13d81f |
847 | perlpodspec. |
848 | |
849 | =item * |
850 | |
61947107 |
851 | C<Pod::Text::Overstrike>, by Joe Smith, has been added. |
f39f21d8 |
852 | It converts POD data to formatted overstrike text. |
61947107 |
853 | See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike>. |
f39f21d8 |
854 | |
855 | =item * |
856 | |
61947107 |
857 | C<Scalar::Util> is a selection of general-utility scalar subroutines, |
858 | like blessed(), reftype(), and tainted(). See L<Scalar::Util>. |
859 | |
860 | =item * |
861 | |
1e13d81f |
862 | C<sort> is a new pragma for controlling the behaviour of sort(). |
863 | |
864 | =item * |
865 | |
61947107 |
866 | C<Storable> gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the |
867 | storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and |
868 | compact binary format, from Raphael Manfredi. See L<Storable>. |
869 | |
870 | =item * |
871 | |
872 | C<Switch>, from Damian Conway, has been added. Just by saying |
f39f21d8 |
873 | |
874 | use Switch; |
875 | |
876 | you have C<switch> and C<case> available in Perl. |
877 | |
878 | use Switch; |
879 | |
880 | switch ($val) { |
881 | |
882 | case 1 { print "number 1" } |
883 | case "a" { print "string a" } |
884 | case [1..10,42] { print "number in list" } |
885 | case (@array) { print "number in list" } |
886 | case /\w+/ { print "pattern" } |
887 | case qr/\w+/ { print "pattern" } |
888 | case (%hash) { print "entry in hash" } |
889 | case (\%hash) { print "entry in hash" } |
890 | case (\&sub) { print "arg to subroutine" } |
891 | else { print "previous case not true" } |
892 | } |
893 | |
61947107 |
894 | See L<Switch>. |
895 | |
896 | =item * |
897 | |
898 | C<Test::More> is yet another framework for writing test scripts, |
899 | more extensive than Test::Simple, by Michael Schwern. See L<Test::More>. |
900 | |
901 | =item * |
902 | |
aecce728 |
903 | C<Test::Simple> has basic utilities for writing tests, by Michael |
61947107 |
904 | Schwern. See L<Test::Simple>. |
77c8cf41 |
905 | |
906 | =item * |
907 | |
61947107 |
908 | C<Text::Balanced> has been added, for extracting delimited text |
909 | sequences from strings, from Damian Conway. |
77c8cf41 |
910 | |
911 | use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited'; |
912 | |
913 | ($a, $b) = extract_delimited("'never say never', he never said", "'", ''); |
914 | |
915 | $a will be "'never say never'", $b will be ', he never said'. |
916 | |
917 | In addition to extract_delimited() there are also extract_bracketed(), |
918 | extract_quotelike(), extract_codeblock(), extract_variable(), |
919 | extract_tagged(), extract_multiple(), gen_delimited_pat(), and |
920 | gen_extract_tagged(). With these you can implement rather advanced |
61947107 |
921 | parsing algorithms. See L<Text::Balanced>. |
77c8cf41 |
922 | |
923 | =item * |
924 | |
c2e23569 |
925 | C<threads> is an interface to interpreter threads, by Arthur Bergman. |
61947107 |
926 | Interpreter threads (ithreads) is the new thread model introduced in |
c2e23569 |
927 | Perl 5.6 but only available as an internal interface for extension |
928 | writers (and for Win32 Perl for C<fork()> emulation). See L<threads>. |
77c8cf41 |
929 | |
930 | =item * |
931 | |
61947107 |
932 | C<threads::shared> allows data sharing for interpreter threads, from |
933 | Arthur Bergman. In the ithreads model any data sharing between |
934 | threads must be explicit, as opposed to the old 5.005 thread model |
935 | where data sharing was implicit. See L<threads::shared>. |
77c8cf41 |
936 | |
937 | =item * |
938 | |
1f089b22 |
939 | C<Tie::File>, by Mark-Jason Dominus, associates a Perl array with the |
940 | lines of a file. |
b3b08c80 |
941 | |
942 | =item * |
943 | |
79f69e33 |
944 | C<Tie::Memoize>, by Ilya Zakharevich, provides on-demand loaded hashes. |
945 | |
946 | =item * |
947 | |
61947107 |
948 | C<Tie::RefHash::Nestable>, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash |
ba370e9b |
949 | references (unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained |
950 | within Tie::RefHash, see L<Tie::RefHash>. |
77c8cf41 |
951 | |
952 | =item * |
953 | |
61947107 |
954 | C<Time::HiRes> provides high resolution timing (ualarm, usleep, |
955 | and gettimeofday), from Douglas E. Wegscheid. See L<Time::HiRes>. |
77c8cf41 |
956 | |
957 | =item * |
958 | |
61947107 |
959 | C<Unicode::UCD> offers a querying interface to the Unicode Character |
960 | Database. See L<Unicode::UCD>. |
77c8cf41 |
961 | |
962 | =item * |
963 | |
61947107 |
964 | C<Unicode::Collate> implements the UCA (Unicode Collation Algorithm) |
965 | for sorting Unicode strings, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Collate>. |
77c8cf41 |
966 | |
967 | =item * |
968 | |
61947107 |
969 | C<Unicode::Normalize> implements the various Unicode normalization |
970 | forms, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Normalize>. |
77c8cf41 |
971 | |
972 | =item * |
973 | |
61947107 |
974 | C<XS::Typemap>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises XS |
975 | typemaps. Nothing gets installed but for extension writers the code |
976 | is worth studying. |
77c8cf41 |
977 | |
978 | =back |
979 | |
980 | =head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata |
981 | |
982 | =over 4 |
983 | |
984 | =item * |
985 | |
61947107 |
986 | The following independently supported modules have been updated to the |
987 | newest versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, File::Temp, |
988 | Getopt::Long, Math::BigFloat, Math::BigInt, the podlators bundle |
989 | (Pod::Man, Pod::Text), Pod::LaTeX, Pod::Parser, Storable, |
990 | Term::ANSIColor, Test, Text-Tabs+Wrap. |
77c8cf41 |
991 | |
992 | =item * |
993 | |
61947107 |
994 | The attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments. |
77c8cf41 |
995 | |
996 | =item * |
997 | |
057b7f2b |
998 | AutoLoader can now be disabled with C<no AutoLoader;>. |
77c8cf41 |
999 | |
1000 | =item * |
1001 | |
1e13d81f |
1002 | B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced. It now can deparse almost |
1003 | all of the standard test suite (so that the tests still succeed). |
1004 | There is a make target "test.deparse" for trying this out. |
77c8cf41 |
1005 | |
1006 | =item * |
1007 | |
1e13d81f |
1008 | Class::Struct can now define the classes in compile time. |
77c8cf41 |
1009 | |
1010 | =item * |
1011 | |
1e13d81f |
1012 | Class::Struct now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor |
1013 | is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument. |
77c8cf41 |
1014 | |
1015 | =item * |
1016 | |
1e13d81f |
1017 | Data::Dumper has now an option to sort hashes. |
77c8cf41 |
1018 | |
1019 | =item * |
1020 | |
1e13d81f |
1021 | Data::Dumper has now an option to dump code references |
1022 | using B::Deparse. |
77c8cf41 |
1023 | |
1024 | =item * |
1025 | |
44da0e71 |
1026 | DB_File now supports newer Berkeley DB versions, among |
1027 | other improvements. |
1028 | |
1029 | =item * |
1030 | |
1e13d81f |
1031 | The English module can now be used without the infamous performance |
1032 | hit by saying |
77c8cf41 |
1033 | |
66023b77 |
1034 | use English '-no_match_vars'; |
77c8cf41 |
1035 | |
1e13d81f |
1036 | (Assuming, of course, that one doesn't need the troublesome variables |
1037 | C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and |
1038 | C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>. |
77c8cf41 |
1039 | |
1040 | =item * |
1041 | |
1e13d81f |
1042 | Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten to use the |
1043 | new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>). |
1044 | This means that they will be more robust and hopefully faster. |
77c8cf41 |
1045 | |
1046 | =item * |
1047 | |
44da0e71 |
1048 | File::Find now chdir()s correctly when chasing symbolic links. |
1049 | |
1050 | =item * |
1051 | |
1e13d81f |
1052 | File::Find now has pre- and post-processing callbacks. It also |
1053 | correctly changes directories when chasing symbolic links. Callbacks |
1054 | (naughtily) exiting with "next;" instead of "return;" now work. |
61947107 |
1055 | |
1056 | =item * |
1057 | |
1e13d81f |
1058 | File::Find is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made |
1059 | more portable. |
77c8cf41 |
1060 | |
61947107 |
1061 | =item * |
1062 | |
608dbdb1 |
1063 | The warnings issued by File::Find now belong to their own category. |
1064 | You can enable/disable them with C<use/no warnings 'File::Find';>. |
1065 | |
1066 | =item * |
1067 | |
1e13d81f |
1068 | File::Glob::glob() renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob() to avoid |
1069 | prototype mismatch with CORE::glob(). |
61947107 |
1070 | |
1071 | =item * |
1072 | |
1073 | File::Glob now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the size of |
1074 | the returned list of filenames. |
77c8cf41 |
1075 | |
1076 | =item * |
1077 | |
1078 | Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics |
1079 | (this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have |
1080 | compiled with debugging). |
1081 | |
1082 | =item * |
1083 | |
1e13d81f |
1084 | IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors. |
1085 | |
1086 | =item * |
1087 | |
77c8cf41 |
1088 | IO::Socket has now atmark() method, which returns true if the socket |
1089 | is positioned at the out-of-band mark. The method is also exportable |
1090 | as a sockatmark() function. |
1091 | |
1092 | =item * |
1093 | |
1094 | IO::Socket::INET has support for ReusePort option (if your platform |
1095 | supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr. For clarity |
1096 | you may want to prefer ReuseAddr. |
1097 | |
1098 | =item * |
1099 | |
61947107 |
1100 | IO::Socket::INET now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning |
1101 | that the operating system will make one up.) |
77c8cf41 |
1102 | |
1103 | =item * |
1104 | |
1e13d81f |
1105 | use lib now works identically to @INC. Removing directories |
1106 | with 'no lib' now works. |
1107 | |
1108 | =item * |
1109 | |
58175c9b |
1110 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses File::Spec internally, which hopefully |
1111 | leads into better portability. |
1112 | |
1113 | =item * |
1114 | |
1e13d81f |
1115 | Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt have undergone a full rewrite. |
1116 | They are now magnitudes faster, and they support various |
61947107 |
1117 | bignum libraries such as GMP and PARI as their backends. |
f39f21d8 |
1118 | |
1119 | =item * |
1120 | |
44da0e71 |
1121 | Math::Complex handles inf, NaN etc., better. |
1122 | |
