Commit | Line | Data |
5f05dabc |
1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perlnews - what's new for perl5.004 |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
7 | This document describes differences between the 5.003 release (as |
8 | documented in I<Programming Perl>, second edition--the Camel Book) and |
9 | this one. |
10 | |
11 | =head1 Supported Environments |
12 | |
13 | Perl5.004 builds out of the box on Unix, Plan9, LynxOS, VMS, OS/2, |
14 | QNX, and AmigaOS. |
15 | |
16 | =head1 Core Changes |
17 | |
18 | Most importantly, many bugs were fixed. See the F<Changes> |
19 | file in the distribution for details. |
20 | |
21 | =head2 Compilation Option: Binary Compatibility With 5.003 |
22 | |
23 | There is a new Configure question that asks if you want to maintain |
24 | binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you choose binary |
25 | compatibility, you do not have to recompile your extensions, but you |
26 | might have symbol conflicts if you embed Perl in another application. |
27 | |
7cfe7857 |
28 | =head2 New Opcode Module and Revised Safe Module |
29 | |
30 | A new Opcode module supports the creation, manipulation and |
31 | application of opcode masks. The revised Safe module has a new API |
32 | and is implemented using the new Opcode module. Please read the new |
33 | Opcode and Safe documentation. |
34 | |
5f05dabc |
35 | =head2 Internal Change: FileHandle Deprecated |
36 | |
37 | Filehandles are now stored internally as type IO::Handle. |
38 | Although C<use FileHandle> and C<*STDOUT{FILEHANDLE}> |
39 | are still supported for backwards compatibility |
40 | C<use IO::Handle> (or C<IO::Seekable> or C<IO::File>) and |
41 | C<*STDOUT{IO}> are the way of the future. |
42 | |
28757baa |
43 | =head2 Internal Change: PerlIO internal IO abstraction interface |
5f05dabc |
44 | |
45 | It is now possible to build Perl with AT&T's sfio IO package |
46 | instead of stdio. See L<perlapio> for more details, and |
47 | the F<INSTALL> file for how to use it. |
48 | |
49 | =head2 New and Changed Built-in Variables |
50 | |
51 | =over |
52 | |
53 | =item $^E |
54 | |
55 | Extended error message under some platforms ($EXTENDED_OS_ERROR |
56 | if you C<use English>). |
57 | |
58 | =item $^H |
59 | |
60 | The current set of syntax checks enabled by C<use strict>. See the |
61 | documentation of C<strict> for more details. Not actually new, but |
62 | newly documented. |
63 | Because it is intended for internal use by Perl core components, |
64 | there is no C<use English> long name for this variable. |
65 | |
66 | =item $^M |
67 | |
68 | By default, running out of memory it is not trappable. However, if |
69 | compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an emergency |
70 | pool after die()ing with this message. Suppose that your Perl were |
71 | compiled with -DEMERGENCY_SBRK and used Perl's malloc. Then |
72 | |
73 | $^M = 'a' x (1<<16); |
74 | |
75 | would allocate 64K buffer for use when in emergency. |
76 | See the F<INSTALL> file for information on how to enable this option. |
77 | As a disincentive to casual use of this advanced feature, |
78 | there is no C<use English> long name for this variable. |
79 | |
80 | =back |
81 | |
82 | =head2 New and Changed Built-in Functions |
83 | |
84 | =over |
85 | |
86 | =item delete on slices |
87 | |
88 | This now works. (e.g. C<delete @ENV{'PATH', 'MANPATH'}>) |
89 | |
90 | =item flock |
91 | |
92 | is now supported on more platforms, and prefers fcntl |
93 | to lockf when emulating. |
94 | |
95 | =item keys as an lvalue |
96 | |
97 | As an lvalue, C<keys> allows you to increase the number of hash buckets |
98 | allocated for the given associative array. This can gain you a measure |
99 | of efficiency if you know the hash is going to get big. (This is |
100 | similar to pre-extending an array by assigning a larger number to |
101 | $#array.) If you say |
102 | |
103 | keys %hash = 200; |
104 | |
105 | then C<%hash> will have at least 200 buckets allocated for it. These |
106 | buckets will be retained even if you do C<%hash = ()>; use C<undef |
107 | %hash> if you want to free the storage while C<%hash> is still in scope. |
108 | You can't shrink the number of buckets allocated for the hash using |
109 | C<keys> in this way (but you needn't worry about doing this by accident, |
110 | as trying has no effect). |
111 | |
112 | =item my() in Control Structures |
113 | |
114 | You can now use my() (with or without the parentheses) in the control |
115 | expressions of control structures such as: |
116 | |
117 | while (my $line = <>) { |
118 | $line = lc $line; |
119 | } continue { |
120 | print $line; |
121 | } |
122 | |
123 | if ((my $answer = <STDIN>) =~ /^yes$/i) { |
124 | user_agrees(); |
125 | } elsif ($answer =~ /^no$/i) { |
126 | user_disagrees(); |
127 | } else { |
128 | chomp $answer; |
129 | die "'$answer' is neither 'yes' nor 'no'"; |
130 | } |
131 | |
