3 [ Any text flagged as XXX needs to be processed before release. ]
5 perldelta - what is new for perl v5.11.1
9 This document describes differences between the 5.11.0 release and
16 =head1 Incompatible Changes
20 =item The boolkeys op moved to the group of hash ops. This breaks binary compatibility.
23 =item C<Perl_deprecate()> was replaced with a macro that calls C<Perl_ck_warner()>
25 C<Perl_deprecate> was not part of the public API, and did not have a C<deprecate()>
26 shortcut macro defined without C<-DPERL_CORE>. Neither codesearch.google.com nor
27 CPAN::Unpack show any users outside the Perl core.
31 =head1 Core Enhancements
33 =head2 Add C<package NAME VERSION> syntax
35 This patch adds support for setting the $VERSION of a namespace
36 when the namespace is declared with 'package'. It eliminates the
37 need for 'our $VERSION = ...' and similar constructs. E.g.
39 package Foo::Bar 1.23;
40 # $Foo::Bar::VERSION == 1.23
42 There are several advantages to this:
44 * VERSION is parsed in *exactly* the same way as 'use NAME VERSION'
46 * $VERSION is set at compile time
48 * Eliminates '$VERSION = ...' and 'eval $VERSION' clutter
50 * As it requires VERSION to be a numeric literal or v-string
51 literal, it can be statically parsed by toolchain modules
52 without 'eval' the way MM->parse_version does for '$VERSION = ...'
54 * Alpha versions with underscores do not need to be quoted; static
55 parsing will preserve the underscore, but during compilation, Perl
56 will remove underscores as it does for all numeric literals
58 During development of this, there was discussion on #corehackers and
59 elsewhere that this should also allow other metadata to be set such as
60 "status" (stable/alpha) or "author/authority". On reflection, those
61 metadata are not very well defined yet and likely should never be
62 encoded into Perl core parsing so they can be freely changed in the
63 future. (They could perhaps be achieved via a comment on the same line
64 as 'package NAME VERSION'.)
66 Version numbers, however, already have a very specific definition and
67 use defined in the core through 'use NAME VERSION'. This patch merely
68 provides appropriate symmetry for setting $VERSION with the exact same
69 parsing and semantics as 'use'.
71 It does not break old code with only 'package NAME', but code that
72 uses 'package NAME VERSION' will need to be restricted to perl 5.11.X.
73 This is analogous to the change to open() from two-args to three-args.
74 Users requiring the latest Perl will benefit, and perhaps N years from
75 now it will become standard practice when Perl 5.12 is targeted the
76 way that 5.6 is today.
78 The patch does not prevent 'package NAME VERSION' from being used
79 multiple times for the same package with different version numbers, but
80 nothing prevents $VERSION from being modified arbitrarily at runtime,
81 either, so I see no urgen reason to add limitations or warnings so
82 long as Perl uses a global $VERSION variable for package version
85 I am posting this patch to the p5p list for discussion and review. If
86 there seems to be general assent (or lack of dissent), I will go ahead
87 and commit the patch to blead.
90 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
94 =item Upgrade to Test-Simple-0.94
96 =item Upgrade to Storable-2.21
98 =item Upgrade to Pod-Simple-3.08
100 =item Upgrade to Parse-CPAN-Meta-1.40
102 =item Upgrade to ExtUtils-Manifest-1.57
104 =item Upgrade to ExtUtils-CBuilder-0.260301
106 =item Upgrade to CGI.pm-3.48
108 =item Update CPANPLUS to CPAN version 0.89_02
110 =item Upgrade to threads::shared 1.32
112 =item Update ExtUtils::ParseXS to 2.21
114 =item Upgrade File::Path to 2.08 (and add taint.t test)
116 =item Upgrade Module::CoreList to 2.20
118 =item Updated Object-Accessor to CPAN version 0.36
122 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
132 =head2 Pragmata Changes
142 =head2 Updated Modules
152 =head1 Utility Changes
154 XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go
155 here. Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
165 =head1 New Documentation
169 =item L<pod/perlpolicy.pod> extends the "Social contract about contributed modules" into the beginnings of a document on Perl porting policies.