1123 | =item * |
1124 | |
b929be1d |
1125 | Net::Ping has been muchly enhanced: multihoming is now supported, |
1126 | Win32 functionality is better, there is now time measuring |
1127 | functionality (optionally high-resolution using Time::HiRes), |
1128 | and there is now "external" protocol which uses Net::Ping::External |
1129 | module which runs your external ping utility and parses the output. |
1130 | A version of Net::Ping::External is available in CPAN. |
1131 | |
1132 | Note that some of the Net::Ping tests are disabled when running |
1133 | under the Perl distribution since one cannot assume one or more |
1134 | of the following: enabled echo port at localhost, full Internet |
1135 | connectivity, or sympathetic firewalls. You can set the environment |
1136 | variable PERL_TEST_Net_Ping to "1" (one) before running the Perl test |
1137 | suite to enable all the Net::Ping tests. |
f39f21d8 |
1138 | |
77c8cf41 |
1139 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1140 | |
da6838c8 |
1141 | POSIX::sigaction() is now much more flexible and robust. |
61947107 |
1142 | You can now install coderef handlers, 'DEFAULT', and 'IGNORE' |
1143 | handlers, installing new handlers was not atomic. |
f39f21d8 |
1144 | |
1145 | =item * |
1146 | |
da6838c8 |
1147 | In Safe the C<%INC> now localised in a Safe compartment so that |
76663d67 |
1148 | use/require work. |
1149 | |
1150 | =item * |
1151 | |
44da0e71 |
1152 | In SDBM_File on dosish platforms, some keys went missing because of |
1153 | lack of support for files with "holes". A workaround for the problem |
1154 | has been added. |
1155 | |
1156 | =item * |
1157 | |
da6838c8 |
1158 | In Search::Dict one can now have a pre-processing hook for the |
76663d67 |
1159 | lines being searched. |
1e13d81f |
1160 | |
1161 | =item * |
1162 | |
1163 | The Shell module now has an OO interface. |
1164 | |
1165 | =item * |
1166 | |
903fdac2 |
1167 | In Sys::Syslog there is now a failover mechanism that will go |
1168 | through alternative connection mechanisms until the message |
1169 | is successfully logged. |
1170 | |
1171 | =item * |
1172 | |
61947107 |
1173 | The Test module has been significantly enhanced. |
f39f21d8 |
1174 | |
1175 | =item * |
1176 | |
1cfd00ad |
1177 | Time::Local::timelocal() does not handle fractional seconds anymore. |
1178 | The rationale is that neither does localtime(), and timelocal() and |
1179 | localtime() are supposed to be inverses of each other. |
1180 | |
1181 | =item * |
1182 | |
da6838c8 |
1183 | The vars pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables. |
77c8cf41 |
1184 | (Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.) |
f39f21d8 |
1185 | |
888aee59 |
1186 | =item * |
1187 | |
58175c9b |
1188 | The C<utf8::> name space (as in the pragma) provides various |
61947107 |
1189 | Perl-callable functions to provide low level access to Perl's |
1190 | internal Unicode representation. At the moment only length() |
1191 | has been implemented. |
888aee59 |
1192 | |
f39f21d8 |
1193 | =back |
1194 | |
77c8cf41 |
1195 | =head1 Utility Changes |
f39f21d8 |
1196 | |
1197 | =over 4 |
1198 | |
1199 | =item * |
1200 | |
61947107 |
1201 | Emacs perl mode (emacs/cperl-mode.el) has been updated to version |
77c8cf41 |
1202 | 4.31. |
f39f21d8 |
1203 | |
1204 | =item * |
1205 | |
61947107 |
1206 | F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster. |
f39f21d8 |
1207 | |
1208 | =item * |
1209 | |
54ba6336 |
1210 | C<enc2xs> is a tool for people adding their own encodings to the |
1211 | Encode module. |
1212 | |
1213 | =item * |
1214 | |
1e13d81f |
1215 | C<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs. |
1216 | |
1217 | =item * |
1218 | |
1219 | C<h2xs> now produces a template README. |
f39f21d8 |
1220 | |
77c8cf41 |
1221 | =item * |
1222 | |
1e13d81f |
1223 | C<h2xs> now uses C<Devel::PPort> for better portability between |
1224 | different versions of Perl. |
f39f21d8 |
1225 | |
1226 | =item * |
1227 | |
1e13d81f |
1228 | C<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect |
61947107 |
1229 | newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is |
1230 | more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a |
1231 | prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined), |
1232 | less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the |
1233 | old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants), |
1234 | and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your |
1235 | extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy). |
1236 | L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs. |
f39f21d8 |
1237 | |
1238 | =item * |
1239 | |
1e13d81f |
1240 | C<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet. |
f39f21d8 |
1241 | |
1242 | =item * |
1243 | |
1e13d81f |
1244 | C<perlbug> is now much more robust. It also sends the bug report to |
61947107 |
1245 | perl.org, not perl.com. |
f39f21d8 |
1246 | |
1247 | =item * |
1248 | |
1e13d81f |
1249 | C<perlcc> has been rewritten and its user interface (that is, |
61947107 |
1250 | command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc. |
44da0e71 |
1251 | (The perlbc tools has been removed. Use C<perlcc -B> instead.) |
f39f21d8 |
1252 | |
1253 | =item * |
1254 | |
aecce728 |
1255 | C<perlivp> is a new Installation Verification Procedure utility |
1256 | for running any time after installing Perl. |
f39f21d8 |
1257 | |
1258 | =item * |
1259 | |
54ba6336 |
1260 | C<piconv> is an implementation of the character conversion utility |
1261 | C<iconv>, demonstrating the new Encode module. |
1262 | |
1263 | =item * |
1264 | |
1e13d81f |
1265 | C<pod2html> now allows specifying a cache directory. |
f39f21d8 |
1266 | |
1267 | =item * |
1268 | |
bbed45f6 |
1269 | C<pod2html> now produces XHTML 1.0. |
1270 | |
1271 | =item * |
1272 | |
80a5d8e7 |
1273 | C<pod2html> now understands POD written using different line endings |
bbed45f6 |
1274 | (PC-like CRLF versus UNIX-like LF versus MacClassic-like CR). |
1275 | |
1276 | =item * |
1277 | |
1e13d81f |
1278 | C<s2p> has been completely rewritten in Perl. (It is in fact a full |
1279 | implementation of sed in Perl: you can use the sed functionality by |
1280 | using the C<psed> utility.) |
61947107 |
1281 | |
1282 | =item * |
1283 | |
1e13d81f |
1284 | C<xsubpp> now understands POD documentation embedded in the *.xs files. |
f39f21d8 |
1285 | |
1286 | =item * |
1287 | |
1e13d81f |
1288 | C<xsubpp> now supports OUT keyword. |
f39f21d8 |
1289 | |
1290 | =back |
1291 | |
77c8cf41 |
1292 | =head1 New Documentation |
f39f21d8 |
1293 | |
1294 | =over 4 |
1295 | |
1296 | =item * |
1297 | |
77c8cf41 |
1298 | perl56delta details the changes between the 5.005 release and the |
1299 | 5.6.0 release. |
f39f21d8 |
1300 | |
1301 | =item * |
1302 | |
61947107 |
1303 | perlclib documents the internal replacements for standard C library |
1304 | functions. (Interesting only for extension writers and Perl core |
1305 | hackers.) |
1306 | |
1307 | =item * |
1308 | |
77c8cf41 |
1309 | perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial. |
f39f21d8 |
1310 | |
77c8cf41 |
1311 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1312 | |
77c8cf41 |
1313 | perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms. |
f39f21d8 |
1314 | |
77c8cf41 |
1315 | =item * |
1316 | |
888aee59 |
1317 | perlintro is a gentle introduction to Perl. |
1318 | |
1319 | =item * |
1320 | |
61947107 |
1321 | perliol documents the internals of PerlIO with layers. |
1322 | |
1323 | =item * |
1324 | |
888aee59 |
1325 | perlmodstyle is a style guide for writing modules. |
1326 | |
1327 | =item * |
1328 | |
77c8cf41 |
1329 | perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module. |
f39f21d8 |
1330 | |
1331 | =item * |
1332 | |
34babc16 |
1333 | perlpacktut is a pack() tutorial. |
1334 | |
1335 | =item * |
1336 | |
888aee59 |
1337 | perlpod has been rewritten to be clearer and to record the best |
1338 | practices gathered over the years. |
1339 | |
1340 | =item * |
1341 | |
057b7f2b |
1342 | perlpodspec is a more formal specification of the pod format, |
888aee59 |
1343 | mainly of interest for writers of pod applications, not to |
1344 | people writing in pod. |
1345 | |
1346 | =item * |
1347 | |
77c8cf41 |
1348 | perlretut is a regular expression tutorial. |
f39f21d8 |
1349 | |
1350 | =item * |
1351 | |
77c8cf41 |
1352 | perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide. |
1353 | Yes, much quicker than perlretut. |
f39f21d8 |
1354 | |
77c8cf41 |
1355 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1356 | |
61947107 |
1357 | perltodo has been updated. |
1358 | |
1359 | =item * |
1360 | |
888aee59 |
1361 | perltootc has been renamed as perltooc (to not to conflict |
61947107 |
1362 | with perltoot in filesystems restricted to "8.3" names) |
888aee59 |
1363 | |
1364 | =item * |
1365 | |
58175c9b |
1366 | perluniintro is an introduction to using Unicode in Perl. |
1367 | (perlunicode is more of a detailed reference and background |
1368 | information) |
888aee59 |
1369 | |
1370 | =item * |
1371 | |
77c8cf41 |
1372 | perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl |
1373 | distribution. |
1374 | |
1375 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
1376 | |
61947107 |
1377 | The following platform-specific documents are available before |
1378 | the installation as README.I<platform>, and after the installation |
1379 | as perlI<platform>: |
f39f21d8 |
1380 | |
61947107 |
1381 | perlaix perlamiga perlapollo perlbeos perlbs2000 |
1382 | perlce perlcygwin perldgux perldos perlepoc perlhpux |
1383 | perlhurd perlmachten perlmacos perlmint perlmpeix |
1384 | perlnetware perlos2 perlos390 perlplan9 perlqnx perlsolaris |
1385 | perltru64 perluts perlvmesa perlvms perlvos perlwin32 |
77c8cf41 |
1386 | |
1387 | =over 4 |
1388 | |
1389 | =item * |
1390 | |
61947107 |
1391 | The documentation for the POSIX-BC platform is called "BS2000", to avoid |
1392 | confusion with the Perl POSIX module. |
77c8cf41 |
1393 | |
1394 | =item * |
1395 | |
6cd7d6d6 |
1396 | The documentation for the WinCE platform is called perlce (README.ce |
1397 | in the source code kit), to avoid confusion with the perlwin32 |
1398 | documentation on 8.3-restricted filesystems. |
77c8cf41 |
1399 | |
1400 | =back |
1401 | |
1402 | =head1 Performance Enhancements |
1403 | |
1404 | =over 4 |
1405 | |
1406 | =item * |
1407 | |
44da0e71 |
1408 | map() could get pathologically slow when the result list it generates |
1409 | is larger than the source list. The performance has been improved for |