132 | Also, you can declare a foreach loop control variable as lexical by |
133 | preceding it with the word "my". For example, in: |
134 | |
135 | foreach my $i (1, 2, 3) { |
136 | some_function(); |
137 | } |
138 | |
139 | $i is a lexical variable, and the scope of $i extends to the end of |
140 | the loop, but not beyond it. |
141 | |
142 | Note that you still cannot use my() on global punctuation variables |
143 | such as $_ and the like. |
144 | |
145 | =item unpack() and pack() |
146 | |
147 | A new format 'w' represents a BER compressed integer (as defined in |
148 | ASN.1). Its format is a sequence of one or more bytes, each of which |
149 | provides seven bits of the total value, with the most significant |
150 | first. Bit eight of each byte is set, except for the last byte, in |
151 | which bit eight is clear. |
152 | |
153 | =item use VERSION |
154 | |
155 | If the first argument to C<use> is a number, it is treated as a version |
156 | number instead of a module name. If the version of the Perl interpreter |
157 | is less than VERSION, then an error message is printed and Perl exits |
158 | immediately. This is often useful if you need to check the current |
159 | Perl version before C<use>ing library modules which have changed in |
160 | incompatible ways from older versions of Perl. (We try not to do |
161 | this more than we have to.) |
162 | |
163 | =item use Module VERSION LIST |
164 | |
165 | If the VERSION argument is present between Module and LIST, then the |
71be2cbc |
166 | C<use> will call the VERSION method in class Module with the given |
167 | version as an argument. The default VERSION method, inherited from |
168 | the Universal class, croaks if the given version is larger than the |
169 | value of the variable $Module::VERSION. (Note that there is not a |
170 | comma after VERSION!) |
5f05dabc |
171 | |
7cfe7857 |
172 | This version-checking mechanism is similar to the one currently used |
173 | in the Exporter module, but it is faster and can be used with modules |
174 | that don't use the Exporter. It is the recommended method for new |
175 | code. |
176 | |
5f05dabc |
177 | =item prototype(FUNCTION) |
178 | |
179 | Returns the prototype of a function as a string (or C<undef> if the |
180 | function has no prototype). FUNCTION is a reference to or the name of the |
181 | function whose prototype you want to retrieve. |
182 | (Not actually new; just never documented before.) |
183 | |
184 | =item $_ as Default |
185 | |
186 | Functions documented in the Camel to default to $_ now in |
187 | fact do, and all those that do are so documented in L<perlfunc>. |
188 | |
189 | =back |
190 | |
191 | =head2 New Built-in Methods |
192 | |
193 | The C<UNIVERSAL> package automatically contains the following methods that |
194 | are inherited by all other classes: |
195 | |
196 | =over 4 |
197 | |
198 | =item isa(CLASS) |
199 | |
200 | C<isa> returns I<true> if its object is blessed into a sub-class of C<CLASS> |
201 | |
202 | C<isa> is also exportable and can be called as a sub with two arguments. This |
203 | allows the ability to check what a reference points to. Example: |
204 | |
205 | use UNIVERSAL qw(isa); |
206 | |
207 | if(isa($ref, 'ARRAY')) { |
208 | ... |
209 | } |
210 | |
211 | =item can(METHOD) |
212 | |
213 | C<can> checks to see if its object has a method called C<METHOD>, |
214 | if it does then a reference to the sub is returned; if it does not then |
215 | I<undef> is returned. |
216 | |
217 | =item VERSION( [NEED] ) |
218 | |
71be2cbc |
219 | C<VERSION> returns the version number of the class (package). If the |
220 | NEED argument is given then it will check that the current version (as |
221 | defined by the $VERSION variable in the given package) not less than |
222 | NEED; it will die if this is not the case. This method is normally |
223 | called as a class method. This method is called automatically by the |
224 | C<VERSION> form of C<use>. |
5f05dabc |
225 | |
226 | use A 1.2 qw(some imported subs); |
71be2cbc |
227 | # implies: |
228 | A->VERSION(1.2); |
5f05dabc |
229 | |
230 | =item class() |
231 | |
232 | C<class> returns the class name of its object. |
233 | |
234 | =item is_instance() |
235 | |
236 | C<is_instance> returns true if its object is an instance of some |
237 | class, false if its object is the class (package) itself. Example |
238 | |
239 | A->is_instance(); # False |
240 | |
241 | $var = 'A'; |
242 | $var->is_instance(); # False |
243 | |
244 | $ref = bless [], 'A'; |
245 | $ref->is_instance(); # True |
246 | |
247 | =back |
248 | |
249 | B<NOTE:> C<can> directly uses Perl's internal code for method lookup, and |
250 | C<isa> uses a very similar method and cache-ing strategy. This may cause |
251 | strange effects if the Perl code dynamically changes @ISA in any package. |
252 | |
253 | You may add other methods to the UNIVERSAL class via Perl or XS code. |
254 | You do not need to C<use UNIVERSAL> in order to make these methods |