173 =head1 Changes to Existing Documentation
177 =item Documentation for C<$1> in perlvar.pod clarified
181 =head1 Performance Enhancements
183 XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
184 may well be none in a stable release.
188 =item C<if (%foo)> has been optimized to be faster than C<if (keys %foo)>
194 =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
196 XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
199 =head2 Configuration improvements
203 =head2 Compilation improvements
207 =head2 Platform Specific Changes
211 =item Darwin (Mac OS X)
215 =item Skip testing the be_BY.CP1131 locale on Darwin 10 (Mac OS X 10.6),
218 =item Correct infelicities in the regexp used to identify buggy locales
219 on Darwin 8 and 9 (Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, respectively).
227 =item Fix thread library selection [perl #69686]
235 =item Initial support for mingw64 is now available
242 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
244 XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
245 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
246 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
250 =item Perl now properly returns a syntax error instead of segfaulting
251 if C<each>, C<keys> or C<values> is used without an argument
253 =item C<tell()> now fails properly if called without an argument and when no previous file was read
255 C<tell()> now returns C<-1>, and sets errno to C<EBADF>, thus restoring the 5.8.x behaviour
257 =item overload no longer implicitly unsets fallback on repeated 'use overload' lines
261 =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
263 XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here.
268 =item The 'syntax' category was removed from 5 warnings that should only be in 'deprecated'.
270 =item Three fatal pack/unpack error messages have been normalized to "panic: %s"
272 =item "Unicode character is illegal" has been rephrased to be more accurate
274 It now reads C<Unicode non-character is illegal in interchange> and the
275 perldiag documentation has been expanded a bit.
277 =item Perl now defaults to issuing a warning if a deprecated language feature is used.
279 To disable this feature in a given lexical scope, you should use C<no
280 warnings 'deprecated';> For information about which language features
281 are deprecated and explanations of various deprecation warnings, please
286 =head1 Changed Internals
288 XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
300 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here. Changes to
301 existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs that
302 they represent may be.
306 =item Significant cleanups to core tests to ensure that language and
307 interpreter features are not used before they're tested.
309 =item F<t/porting/podcheck.t> automatically checks the well-formedness of
310 POD found in all .pl, .pm and .pod files in the F<MANIFEST>, other than in
311 dual-lifed modules which are primarily maintained outside the Perl core.
313 =item F<t/porting/manifest.t> now tests that all files listed in MANIFEST are present.
317 =head1 Known Problems
319 XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
320 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
321 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
323 This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
324 from either 5.10.1 or 5.11.0.
336 XXX Add any new known deprecations here.
338 The following items are now deprecated.
348 =head1 Platform Specific Notes
350 XXX Any changes specific to a particular platform. VMS and Win32 are the usual
351 stars here. It's probably best to group changes under the same section layout
352 as the main perldelta
358 k=item The Perl 5.11.0 release notes incorrectly described 'delete local'
363 XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
366 =head1 Acknowledgements
368 XXX The list of people to thank goes here.
371 =head1 Reporting Bugs
373 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
374 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
375 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
376 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
378 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
379 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
380 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
381 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
382 analysed by the Perl porting team.
384 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
385 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
386 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
387 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
388 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
389 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
390 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
391 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
396 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
399 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
401 The F<README> file for general stuff.
403 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
407 This is all changes through 704e1b1e
411 commit a44d0896a6c4bfe01ea532694b8c1c073ea6a2f1
412 Author: Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org>
413 Date: Thu Oct 15 23:37:41 2009 +0100
415 POSIX::strftime() should be able to handle Unicode characters in the format string.
417 commit e4d771f5006ebd70b76422437cce60e9ac40c830
418 Author: Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
419 Date: Tue Oct 13 16:46:58 2009 -0700
421 The winsock select() implementation doesn't support all empty 'fd_set's.
423 The code already contained a workaround for the special case
425 select(undef, undef, undef, $sleep);
427 but didn't handle the case when actual bit vectors were passed in
428 that didn't have any bits set.
430 Fixes http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=54544
436 Add perltodo: write an XS cookbook
438 Explain using git send-email for patches
442 =TODO FOR RELENG GUIDE Make Module::Corelist recognise $] as a version number on 5.11.0