1410 | common scenarios. |
77c8cf41 |
1411 | |
1412 | =item * |
1413 | |
e1f170bd |
1414 | sort() has been changed to use primarily mergesort internally as |
1415 | opposed to the earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may |
1416 | result in slightly slower sorting times, but in general the speedup |
1417 | should be at least 20%. Additional bonuses are that the worst case |
1418 | behaviour of sort() is now better (in computer science terms it now |
1419 | runs in time O(N log N), as opposed to quicksort's Theta(N**2) |
1420 | worst-case run time behaviour), and that sort() is now stable |
1421 | (meaning that elements with identical keys will stay ordered as they |
1422 | were before the sort). See the C<sort> pragma for information. |
77c8cf41 |
1423 | |
05e25c75 |
1424 | The story in more detail: suppose you want to serve yourself a little |
1425 | slice of Pi. |
1426 | |
1427 | @digits = ( 3,1,4,1,5,9 ); |
1428 | |
1429 | A numerical sort of the digits will yield (1,1,3,4,5,9), as expected. |
1430 | Which C<1> comes first is hard to know, since one C<1> looks pretty |
1431 | much like any other. You can regard this as totally trivial, |
1432 | or somewhat profound. However, if you just want to sort the even |
1433 | digits ahead of the odd ones, then what will |
1434 | |
1435 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } @digits; |
1436 | |
1437 | yield? The only even digit, C<4>, will come first. But how about |
1438 | the odd numbers, which all compare equal? With the quicksort algorithm |
1439 | used to implement Perl 5.6 and earlier, the order of ties is left up |
1440 | to the sort. So, as you add more and more digits of Pi, the order |
1441 | in which the sorted even and odd digits appear will change. |
1442 | and, for sufficiently large slices of Pi, the quicksort algorithm |
1443 | in Perl 5.8 won't return the same results even if reinvoked with the |
1444 | same input. The justification for this rests with quicksort's |
1445 | worst case behavior. If you run |
1446 | |
1447 | sort { $a <=> $b } ( 1 .. $N , 1 .. $N ); |
1448 | |
1449 | (something you might approximate if you wanted to merge two sorted |
1450 | arrays using sort), doubling $N doesn't just double the quicksort time, |
1451 | it I<quadruples> it. Quicksort has a worst case run time that can |
1452 | grow like N**2, so-called I<quadratic> behaviour, and it can happen |
1453 | on patterns that may well arise in normal use. You won't notice this |
1454 | for small arrays, but you I<will> notice it with larger arrays, |
1455 | and you may not live long enough for the sort to complete on arrays |
1456 | of a million elements. So the 5.8 quicksort scrambles large arrays |
1457 | before sorting them, as a statistical defence against quadratic behaviour. |
1458 | But that means if you sort the same large array twice, ties may be |
1459 | broken in different ways. |
1460 | |
1461 | Because of the unpredictability of tie-breaking order, and the quadratic |
1462 | worst-case behaviour, quicksort was I<almost> replaced completely with |
1463 | a stable mergesort. I<Stable> means that ties are broken to preserve |
1464 | the original order of appearance in the input array. So |
1465 | |
1466 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } (3,1,4,1,5,9); |
1467 | |
1468 | will yield (4,3,1,1,5,9), guaranteed. The even and odd numbers |
1469 | appear in the output in the same order they appeared in the input. |
1470 | Mergesort has worst case O(NlogN) behaviour, the best value |
1471 | attainable. And, ironically, this mergesort does particularly |
1472 | well where quicksort goes quadratic: mergesort sorts (1..$N, 1..$N) |
1473 | in O(N) time. But quicksort was rescued at the last moment because |
1474 | it is faster than mergesort on certain inputs and platforms. |
1475 | For example, if you really I<don't> care about the order of even |
1476 | and odd digits, quicksort will run in O(N) time; it's very good |
1477 | at sorting many repetitions of a small number of distinct elements. |
1478 | The quicksort divide and conquer strategy works well on platforms |
1479 | with relatively small, very fast, caches. Eventually, the problem gets |
1480 | whittled down to one that fits in the cache, from which point it |
1481 | benefits from the increased memory speed. |
1482 | |
1483 | Quicksort was rescued by implementing a sort pragma to control aspects |
1484 | of the sort. The B<stable> subpragma forces stable behaviour, |
1485 | regardless of algorithm. The B<_quicksort> and B<_mergesort> |
1486 | subpragmas are heavy-handed ways to select the underlying implementation. |
1487 | The leading C<_> is a reminder that these subpragmas may not survive |
1488 | beyond 5.8. More appropriate mechanisms for selecting the implementation |
1489 | exist, but they wouldn't have arrived in time to save quicksort. |
1490 | |
77c8cf41 |
1491 | =item * |
1492 | |
1493 | Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm |
f224927c |
1494 | ( http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html ). This algorithm is |
77c8cf41 |
1495 | reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than |
1496 | the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by |
1497 | Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of |
1498 | all 3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the |
1499 | DIEHARD random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this |
1500 | change has not affected the overall speed of Perl. |
1501 | |
1502 | =item * |
1503 | |
1504 | unshift() should now be noticeably faster. |
1505 | |
1506 | =back |
1507 | |
1508 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
1509 | |
1510 | =head2 Generic Improvements |
1511 | |
1512 | =over 4 |
1513 | |
1514 | =item * |
1515 | |
1516 | INSTALL now explains how you can configure Perl to use 64-bit |
1517 | integers even on non-64-bit platforms. |
1518 | |
1519 | =item * |
1520 | |
1521 | Policy.sh policy change: if you are reusing a Policy.sh file |
1522 | (see INSTALL) and you use Configure -Dprefix=/foo/bar and in the old |
1523 | Policy $prefix eq $siteprefix and $prefix eq $vendorprefix, all of |
1524 | them will now be changed to the new prefix, /foo/bar. (Previously |
1525 | only $prefix changed.) If you do not like this new behaviour, |
1526 | specify prefix, siteprefix, and vendorprefix explicitly. |
1527 | |
1528 | =item * |
1529 | |
1530 | A new optional location for Perl libraries, otherlibdirs, is available. |
1531 | It can be used for example for vendor add-ons without disturbing Perl's |
1532 | own library directories. |
1533 | |
1534 | =item * |
1535 | |
1536 | In many platforms the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to |
1537 | build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems |
1538 | to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler |
1539 | 'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead. |
1540 | |
1541 | =item * |
1542 | |
1543 | gcc needs to closely track the operating system release to avoid |
1544 | build problems. If Configure finds that gcc was built for a different |
1545 | operating system release than is running, it now gives a clearly visible |
1546 | warning that there may be trouble ahead. |
1547 | |
1548 | =item * |
1549 | |
1550 | If binary compatibility with the 5.005 release is not wanted, Configure |
1551 | no longer suggests including the 5.005 modules in @INC. |
1552 | |
1553 | =item * |
1554 | |
1555 | Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively. |
1556 | |
1557 | =item * |
1558 | |
44da0e71 |
1559 | Configure support for pdp11-style memory models has been removed due |
1560 | to obsolescence. |
1561 | |
1562 | =item * |
1563 | |
77c8cf41 |
1564 | configure.gnu now works with options with whitespace in them. |
f39f21d8 |
1565 | |
77c8cf41 |
1566 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1567 | |
77c8cf41 |
1568 | installperl now outputs everything to STDERR. |
f39f21d8 |
1569 | |
77c8cf41 |
1570 | =item * |
1571 | |
1572 | $Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically (this is more robust |
1573 | with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries for |
1574 | more than one binary platform.) |
f39f21d8 |
1575 | |
1576 | =item * |
1577 | |
1578 | Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, "-perlio" doesn't |
1579 | get appended to the $Config{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore. |
1580 | Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command |
1581 | line option -Uuseperlio), you will get "-stdio" appended. |
1582 | |
1583 | =item * |
1584 | |
1585 | Another change related to the architecture name is that "-64all" |
1586 | (-Duse64bitall, or "maximally 64-bit") is appended only if your |
1587 | pointers are 64 bits wide. (To be exact, the use64bitall is ignored.) |
1588 | |
1589 | =item * |
1590 | |
77c8cf41 |
1591 | In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be |
1592 | somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure |
1593 | parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>. |
1594 | |
1595 | =item * |
1596 | |
61947107 |
1597 | APPLLIB_EXP, a less-know configuration-time definition, has been |
1598 | documented. It can be used to prepend site-specific directories |
1599 | to Perl's default search path (@INC), see INSTALL for information. |
1600 | |
1601 | =item * |
1602 | |
77c8cf41 |
1603 | The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the |
1604 | DB_File extension) was built is now available as |
1605 | C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}> |
1606 | from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG |
1607 | DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C. |
1608 | |
1609 | =item * |
1610 | |
61947107 |
1611 | Building Berkeley DB3 for compatibility modes for DB, NDBM, and ODBM |
1612 | has been documented in INSTALL. |
77c8cf41 |
1613 | |
1614 | =item * |
1615 | |
61947107 |
1616 | If you have CPAN access (either network or a local copy such as a |
1617 | CD-ROM) you can during specify extra modules to Configure to build and |
1618 | install with Perl using the -Dextras=... option. See INSTALL for |
1619 | more details. |
f39f21d8 |
1620 | |
61947107 |
1621 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1622 | |
61947107 |
1623 | In addition to config.over a new override file, config.arch, is |
1624 | available. That is supposed to be used by hints file writers for |
1625 | architecture-wide changes (as opposed to config.over which is for |