255 | available to your program. This is necessary only if you wish to |
256 | have C<isa> available as a plain subroutine in the current package. |
257 | |
258 | =head2 TIEHANDLE Now Supported |
259 | |
260 | =over |
261 | |
262 | =item TIEHANDLE classname, LIST |
263 | |
264 | This is the constructor for the class. That means it is expected to |
265 | return an object of some sort. The reference can be used to |
266 | hold some internal information. |
267 | |
268 | sub TIEHANDLE { print "<shout>\n"; my $i; bless \$i, shift } |
269 | |
270 | =item PRINT this, LIST |
271 | |
272 | This method will be triggered every time the tied handle is printed to. |
273 | Beyond its self reference it also expects the list that was passed to |
274 | the print function. |
275 | |
276 | sub PRINT { $r = shift; $$r++; print join($,,map(uc($_),@_)),$\ } |
277 | |
278 | =item READLINE this |
279 | |
280 | This method will be called when the handle is read from. The method |
281 | should return undef when there is no more data. |
282 | |
283 | sub READLINE { $r = shift; "PRINT called $$r times\n"; } |
284 | |
285 | =item DESTROY this |
286 | |
287 | As with the other types of ties, this method will be called when the |
288 | tied handle is about to be destroyed. This is useful for debugging and |
289 | possibly for cleaning up. |
290 | |
291 | sub DESTROY { print "</shout>\n" } |
292 | |
293 | =back |
294 | |
295 | =head1 Pragmata |
296 | |
297 | Three new pragmatic modules exist: |
298 | |
299 | =over |
300 | |
301 | =item use blib |
302 | |
303 | Looks for MakeMaker-like I<'blib'> directory structure starting in |
304 | I<dir> (or current directory) and working back up to five levels of |
305 | parent directories. |
306 | |
307 | Intended for use on command line with B<-M> option as a way of testing |
308 | arbitrary scripts against an uninstalled version of a package. |
309 | |
310 | =item use locale |
311 | |
312 | Tells the compiler to enable (or disable) the use of POSIX locales for |
313 | built-in operations. |
314 | |
315 | When C<use locale> is in effect, the current LC_CTYPE locale is used |
316 | for regular expressions and case mapping; LC_COLLATE for string |
317 | ordering; and LC_NUMERIC for numeric formating in printf and sprintf |
318 | (but B<not> in print). LC_NUMERIC is always used in write, since |
319 | lexical scoping of formats is problematic at best. |
320 | |
321 | Each C<use locale> or C<no locale> affects statements to the end of |
322 | the enclosing BLOCK or, if not inside a BLOCK, to the end of the |
323 | current file. Locales can be switched and queried with |
324 | POSIX::setlocale(). |
325 | |
326 | See L<perllocale> for more information. |
327 | |
328 | =item use ops |
329 | |
7cfe7857 |
330 | Disable unsafe opcodes, or any named opcodes, when compiling Perl code. |
5f05dabc |
331 | |
332 | =back |
333 | |
334 | =head1 Modules |
335 | |
336 | =head2 Module Information Summary |
337 | |
338 | Brand new modules: |
339 | |
340 | IO.pm Top-level interface to IO::* classes |
341 | IO/File.pm IO::File extension Perl module |
342 | IO/Handle.pm IO::Handle extension Perl module |
343 | IO/Pipe.pm IO::Pipe extension Perl module |
344 | IO/Seekable.pm IO::Seekable extension Perl module |
345 | IO/Select.pm IO::Select extension Perl module |
346 | IO/Socket.pm IO::Socket extension Perl module |
347 | |
348 | Opcode.pm Disable named opcodes when compiling Perl code |
349 | |
350 | ExtUtils/Embed.pm Utilities for embedding Perl in C programs |
351 | ExtUtils/testlib.pm Fixes up @INC to use just-built extension |
352 | |
353 | Fatal.pm Make do-or-die equivalents of functions |
354 | FindBin.pm Find path of currently executing program |
355 | |
356 | Class/Template.pm Structure/member template builder |
357 | File/stat.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::stat |
358 | Net/hostent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::gethost* |
359 | Net/netent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getnet* |
360 | Net/protoent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getproto* |
361 | Net/servent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getserv* |
362 | Time/gmtime.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::gmtime |
363 | Time/localtime.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::localtime |
364 | Time/tm.pm Perl implementation of "struct tm" for {gm,local}time |
365 | User/grent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getgr* |
366 | User/pwent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getpw* |
367 | |
7a4c00b4 |
368 | lib/Tie/RefHash.pm Base class for tied hashes with references as keys |
369 | |
5f05dabc |
370 | UNIVERSAL.pm Base class for *ALL* classes |
371 | |
372 | =head2 IO |
373 | |
374 | The IO module provides a simple mechanism to load all of the IO modules at one |
375 | go. Currently this includes: |
376 | |
377 | IO::Handle |
378 | IO::Seekable |
379 | IO::File |