1626 | site-wide changes). |
f39f21d8 |
1627 | |
1628 | =item * |
1629 | |
e1f170bd |
1630 | If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside |
1631 | of the source directory by |
1632 | |
1633 | mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory |
1634 | cd /tmp/perl/build/directory |
1635 | sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ... |
1636 | |
1637 | This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links |
1638 | pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left |
1639 | unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say |
1640 | |
1641 | make all test |
1642 | |
1643 | and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory. |
1644 | |
1645 | =item * |
1646 | |
61947107 |
1647 | For Perl developers several new make targets for profiling |
1648 | and debugging have been added, see L<perlhack>. |
1649 | |
1650 | =over 8 |
f39f21d8 |
1651 | |
1652 | =item * |
1653 | |
61947107 |
1654 | Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in |
1655 | L<perlhack>. There is a make target called "perl.gprof" for |
1656 | generating a gprofiled Perl executable. |
f39f21d8 |
1657 | |
1658 | =item * |
1659 | |
61947107 |
1660 | If you have GCC 3, there is a make target called "perl.gcov" for |
1661 | creating a gcoved Perl executable for coverage analysis. See |
1662 | L<perlhack>. |
f39f21d8 |
1663 | |
1664 | =item * |
1665 | |
61947107 |
1666 | If you are on IRIX or Tru64 platforms, new profiling/debugging options |
1667 | have been added, see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and |
1668 | Third Degree. |
1669 | |
1670 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
1671 | |
1672 | =item * |
1673 | |
61947107 |
1674 | Guidelines of how to construct minimal Perl installations have |
1675 | been added to INSTALL. |
f39f21d8 |
1676 | |
1677 | =item * |
1678 | |
61947107 |
1679 | The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads |
1680 | (C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the |
1681 | Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>). |
f39f21d8 |
1682 | |
61947107 |
1683 | But note that the Thread.pm interface is now shared by both |
1684 | thread models. |
f39f21d8 |
1685 | |
d1eb8299 |
1686 | =item * |
1687 | |
1688 | The Gconvert macro ($Config{d_Gconvert}) used by perl for stringifying |
1689 | floating-point numbers is now more picky about using sprintf %.*g |
1690 | rules for the conversion. Some platforms that used to use gcvt may |
1691 | now resort to the slower sprintf. |
1692 | |
61947107 |
1693 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
1694 | |
61947107 |
1695 | =head2 New Or Improved Platforms |
f39f21d8 |
1696 | |
61947107 |
1697 | For the list of platforms known to support Perl, |
1698 | see L<perlport/"Supported Platforms">. |
1699 | |
1700 | =over 4 |
f39f21d8 |
1701 | |
1702 | =item * |
1703 | |
61947107 |
1704 | AIX dynamic loading should be now better supported. |
f39f21d8 |
1705 | |
f39f21d8 |
1706 | =item * |
1707 | |
77c8cf41 |
1708 | AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the |
1709 | long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>. |
f39f21d8 |
1710 | |
1711 | =item * |
1712 | |
61947107 |
1713 | After a long pause, AmigaOS has been verified to be happy with Perl. |
1714 | |
1715 | =item * |
1716 | |
f224927c |
1717 | AtheOS ( http://www.atheos.cx/ ) is a new platform. |
f39f21d8 |
1718 | |
77c8cf41 |
1719 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1720 | |
58175c9b |
1721 | BeOS has been reclaimed. |
1722 | |
1723 | =item * |
1724 | |
77c8cf41 |
1725 | DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>. |
f39f21d8 |
1726 | |
1727 | =item * |
1728 | |
77c8cf41 |
1729 | DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2. |
f39f21d8 |
1730 | |
1731 | =item * |
1732 | |
61947107 |
1733 | EBCDIC platforms (z/OS, also known as OS/390, POSIX-BC, and VM/ESA) |
1734 | have been regained. Many test suite tests still fail and the |
1735 | co-existence of Unicode and EBCDIC isn't quite settled, but the |
1736 | situation is much better than with Perl 5.6. See L<perlos390>, |
1737 | L<perlbs2000> (for POSIX-BC), and L<perlvmesa> for more information. |
f39f21d8 |
1738 | |
1739 | =item * |
1740 | |
61947107 |
1741 | Building perl with -Duseithreads or -Duse5005threads now works under |
1742 | HP-UX 10.20 (previously it only worked under 10.30 or later). You will |
1743 | need a thread library package installed. See README.hpux. |
f39f21d8 |
1744 | |
77c8cf41 |
1745 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1746 | |
61947107 |
1747 | MacOS Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since |
1748 | perl 5.004 but now the source code bases of standard Perl |
1749 | and MacPerl have been synchronised) |
f39f21d8 |
1750 | |
77c8cf41 |
1751 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1752 | |
61947107 |
1753 | MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+ |
1754 | filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.) |
f39f21d8 |
1755 | |
888aee59 |
1756 | =item * |
1757 | |
61947107 |
1758 | NCR MP-RAS is now supported. |
888aee59 |
1759 | |
1760 | =item * |
1761 | |
58175c9b |
1762 | All the NetBSD specific patches (except for the installation |
1763 | specific ones) have been merged back to the main distribution. |
1764 | |
1765 | =item * |
1766 | |
61947107 |
1767 | NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>. |
888aee59 |
1768 | |
1769 | =item * |
1770 | |
61947107 |
1771 | NonStop-UX is now supported. |
888aee59 |
1772 | |
1773 | =item * |
1774 | |
44da0e71 |
1775 | NEC SUPER-UX is now supported. |
1776 | |
1777 | =item * |
1778 | |
58175c9b |
1779 | All the OpenBSD specific patches (except for the installation |
1780 | specific ones) have been merged back to the main distribution. |
1781 | |
1782 | =item * |
1783 | |
1784 | Perl has been tested with the GNU pth userlevel thread package |
1785 | ( http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/pth.html ) . All but one thread |
1786 | test worked, and that one failure was because of test results arriving |
1787 | in unexpected order. |
1788 | |
1789 | =item * |
1790 | |
61947107 |
1791 | Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. |
888aee59 |
1792 | |
1793 | =item * |
1794 | |
61947107 |
1795 | WinCE is now supported. See L<perlce>. |
1796 | |
1797 | =item * |
1798 | |
1799 | z/OS (formerly known as OS/390, formerly known as MVS OE) has now |
1800 | support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default, |
1801 | however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure. |
888aee59 |
1802 | |
f39f21d8 |
1803 | =back |
1804 | |
1805 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
1806 | |
e1f170bd |
1807 | Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been |
1808 | hunted down. Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite |
1809 | a bit. |
ba370e9b |
1810 | |
f39f21d8 |
1811 | =over 4 |
1812 | |
1813 | =item * |
1814 | |
e1f170bd |
1815 | The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names. |
f39f21d8 |
1816 | |
1817 | =item * |
1818 | |
44da0e71 |
1819 | caller() could cause core dumps in certain situations. Carp was sometimes |
1820 | affected by this problem. |
1821 | |
1822 | =item * |
1823 | |
e1f170bd |
1824 | chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in |
1825 | reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order. |
f39f21d8 |
1826 | |
1827 | =item * |
1828 | |
e1f170bd |
1829 | Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm) |
1830 | when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x, |
1831 | which needs them. |
f39f21d8 |
1832 | |
1833 | =item * |
1834 | |
e1f170bd |
1835 | The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as |
1836 | "0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35, |
1837 | in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This |
1838 | was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation |
1839 | where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now |
1840 | Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts. |
f39f21d8 |
1841 | |
1842 | =item * |
1843 | |
e1f170bd |
1844 | The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable. |
f39f21d8 |
1845 | |
1846 | =item * |
1847 | |
e1f170bd |
1848 | Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code, |
1849 | condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks |
44da0e71 |
1850 | line number, the C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, all debugger output |
1851 | now goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set. |
1852 | |
1853 | =item * |
1854 | |
1855 | Perl 5.6.0 could emit spurious warnings about redefinition of dl_error() |
1856 | when statically building extensions into perl. This has been corrected. |
f39f21d8 |
1857 | |
1858 | =item * |
1859 | |
e1f170bd |
1860 | L<dprofpp> -R didn't work. |
f39f21d8 |
1861 | |
1862 | =item * |
1863 | |
e1f170bd |
1864 | C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works. |
44da0e71 |
1865 | =item * |
1866 | |
1867 | Infinity is now recognized as a number. |
f39f21d8 |
1868 | |
1869 | =item * |
1870 | |
e1f170bd |
1871 | UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke |
1872 | the Tk extension with 5.6.0.) |
f39f21d8 |
1873 | |
1874 | =item * |
1875 | |
e1f170bd |
1876 | Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved |
1877 | correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they |
1878 | were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code. |
f39f21d8 |
1879 | |
1880 | =item * |
1881 | |
e1f170bd |
1882 | Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that |
1883 | were declared before the lexicals. |
f39f21d8 |
1884 | |
1885 | =item * |
1886 | |
44da0e71 |
1887 | Lexical warnings now propagating correctly between scopes |
1888 | and into C<eval "...">. |
1889 | |
1890 | =item * |
1891 | |
1892 | C<use warnings qw(FATAL all)> did not work as intended. This has been |
1893 | corrected. |
1894 | |
1895 | =item * |
1896 | |
1897 | warnings::enabled() now reports the state of $^W correctly if the caller |
1898 | isn't using lexical warnings. |
f39f21d8 |
1899 | |
1900 | =item * |
1901 | |
e1f170bd |
1902 | Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works. |
f39f21d8 |
1903 | |
1904 | =item * |
1905 | |
e1f170bd |
1906 | Fixed numerous memory leaks, especially in eval "". |
f39f21d8 |
1907 | |
1908 | =item * |
1909 | |
e1f170bd |
1910 | mkdir() now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name, |
1911 | as mandated by POSIX. |
f39f21d8 |
1912 | |
1913 | =item * |
1914 | |
e1f170bd |
1915 | Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds |
1916 | with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness |
1917 | and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have |
1918 | fixed the modfl() bug. |
f39f21d8 |
1919 | |
1920 | =item * |
1921 | |
e1f170bd |
1922 | Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to |
1923 | return 27406, instead of 27047). |
f39f21d8 |
1924 | |
1925 | =item * |
1926 | |
e1f170bd |
1927 | Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be |
1928 | more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number. |
f39f21d8 |
1929 | |
77c8cf41 |
1930 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1931 | |
44da0e71 |
1932 | Numeric conversions did not recognize changes in the string value |
1933 | properly in certain circumstances. |
1934 | |
1935 | =item * |
1936 | |
e1f170bd |
1937 | Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with our(). |
f39f21d8 |
1938 | |
1939 | =item * |
1940 | |
e1f170bd |
1941 | our() variables will not cause "will not stay shared" warnings. |
f39f21d8 |
1942 | |
1943 | =item * |
1944 | |
44da0e71 |
1945 | "our" variables of the same name declared in two sibling blocks |
1946 | resulted in bogus warnings about "redeclaration" of the variables. |
1947 | The problem has been corrected. |
1948 | |
1949 | =item * |
1950 | |
e1f170bd |
1951 | pack "Z" now correctly terminates the string with "\0". |
f39f21d8 |
1952 | |
1953 | =item * |
1954 | |
e1f170bd |
1955 | Fix password routines which in some shadow password platforms |
1956 | (e.g. HP-UX) caused getpwent() to return every other entry. |
f39f21d8 |
1957 | |
77c8cf41 |
1958 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1959 | |
e1f170bd |
1960 | The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments |
1961 | to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options. |
f39f21d8 |
1962 | |
77c8cf41 |
1963 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1964 | |
e1f170bd |
1965 | PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work. |
f39f21d8 |
1966 | |
77c8cf41 |
1967 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1968 | |
e1f170bd |
1969 | printf() no longer resets the numeric locale to "C". |
f39f21d8 |
1970 | |
77c8cf41 |
1971 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1972 | |
44da0e71 |
1973 | C<qw(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>. |
1974 | |
1975 | =item * |
1976 | |
1977 | pos() did not return the correct value within s///ge in earlier |
1978 | versions. This is now handled correctly. |
f39f21d8 |
1979 | |
77c8cf41 |
1980 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1981 | |
e1f170bd |
1982 | Printing quads (64-bit integers) with printf/sprintf now works |
1983 | without the q L ll prefixes (assuming you are on a quad-capable platform). |
f39f21d8 |
1984 | |
77c8cf41 |
1985 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
1986 | |
e1f170bd |
1987 | Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work. |
f39f21d8 |
1988 | |
ba370e9b |
1989 | =item * |
1990 | |
e1f170bd |
1991 | Right-hand side magic (GMAGIC) could in many cases such as string |
1992 | concatenation be invoked too many times. |
ba370e9b |
1993 | |
1994 | =item * |
1995 | |
e1f170bd |
1996 | scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context. |
ba370e9b |
1997 | |
1998 | =item * |
1999 | |
e1f170bd |
2000 | SOCKS support is now much more robust. |
ba370e9b |
2001 | |
2002 | =item * |
2003 | |
e1f170bd |
2004 | sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context |
2005 | (they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself). |
44da0e71 |
2006 | The comparison block is now run in scalar context, and the arguments |
2007 | to be sorted are always provided list context. |
ba370e9b |
2008 | |
2009 | =item * |
2010 | |
e1f170bd |
2011 | Changed the POSIX character class C<[[:space:]]> to include the (very |
c2e23569 |
2012 | rarely used) vertical tab character. Added a new POSIX-ish character |
2013 | class C<[[:blank:]]> which stands for horizontal whitespace |
2014 | (currently, the space and the tab). |
ba370e9b |
2015 | |
2016 | =item * |
2017 | |
2018 | The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does |
2019 | not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the |
2020 | behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation. |
2021 | |
2022 | =item * |
2023 | |
44da0e71 |
2024 | Some cases of inconsistent taint propagation (such as within hash |
2025 | values) have been fixed. |
2026 | |
2027 | =item * |
2028 | |
2029 | The RE engine found in Perl 5.6.0 accidentally pessimised certain kinds |
2030 | of simple pattern matches. These are now handled better. |
2031 | |
2032 | =item * |
2033 | |
2034 | Regular expression debug output (whether through C<use re 'debug'> |
2035 | or via C<-Dr>) now looks better. |
2036 | |
2037 | =item * |
2038 | |
2039 | Multi-line matches like C<"a\nxb\n" =~ /(?!\A)x/m> were flawed. The |
2040 | bug has been fixed. |
2041 | |
2042 | =item * |
2043 | |
2044 | Use of $& could trigger a core dump under some situations. This |
2045 | is now avoided. |
2046 | |
2047 | =item * |
2048 | |
c2e23569 |
2049 | The regular expression captured submatches ($1, $2, ...) are now |
2050 | more consistently unset if the match fails, instead of leaving false |
2051 | data lying around in them. |
2052 | |
2053 | =item * |
2054 | |
44da0e71 |
2055 | readline() on files opened in "slurp" mode could return an extra "" at |
2056 | the end in certain situations. This has been corrected. |
2057 | |
2058 | =item * |
2059 | |
2060 | Autovivification of symbolic references of special variables described |
2061 | in L<perlvar> (as in C<${$num}>) was accidentally disabled. This works |
2062 | again now. |
2063 | |
2064 | =item * |
2065 | |
da6838c8 |
2066 | Sys::Syslog ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant. |
ba370e9b |
2067 | |
2068 | =item * |
2069 | |
e1f170bd |
2070 | All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional. |
ba370e9b |
2071 | |
2072 | =item * |
2073 | |
e1f170bd |
2074 | $AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses |
2075 | in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe. |
ba370e9b |
2076 | |
2077 | =item * |
2078 | |
e1f170bd |
2079 | Tie::ARRAY SPLICE method was broken. |
ba370e9b |
2080 | |
2081 | =item * |
2082 | |
e1f170bd |
2083 | Allow read-only string on left hand side of non-modifying tr///. |
ba370e9b |
2084 | |
2085 | =item * |
2086 | |
ed788108 |
2087 | If C<STDERR> is tied, warnings caused by C<warn> and C<die> now |
2088 | correctly pass to it. |
2089 | |
2090 | =item * |
2091 | |
e1f170bd |
2092 | Several Unicode fixes. |
ba370e9b |
2093 | |
2094 | =over 8 |
2095 | |
2096 | =item * |
2097 | |
e1f170bd |
2098 | BOMs (byte order marks) in the beginning of Perl files |
2099 | (scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped. |
2100 | UTF-16 (UCS-2) encoded Perl files should now be read correctly. |
ba370e9b |
2101 | |
2102 | =item * |
2103 | |
e1f170bd |
2104 | The character tables have been updated to Unicode 3.1.1. |
ba370e9b |
2105 | |
2106 | =item * |
2107 | |
e1f170bd |
2108 | Comparing with utf8 data does not magically upgrade non-utf8 data |
58175c9b |
2109 | into utf8. (This was a problem for example if you were mixing data |
2110 | from I/O and Unicode data: your output might have got magically encoded |
2111 | as UTF-8.) |
2112 | |
2113 | =item * |
2114 | |
2115 | Generating illegal Unicode code points like U+FFFE, or the UTF-16 |
2116 | surrogates, now also generates an optional warning. |
ba370e9b |
2117 | |
2118 | =item * |
2119 | |
e1f170bd |
2120 | C<IsAlnum>, C<IsAlpha>, and C<IsWord> now match titlecase. |
f39f21d8 |
2121 | |
77c8cf41 |
2122 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2123 | |
e1f170bd |
2124 | Concatenation with the C<.> operator or via variable interpolation, |
2125 | C<eq>, C<substr>, C<reverse>, C<quotemeta>, the C<x> operator, |
2126 | substitution with C<s///>, single-quoted UTF8, should now work. |
f39f21d8 |
2127 | |
77c8cf41 |
2128 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2129 | |
e1f170bd |
2130 | The C<tr///> operator now works. Note that the C<tr///CU> |
2131 | functionality has been removed (but see pack('U0', ...)). |
f39f21d8 |
2132 | |
77c8cf41 |
2133 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2134 | |
e1f170bd |
2135 | C<eval "v200"> now works. |
f39f21d8 |
2136 | |
77c8cf41 |
2137 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2138 | |
44da0e71 |
2139 | Perl 5.6.0 parsed m/\x{ab}/ incorrectly, leading to spurious warnings. |
2140 | This has been corrected. |
2141 | |
2142 | =item * |
2143 | |
e1f170bd |
2144 | Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes like C<IsDigit>. |
f39f21d8 |
2145 | |
e1f170bd |
2146 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2147 | |
44da0e71 |
2148 | =item * |
2149 | |
2150 | Large unsigned numbers (those above 2**31) could sometimes lose their |
2151 | unsignedness, causing bogus results in arithmetic operations. |
2152 | |
77c8cf41 |
2153 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2154 | |
77c8cf41 |
2155 | =head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes |
f39f21d8 |
2156 | |
2157 | =over 4 |
2158 | |
2159 | =item * |
2160 | |
77c8cf41 |
2161 | BSDI 4.* |
f39f21d8 |
2162 | |
77c8cf41 |
2163 | Perl now works on post-4.0 BSD/OSes. |
f39f21d8 |
2164 | |
2165 | =item * |
2166 | |
77c8cf41 |
2167 | All BSDs |
f39f21d8 |
2168 | |
057b7f2b |
2169 | Setting C<$0> now works (as much as possible; see L<perlvar> for details). |
f39f21d8 |
2170 | |
2171 | =item * |
2172 | |
77c8cf41 |
2173 | Cygwin |
f39f21d8 |
2174 | |
439f2f5c |
2175 | Numerous updates; currently synchronised with Cygwin 1.3.10. |
f39f21d8 |
2176 | |
2177 | =item * |
2178 | |
e1f170bd |
2179 | Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O. |
2180 | |
2181 | =item * |
2182 | |
77c8cf41 |
2183 | EPOC |
f39f21d8 |
2184 | |
77c8cf41 |
2185 | EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc. |
f39f21d8 |
2186 | |
2187 | =item * |
2188 | |
77c8cf41 |
2189 | FreeBSD 3.* |
f39f21d8 |
2190 | |
77c8cf41 |
2191 | Perl now works on post-3.0 FreeBSDs. |
f39f21d8 |
2192 | |
2193 | =item * |
2194 | |
77c8cf41 |
2195 | HP-UX |
2196 | |
439f2f5c |
2197 | README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now works. |
f39f21d8 |
2198 | |
2199 | =item * |
2200 | |
77c8cf41 |
2201 | IRIX |
f39f21d8 |
2202 | |
77c8cf41 |