380 | IO::Pipe |
381 | IO::Socket |
382 | |
383 | For more information on any of these modules, please see its |
384 | respective documentation. |
385 | |
386 | =head2 Math::Complex |
387 | |
388 | The Math::Complex module has been totally rewritten, and now supports |
389 | more operations. These are overloaded: |
390 | |
391 | + - * / ** <=> neg ~ abs sqrt exp log sin cos atan2 "" (stringify) |
392 | |
393 | And these functions are now exported: |
394 | |
395 | pi i Re Im arg |
396 | log10 logn cbrt root |
397 | tan cotan asin acos atan acotan |
398 | sinh cosh tanh cotanh asinh acosh atanh acotanh |
399 | cplx cplxe |
400 | |
401 | =head2 Overridden Built-ins |
402 | |
403 | Many of the Perl built-ins returning lists now have |
404 | object-oriented overrides. These are: |
405 | |
406 | File::stat |
407 | Net::hostent |
408 | Net::netent |
409 | Net::protoent |
410 | Net::servent |
411 | Time::gmtime |
412 | Time::localtime |
413 | User::grent |
414 | User::pwent |
415 | |
416 | For example, you can now say |
417 | |
418 | use File::stat; |
419 | use User::pwent; |
420 | $his = (stat($filename)->st_uid == pwent($whoever)->pw_uid); |
421 | |
422 | =head1 Efficiency Enhancements |
423 | |
424 | All hash keys with the same string are only allocated once, so |
425 | even if you have 100 copies of the same hash, the immutable keys |
426 | never have to be re-allocated. |
427 | |
7cfe7857 |
428 | Functions that have an empty prototype and that do nothing but return |
429 | a fixed value are now inlined (e.g. C<sub PI () { 3.14159 }>). |
5f05dabc |
430 | |
431 | =head1 Documentation Changes |
432 | |
433 | Many of the base and library pods were updated. These |
434 | new pods are included in section 1: |
435 | |
436 | =over 4 |
437 | |
71be2cbc |
438 | =item L<perlnews> |
5f05dabc |
439 | |
71be2cbc |
440 | This document. |
5f05dabc |
441 | |
71be2cbc |
442 | =item L<perllocale> |
5f05dabc |
443 | |
71be2cbc |
444 | Locale support (internationalization and localization). |
5f05dabc |
445 | |
446 | =item L<perltoot> |
447 | |
448 | Tutorial on Perl OO programming. |
449 | |
71be2cbc |
450 | =item L<perlapio> |
451 | |
452 | Perl internal IO abstraction interface. |
453 | |
5f05dabc |
454 | =item L<perldebug> |
455 | |
456 | Although not new, this has been massively updated. |
457 | |
458 | =item L<perlsec> |
459 | |
460 | Although not new, this has been massively updated. |
461 | |
462 | =back |
463 | |
464 | =head1 New Diagnostics |
465 | |
466 | Several new conditions will trigger warnings that were |
467 | silent before. Some only affect certain platforms. |
468 | The following new warnings and errors |
469 | outline these: |
470 | |
471 | =over 4 |
472 | |
473 | =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope |
474 | |
475 | (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively |
476 | eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always |
477 | a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist |
478 | until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are |
479 | destroyed. |
480 | |
481 | =item Allocation too large: %lx |
482 | |
483 | (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine. |
484 | |
485 | =item Allocation too large |
486 | |
487 | (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes. |
488 | |
489 | =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string |
490 | |
491 | (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to |
492 | optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This |
493 | indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string |
494 | that can no longer be found in the table. |
495 | |
496 | =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr |
497 | |
498 | (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used |
499 | as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to |
500 | dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>. |
501 | |
502 | =item Unsupported function fork |
503 | |
504 | (F) Your version of executable does not support forking. |
505 | |
506 | Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of |
507 | Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing |
508 | the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on. |
509 | |
510 | =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter |
511 | |
512 | (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing |
513 | to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical |
514 | names. Since it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not |
515 | appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages |
516 | might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names, |
517 | or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted. |
518 | |
519 | =item Integer overflow in hex number |
520 | |
521 | (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your |
522 | architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is |