2203 | Numerous compilation flag and hint enhancements; accidental mixing |
2204 | of 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (a doomed attempt) made much harder. |
f39f21d8 |
2205 | |
77c8cf41 |
2206 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2207 | |
77c8cf41 |
2208 | Linux |
f39f21d8 |
2209 | |
e1f170bd |
2210 | =over 8 |
2211 | |
2212 | =item * |
2213 | |
77c8cf41 |
2214 | Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL). |
f39f21d8 |
2215 | |
2216 | =item * |
2217 | |
e1f170bd |
2218 | Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using |
2219 | accept(), revcfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and getsockname(). |
2220 | |
2221 | =back |
2222 | |
2223 | =item * |
2224 | |
77c8cf41 |
2225 | MacOS Classic |
f39f21d8 |
2226 | |
77c8cf41 |
2227 | Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in MacOS Classic should |
2228 | now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and |
2229 | the missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing |
2230 | list for details. |
f39f21d8 |
2231 | |
2232 | =item * |
2233 | |
77c8cf41 |
2234 | MPE/iX |
f39f21d8 |
2235 | |
77c8cf41 |
2236 | MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix. |
f39f21d8 |
2237 | |
2238 | =item * |
2239 | |
77c8cf41 |
2240 | NetBSD/sparc |
f39f21d8 |
2241 | |
77c8cf41 |
2242 | Perl now works on NetBSD/sparc. |
f39f21d8 |
2243 | |
2244 | =item * |
2245 | |
77c8cf41 |
2246 | OS/2 |
f39f21d8 |
2247 | |
77c8cf41 |
2248 | Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL). |
f39f21d8 |
2249 | |
2250 | =item * |
2251 | |
77c8cf41 |
2252 | Solaris |
f39f21d8 |
2253 | |
77c8cf41 |
2254 | 64-bitness using the Sun Workshop compiler now works. |
f39f21d8 |
2255 | |
2256 | =item * |
2257 | |
77c8cf41 |
2258 | Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1) |
f39f21d8 |
2259 | |
77c8cf41 |
2260 | The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}. |
2261 | Allow compiling with gcc (previously explicitly forbidden). Compiling |
2262 | with gcc still not recommended because buggy code results, even with |
2263 | gcc 2.95.2. |
f39f21d8 |
2264 | |
2265 | =item * |
2266 | |
77c8cf41 |
2267 | Unicos |
2268 | |
2269 | Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either |
2270 | during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime; |
2271 | now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using |
2272 | only 46 bit integers for speed. |
f39f21d8 |
2273 | |
2274 | =item * |
2275 | |
77c8cf41 |
2276 | VMS |
2277 | |
2278 | chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY |
2279 | (see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc. |
f39f21d8 |
2280 | |
00bb525a |
2281 | The tainting of C<%ENV> elements via C<keys> or C<values> was previously |
2282 | unimplemented. It now works as documented. |
2283 | |
2284 | The C<waitpid> emulation has been improved. The worst bug (now fixed) |
2285 | was that a pid of -1 would cause a wildcard search of all processes on |
2286 | the system. The most significant enhancement is that we can now |
2287 | usually get the completion status of a terminated process. |
2288 | |
2289 | POSIX-style signals are now emulated much better on VMS versions prior |
2290 | to 7.0. |
2291 | |
2292 | The C<system> function and backticks operator have improved |
2293 | functionality and better error handling. |
2294 | |
161720b2 |
2295 | File access tests now use current process privileges rather than the |
2296 | user's default privileges, which could sometimes result in a mismatch |
2297 | between reported access and actual access. |
2298 | |
f39f21d8 |
2299 | =item * |
2300 | |
77c8cf41 |
2301 | Windows |
f39f21d8 |
2302 | |
77c8cf41 |
2303 | =over 8 |
f39f21d8 |
2304 | |
2305 | =item * |
2306 | |
77c8cf41 |
2307 | accept() no longer leaks memory. |
f39f21d8 |
2308 | |
2309 | =item * |
2310 | |
e1f170bd |
2311 | Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl. |
2312 | However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those |
2313 | generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). |
2314 | |
2315 | =item * |
2316 | |
77c8cf41 |
2317 | Better chdir() return value for a non-existent directory. |
f39f21d8 |
2318 | |
77c8cf41 |
2319 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2320 | |
e1f170bd |
2321 | Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x. |
2322 | |
2323 | =item * |
2324 | |
77c8cf41 |
2325 | New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. |
f39f21d8 |
2326 | |
2327 | =item * |
2328 | |
44da0e71 |
2329 | Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child |
2330 | processes. |
2331 | |
2332 | =item * |
2333 | |
77c8cf41 |
2334 | $ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C. |
2335 | |
2336 | =item * |
2337 | |
44da0e71 |
2338 | fork() emulation has been improved in various ways, but still continues |
2339 | to be experimental. See L<perlfork> for known bugs and caveats. |
e1f170bd |
2340 | |
2341 | =item * |
2342 | |
77c8cf41 |
2343 | A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN. |
f39f21d8 |
2344 | |
2345 | =item * |
2346 | |
44da0e71 |
2347 | Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root. |
2348 | Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. |
2349 | |
2350 | =item * |
2351 | |
e1f170bd |
2352 | HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html |
2353 | |
2354 | =item * |
2355 | |
2356 | The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features |
2357 | enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary distribution). |
2358 | |
2359 | =item * |
2360 | |
77c8cf41 |
2361 | Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry. |
f39f21d8 |
2362 | |
2363 | =item * |
2364 | |
77c8cf41 |
2365 | Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. |
f39f21d8 |
2366 | |
2367 | =item * |
2368 | |
77c8cf41 |
2369 | Fake signal handling reenabled, bugs and all. |
f39f21d8 |
2370 | |
2371 | =item * |
2372 | |
44da0e71 |
2373 | %SIG has been enabled under USE_ITHREADS, but its use is completely |
2374 | unsupported under all configurations. |
2375 | |
2376 | =item * |
2377 | |
77c8cf41 |
2378 | Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run |
2379 | concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.) |
f39f21d8 |
2380 | |
2381 | =item * |
2382 | |
c2e23569 |
2383 | C<File::Spec->tmpdir()> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp |
77c8cf41 |
2384 | (works better when perl is running as service). |
f39f21d8 |
2385 | |
2386 | =item * |
2387 | |
77c8cf41 |
2388 | Better UNC path handling under ithreads. |
f39f21d8 |
2389 | |
2390 | =item * |
2391 | |
44da0e71 |
2392 | wait(), waitpid() and backticks now return the correct exit status under |
2393 | Windows 9x. |
f39f21d8 |
2394 | |
2395 | =item * |
2396 | |
77c8cf41 |
2397 | winsock handle leak fixed. |
f39f21d8 |
2398 | |
d1eb8299 |
2399 | =item * |
2400 | |
2401 | The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and |
2402 | Markov chain input and the few found crashes and lockups have been |
2403 | fixed. |
2404 | |
f39f21d8 |
2405 | =back |
2406 | |
77c8cf41 |
2407 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2408 | |
77c8cf41 |
2409 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
f39f21d8 |
2410 | |
ba370e9b |
2411 | =over 4 |
2412 | |
2413 | =item * |
2414 | |
12bcd1a6 |
2415 | The lexical warnings category "deprecated" is no longer a sub-category |
2416 | of the "syntax" category. It is now a top-level category in its own |
2417 | right. |
2418 | |
2419 | =item * |
2420 | |
77c8cf41 |
2421 | All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully |
2422 | easier to understand both because the error message now comes before |
2423 | the failed regex and because the point of failure is now clearly |
ba370e9b |
2424 | marked by a C<E<lt>-- HERE> marker. |
2425 | |
2426 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2427 | |
77c8cf41 |
2428 | The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings |
2429 | drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package, |
bea4d472 |
2430 | for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>. |
f39f21d8 |
2431 | |
ba370e9b |
2432 | =item * |
2433 | |
77c8cf41 |
2434 | The "Unrecognized escape" warning has been extended to include C<\8>, |
2435 | C<\9>, and C<\_>. There is no need to escape any of the C<\w> characters. |
f39f21d8 |
2436 | |
ba370e9b |
2437 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2438 | |
77c8cf41 |
2439 | Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your |
2440 | Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace |
2441 | tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables, |
2442 | respectively. |
f39f21d8 |
2443 | |
2444 | =item * |
2445 | |
2bcb0b45 |
2446 | The debugger (perl5db.pl) has been modified to present a more |
2447 | consistent commands interface, via (CommandSet=580). perl5db.t was |
2448 | also added to test the changes, and as a placeholder for further tests. |
492652be |
2449 | |
2bcb0b45 |
2450 | See L<perldebug>. |
492652be |
2451 | |
2452 | =item * |
2453 | |
9000bd02 |
2454 | The debugger has a new C<dumpDepth> option to control the maximum |
2455 | depth to which nested structures are dumped. The C<x> command has |
2456 | been extended so that C<x N EXPR> dumps out the value of I<EXPR> to a |
2457 | depth of at most I<N> levels. |
2458 | |
2459 | =item * |
2460 | |
2bcb0b45 |
2461 | The debugger can now show lexical variables if you have the CPAN |
2462 | module PadWalker installed. |
2463 | |
2464 | =item * |
2465 | |
77c8cf41 |
2466 | If an attempt to use a (non-blessed) reference as an array index |
2467 | is made, a warning is given. |
f39f21d8 |
2468 | |
2469 | =item * |
2470 | |
77c8cf41 |
2471 | C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift) |
6e6372ba |
2472 | now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled |
77c8cf41 |
2473 | code. |
f39f21d8 |
2474 | |
ba370e9b |
2475 | =item * |
2476 | |
2477 | If you try to L<perlfunc/pack> a number less than 0 or larger than 255 |
2478 | using the C<"C"> format you will get an optional warning. Similarly |
2479 | for the C<"c"> format and a number less than -128 or more than 127. |
2480 | |
2481 | =item * |
2482 | |
2483 | Certain regex modifiers such as C<(?o)> make sense only if applied to |
0d4213c3 |
2484 | the entire regex. You will get an optional warning if you try to do |
2485 | otherwise. |
ba370e9b |
2486 | |
2487 | =item * |
2488 | |
0d4213c3 |
2489 | Using arrays or hashes as references (e.g. C<< %foo->{bar} >> |
c2e23569 |
2490 | has been deprecated for a while. Now you will get an optional warning. |
ba370e9b |
2491 | |
608dbdb1 |
2492 | =item * |
2493 | |
2494 | Using C<sort> in scalar context now issues an optional warning. |
2495 | This didn't do anything useful, as the sort was not performed. |
2496 | |
f39f21d8 |
2497 | =back |
2498 | |
77c8cf41 |
2499 | =head1 Changed Internals |
f39f21d8 |
2500 | |
2501 | =over 4 |
2502 | |
2503 | =item * |
2504 | |
77c8cf41 |
2505 | perlapi.pod (a companion to perlguts) now attempts to document the |
2506 | internal API. |
f39f21d8 |
2507 | |
2508 | =item * |
2509 | |
77c8cf41 |
2510 | You can now build a really minimal perl called microperl. |
2511 | Building microperl does not require even running Configure; |
2512 | C<make -f Makefile.micro> should be enough. Beware: microperl makes |
2513 | many assumptions, some of which may be too bold; the resulting |
2514 | executable may crash or otherwise misbehave in wondrous ways. |
2515 | For careful hackers only. |
f39f21d8 |
2516 | |
2517 | =item * |
2518 | |
c2e23569 |
2519 | Added rsignal(), whichsig(), do_join(), op_clear, op_null, |
2520 | ptr_table_clear(), ptr_table_free(), sv_setref_uv(), and several UTF-8 |
2521 | interfaces to the publicised API. For the full list of the available |
2522 | APIs see L<perlapi>. |
f39f21d8 |
2523 | |
2524 | =item * |
2525 | |
77c8cf41 |
2526 | Made possible to propagate customised exceptions via croak()ing. |
f39f21d8 |
2527 | |
77c8cf41 |
2528 | =item * |
f39f21d8 |
2529 | |
95f0a2f1 |
2530 | Now xsubs can have attributes just like subs. (Well, at least the |
2531 | built-in attributes.) |
f39f21d8 |
2532 | |
2533 | =item * |
2534 | |
77c8cf41 |
2535 | dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's |
2536 | a no-op) and the latter replaced with dSP. |
f39f21d8 |
2537 | |
2538 | =item * |
2539 | |
61947107 |
2540 | PERL_OBJECT has been completely removed. |
2541 | |
2542 | =item * |
2543 | |
ba370e9b |
2544 | The MAGIC constants (e.g. C<'P'>) have been macrofied |
2545 | (e.g. C<PERL_MAGIC_TIED>) for better source code readability |
2546 | and maintainability. |
2547 | |
2548 | =item * |
2549 | |
2550 | The regex compiler now maintains a structure that identifies nodes in |
2551 | the compiled bytecode with the corresponding syntactic features of the |
2552 | original regex expression. The information is attached to the new |
2553 | C<offsets> member of the C<struct regexp>. See L<perldebguts> for more |
2554 | complete information. |
2555 | |
2556 | =item * |
2557 | |
2558 | The C code has been made much more C<gcc -Wall> clean. Some warning |
2559 | messages still remain in some platforms, so if you are compiling with |
2560 | gcc you may see some warnings about dubious practices. The warnings |
2561 | are being worked on. |
2562 | |
2563 | =item * |
2564 | |
2565 | F<perly.c>, F<sv.c>, and F<sv.h> have now been extensively commented. |
2566 | |
2567 | =item * |
2568 | |
61947107 |
2569 | Documentation on how to use the Perl source repository has been added |
2570 | to F<Porting/repository.pod>. |
f39f21d8 |
2571 | |
888aee59 |
2572 | =item * |
2573 | |
c2e23569 |
2574 | There are now several profiling make targets. |
888aee59 |
2575 | |
77c8cf41 |
2576 | =back |
f39f21d8 |
2577 | |
77c8cf41 |
2578 | =head1 Security Vulnerability Closed |
f39f21d8 |
2579 | |
77c8cf41 |
2580 | (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.) |
f39f21d8 |
2581 | |
77c8cf41 |
2582 | A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component |
2583 | of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor |
2584 | installed by default. As of November 2001 the only known vulnerable |
2585 | platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and |
2586 | various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability. |
2587 | See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt |
2588 | for more information. |
f39f21d8 |
2589 | |
77c8cf41 |
2590 | The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security |
2591 | exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux |
2592 | platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which |
2593 | when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in |
2594 | a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you |
2595 | don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if |
2596 | suidperl is not installed, you are safe. |
f39f21d8 |
2597 | |
77c8cf41 |
2598 | The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from |
2599 | Perl 5.8.0 (and the maintenance release 5.6.1, and it was removed also |
2600 | from all the Perl 5.7 releases), so that particular vulnerability |
2601 | isn't there anymore. However, further security vulnerabilities are, |
ba370e9b |
2602 | unfortunately, always possible. The suidperl functionality is most |
2603 | probably going to be removed in Perl 5.10. In any case, suidperl |
2604 | should only be used by security experts who know exactly what they are |
2605 | doing and why they are using suidperl instead of some other solution |
1577cd80 |
2606 | such as sudo ( see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ). |
77c8cf41 |
2607 | |
2608 | =head1 New Tests |
2609 | |
76663d67 |
2610 | Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> |
d1eb8299 |
2611 | subsection. There are now about 56 000 individual tests (spread over |
2612 | about 620 test scripts), in the regression suite (5.6.1 has about |
76663d67 |
2613 | 11700 tests, in 258 test scripts) Many of the new tests are introduced |
2614 | by the new modules, but still in general Perl is now more thoroughly |
2615 | tested. |
2616 | |
2617 | Because of the large number of tests, running the regression suite |
2618 | will take considerably longer time than it used to: expect the suite |
2619 | to take up to 4-5 times longer to run than in perl 5.6. In a really |
d1eb8299 |
2620 | fast machine you can hope to finish the suite in about 6-8 minutes |
76663d67 |
2621 | (wallclock time). |
77c8cf41 |
2622 | |
2623 | The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls. |
2624 | (This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved |
2625 | to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.) |
2626 | |
f39f21d8 |
2627 | =head1 Known Problems |
2628 | |
f39f21d8 |
2629 | =head2 AIX |
2630 | |
2631 | =over 4 |
2632 | |
2633 | =item * |
2634 | |
2635 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics |
2636 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. |
2637 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with |
2638 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library |
2639 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time |
2640 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and |
2641 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. |
2642 | |
2643 | =item * |
2644 | |
2645 | vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl |
2646 | |
2647 | The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code, |
2648 | resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests |
2649 | are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least |
2650 | vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly. |
439f2f5c |
2651 | "lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell you the vac version. See README.aix. |
f39f21d8 |
2652 | |
0ea5284e |
2653 | =item * |
2654 | |
2655 | If building threaded Perl, you may get compilation warning from pp_sys.c: |
2656 | |
2657 | "pp_sys.c", line 4651.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed. |
2658 | |
2659 | This is harmless; it is caused by the getnetbyaddr() and getnetbyaddr_r() |
2660 | having slightly different types for their first argument. |
2661 | |
f39f21d8 |
2662 | =back |
2663 | |
2664 | =head2 Amiga Perl Invoking Mystery |
2665 | |
2666 | One cannot call Perl using the C<volume:> syntax, that is, C<perl -v> |
057b7f2b |
2667 | works, but for example C<bin:perl -v> doesn't. The exact reason isn't |
f39f21d8 |
2668 | known but the current suspect is the F<ixemul> library. |
2669 | |
9ffc0d0c |
2670 | =head2 FreeBSD Failing locale Test 117 For ISO8859-15 Locales |
2671 | |
2672 | The ISO8859-15 locales may fail the locale test 117 in FreeBSD. |
2673 | This is caused by the characters \xFF (y with diaeresis) and \xBE |
2674 | (Y with diaeresis) not behaving correctly when being matched |
2675 | case-insensitively. |
2676 | |
696235b6 |
2677 | =head2 mod_perl 1.26 Doesn't Build With Threaded Perl |
2678 | |
2679 | Use mod_perl 1.27 or higher. |
a08f42e9 |
2680 | |
f39f21d8 |
2681 | =head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure' |
2682 | |
2683 | Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead. |
2684 | |
f39f21d8 |
2685 | =head2 HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured |
2686 | |
2687 | If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the |
2688 | subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the |
2689 | subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the |
2690 | subtest 9 failed. |
2691 | |
2692 | =head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48 |
2693 | |
2694 | No known fix. |
2695 | |
a0aae13b |
2696 | =head2 Mac OS X |
2697 | |
6aaad45d |
2698 | Please remember to set your environment variable LC_ALL to "C" |
2699 | (setenv LC_ALL C) before running "make test" to avoid a lot of |
2700 | warnings about the broken locales of Mac OS X. |
2701 | |
a0aae13b |
2702 | The following tests are known to fail: |
2703 | |
2704 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2705 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
2706 | ../ext/DB_File/t/db-btree.t 0 11 ?? ?? % ?? |
2707 | ../ext/DB_File/t/db-recno.t 149 3 2.01% 61 63 65 |
2708 | ../ext/POSIX/t/posix.t 31 1 3.23% 10 |
a0aae13b |
2709 | |
3f1f789b |
2710 | If you are building on a UFS partition, you will also probably see |
f5dcdc4e |
2711 | t/op/stat.t subtest #9 fail. This is caused by Darwin's UFS not |
2712 | supporting inode change time. |
3f1f789b |
2713 | |
7fc79a86 |
2714 | =head2 op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 |
f39f21d8 |
2715 | |
7fc79a86 |
2716 | The op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 are known to fail on some platforms. |
2717 | Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX. |
f39f21d8 |
2718 | |
7fc79a86 |
2719 | The test 91 is known to fail at QNX6 (nto), because C<sprintf '%e',0> |
2720 | incorrectly produces C<0.000000e+0> instead of C<0.000000e+00>. |
f39f21d8 |
2721 | |
7fc79a86 |
2722 | For the tests 129 and 130 the failing platforms do not comply with |