523 | 0xFFFFFFFF. |
524 | |
525 | =item Integer overflow in octal number |
526 | |
527 | (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your |
528 | architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is |
529 | 037777777777. |
530 | |
531 | =item Null picture in formline |
532 | |
533 | (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture |
534 | specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you |
535 | supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>. |
536 | |
537 | =item Offset outside string |
538 | |
539 | (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset |
540 | pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine. |
541 | The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer |
542 | will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area. |
543 | |
544 | =item Out of memory! |
545 | |
546 | (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient |
547 | remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. |
548 | |
549 | The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it |
550 | depends on the way Perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable. |
551 | However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as |
552 | an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the |
553 | error is trappable I<once>. |
554 | |
555 | =item Out of memory during request for %s |
556 | |
557 | (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient |
558 | remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However, |
559 | the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so |
560 | a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted. |
561 | |
562 | =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list |
563 | |
564 | (W) You probably wrote something like this: |
565 | |
566 | qw( a # a comment |
567 | b # another comment |
568 | ) ; |
569 | |
570 | when you should have written this: |
571 | |
572 | qw( a |
573 | b |
574 | ) ; |
575 | |
576 | =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas |
577 | |
578 | (W) You probably wrote something like this: |
579 | |
580 | qw( a, b, c ); |
581 | |
582 | when you should have written this: |
583 | |
584 | qw( a b c ); |
585 | |
586 | =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist |
587 | |
588 | (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still |
589 | valid when C<untie> was called. |
590 | |
591 | =item Got an error from DosAllocMem: |
592 | |
593 | (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you use an obsolete version |
594 | of Perl, and should not happen anyway. |
595 | |
596 | =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX |
597 | |
598 | (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form |
599 | |
600 | prefix1;prefix2 |
601 | |
602 | or |
603 | |
604 | prefix1 prefix2 |
605 | |
606 | with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of |
607 | a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear |
608 | if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">. |
609 | |
610 | =item PERL_SH_DIR too long |
611 | |
612 | (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the |
613 | C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">. |
614 | |
615 | =item Process terminated by SIG%s |
616 | |
617 | (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix |
618 | applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2 |
619 | port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see |
620 | L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">. |
621 | |
622 | =back |
623 | |
624 | =head1 BUGS |
625 | |
626 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the headers |
627 | of recently posted articles |
628 | in the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup. There may also be |
629 | information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl Home Page. |
630 | |
631 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
632 | program included with your release. Make sure you trim your bug |
633 | down to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along |
634 | with the output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.com |
635 | to be analysed by the Perl porting team. |
636 | |
637 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
638 | |
639 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
640 | |
641 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. This file has been |
642 | significantly updated for 5.004, so even veteran users should |
643 | look through it. |
644 | |
645 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
646 | |
647 | The F<Copying> file for copyright information. |
648 | |
649 | =head1 HISTORY |
650 | |
651 | Constructed by Tom Christiansen, grabbing material with permission |
652 | from innumerable contributors, with kibitzing by more than a few Perl |
653 | porters. |
654 | |
7a4c00b4 |
655 | Last update: Tue Dec 24 16:45:14 EST 1996 |