2723 | the ANSI C Standard, line 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to |
2724 | be exact. (They produce something other than "1" and "-1" when |
2725 | formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using the printf format "%.0f", most often |
2726 | they produce "0" and "-0".) |
f39f21d8 |
2727 | |
7fc79a86 |
2728 | =head2 Failure of Thread (5.005-style) tests |
f39f21d8 |
2729 | |
fedd8cf1 |
2730 | B<Note that support for 5.005-style threading remains experimental |
2731 | and practically unsupported.> |
f39f21d8 |
2732 | |
2733 | The following tests are known to fail due to fundamental problems in |
2734 | the 5.005 threading implementation. These are not new failures--Perl |
2735 | 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have these tests. |
2736 | |
6123004a |
2737 | ../ext/List/Util/t/first.t 255 65280 7 4 57.14% 2 5-7 |
2738 | ../lib/English.t 2 512 54 2 3.70% 2-3 |
2739 | ../lib/Filter/Simple/t/data.t 6 3 50.00% 1-3 |
2740 | ../lib/Filter/Simple/t/filter_onl 9 3 33.33% 1-2 5 |
2741 | ../lib/autouse.t 10 1 10.00% 4 |
2742 | op/flip.t 15 1 6.67% 15 |
fedd8cf1 |
2743 | |
8ed7e7ad |
2744 | These failures are unlikely to get fixed as the 5.005-style |
2745 | threads are considered fundamentally broken. |
f39f21d8 |
2746 | |
2747 | =head2 UNICOS |
2748 | |
c0f17b39 |
2749 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2750 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
6123004a |
2751 | ../ext/Socket/socketpair.t 1 256 45 1 2.22% 12 |
2752 | ../lib/Math/Trig.t 26 1 3.85% 25 |
2753 | ../lib/warnings.t 460 1 0.22% 425 |
2754 | io/fs.t 36 1 2.78% 31 |
2755 | op/numconvert.t 1440 13 0.90% 208 509-510 |
2756 | 657-658 665-666 829-830 989-990 1149-1150 |
f39f21d8 |
2757 | |
0968fb3b |
2758 | =head2 UNICOS and UNICOS/mk |
0f71e040 |
2759 | |
3d7e8424 |
2760 | The io/fs test #31 is failing because in UNICOS and UNICOS/mk the Perl |
2761 | truncate() cannot be used to grow the size of filehandles, only to |
2762 | reduce the size. The workaround is to truncate files instead of |
2763 | filehandles. |
0f71e040 |
2764 | |
cb3f5972 |
2765 | =head2 UNICOS/mk |
2766 | |
3d7e8424 |
2767 | =over 4 |
2768 | |
2769 | =item * |
2770 | |
cb3f5972 |
2771 | During Configure the test |
2772 | |
2773 | Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define... |
2774 | |
2775 | will probably fail with error messages like |
2776 | |
2777 | CC-20 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3 |
2778 | The identifier "bad" is undefined. |
2779 | |
2780 | bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79#ifdef A29K |
2781 | ^ |
2782 | |
2783 | CC-65 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3 |
2784 | A semicolon is expected at this point. |
2785 | |
2786 | This is caused by a bug in awk utility of UNICOS/mk. You can ignore |
2787 | the error, but it does cause a slight problem: you cannot fully |
2788 | benefit from the h2ph utility (see L<h2ph>) that can be used to |
2789 | convert C headers to Perl libraries, mainly used to be able to access |
2790 | from Perl the constants defined using C preprocessor, cpp. Because of |
2791 | the above error parts of the converted headers will be invisible. |
2792 | Luckily, these days the need for h2ph is rare. |
2793 | |
3d7e8424 |
2794 | =item * |
2795 | |
2796 | If building Perl with the interpreter threads (ithreads), the |
2797 | getgrent(), getgrnam(), and getgrgid() functions cannot return the |
2798 | list of the group members due to a bug in the multithreaded support of |
2799 | UNICOS/mk. What this means that in list context the functions will |
2800 | return only three values, not four. |
2801 | |
2802 | =back |
2803 | |
f39f21d8 |
2804 | =head2 UTS |
2805 | |
2806 | There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts>. |
2807 | |
2808 | =head2 VMS |
2809 | |
161720b2 |
2810 | There should be no reported test failures with a default configuration, |
2811 | though there are a number of tests marked TODO that point to areas |
2812 | needing further debugging and/or porting work. |
7207e29d |
2813 | |
f39f21d8 |
2814 | =head2 Win32 |
2815 | |
2816 | In multi-CPU boxes there are some problems with the I/O buffering: |
c0f17b39 |
2817 | some output may appear twice. The following Win32 failures are known |
8ed7e7ad |
2818 | as of 5.7.3: |
2819 | |
c0f17b39 |
2820 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2821 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
024938dc |
2822 | ..\ext/threads/t/end.t 6 4 66.67% 3-6 |
f39f21d8 |
2823 | |
d34c32a4 |
2824 | =head2 XML::Parser not working |
2825 | |
2826 | Use XML::Parser 2.31 or later. |
2827 | |
f39f21d8 |
2828 | =head2 Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory |
2829 | |
2830 | use Tie::Hash; |
2831 | tie my %tie_hash => 'Tie::StdHash'; |
2832 | |
2833 | ... |
2834 | |
2835 | local($tie_hash{Foo}) = 1; # leaks |
2836 | |
2837 | Code like the above is known to leak memory every time the local() |
2838 | is executed. |
2839 | |
7fc79a86 |
2840 | =head2 z/OS (OS/390) |
2841 | |
2842 | z/OS has rather many test failures but the situation is actually |
2843 | better than it was in 5.6.0, it's just that so many new modules and |
2844 | tests have been added. |
2845 | |
2846 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed |
2847 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
2848 | ../ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.t 321 2 0.62% 311 314 |
2849 | ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 5 4 80.00% 2-5 |
2850 | ../lib/utf8.t 94 13 13.83% 27 30-31 43 46 73 |
2851 | 76 79 82 85 88 91 |
2852 | 94 |
2853 | ../lib/Benchmark.t 1 256 159 1 0.63% 75 |
2854 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Constant.t 27 19 70.37% 5-23 |
2855 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t 9 9 100.00% 1-9 |
2856 | op/pat.t 864 9 1.04% 242-243 665 776 |
2857 | 785 832-834 845 |
2858 | op/sprintf.t 224 3 1.34% 98 100 136 |
2859 | op/tr.t 97 5 5.15% 63 71-74 |
dcdcee7d |
2860 | uni/fold.t 780 6 0.77% 61 169 196 661 |
2861 | 710-711 |
7fc79a86 |
2862 | |
aecce728 |
2863 | =head2 Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken |
2864 | |
2865 | local %tied_array; |
2866 | |
2867 | doesn't work as one would expect: the old value is restored |
2868 | incorrectly. |
2869 | |
f39f21d8 |
2870 | =head2 Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden |
2871 | |
2872 | Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and |
2873 | hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting |
2874 | frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is |
2875 | for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt). |
2876 | |
f39f21d8 |
2877 | =head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles |
2878 | |
2879 | Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with |
2880 | `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets |
2881 | default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile |
2882 | at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good |
2883 | solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate |
2884 | non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config |
2885 | hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are |
2886 | having problems can try configuring themselves without the |
2887 | largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the |
2888 | solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether |
2889 | one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at |
2890 | all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is |
2891 | platform-dependent. |
2892 | |
aecce728 |
2893 | =head2 Unicode Support on EBCDIC Still Spotty |
2894 | |
2895 | Though mostly working, Unicode support still has problem spots on |
2896 | EBCDIC platforms. One such known spot are the C<\p{}> and C<\P{}> |
2897 | regular expression constructs for code points less than 256: the |
2898 | pP are testing for Unicode code points, not knowing about EBCDIC. |
2899 | |
f39f21d8 |
2900 | =head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental |
2901 | |
44da0e71 |
2902 | The compiler suite is slowly getting better but it continues to be |
2903 | highly experimental. Use in production environments is discouraged. |
f39f21d8 |
2904 | |
c4f1ce08 |
2905 | =head2 The Long Double Support Is Still Experimental |
f39f21d8 |
2906 | |
2907 | The ability to configure Perl's numbers to use "long doubles", |
2908 | floating point numbers of hopefully better accuracy, is still |
2909 | experimental. The implementations of long doubles are not yet |
2910 | widespread and the existing implementations are not quite mature |
2911 | or standardised, therefore trying to support them is a rare |
2912 | and moving target. The gain of more precision may also be offset |
2913 | by slowdown in computations (more bits to move around, and the |
2914 | operations are more likely to be executed by less optimised |
2915 | libraries). |
33a87e58 |
2916 | |
c4f1ce08 |
2917 | =head2 Seen In Perl 5.7 But Gone Now |
2918 | |
c4f1ce08 |
2919 | C<Time::Piece> (previously known as C<Time::Object>) was removed |
2920 | because it was felt that it didn't have enough value in it to be a |
2921 | core module. It is still a useful module, though, and is available |
2922 | from the CPAN. |
2923 | |
cc0fca54 |
2924 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
2925 | |
d4ad863d |
2926 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
2927 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
f224927c |
2928 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ There may also be |
2929 | information at http://www.perl.com/ , the Perl Home Page. |
cc0fca54 |
2930 | |
2931 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
2932 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
2933 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
d4ad863d |
2934 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
cc0fca54 |
2935 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
2936 | |
2937 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
2938 | |
2939 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
2940 | |
2941 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
2942 | |
2943 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
2944 | |
2945 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
2946 | |
2947 | =head1 HISTORY |
2948 | |
d468ca04 |
2949 | Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <F<jhi@iki.fi>>. |
cc0fca54 |
2950 | |
2951 | =cut |