3 [ this is a template for a new perldelta file. Any text flagged as
4 XXX needs to be processed before release. ]
6 perldelta - what is new for perl v5.11.3
10 This document describes differences between the 5.11.2 release and
13 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.11.3, first read
14 the L<perl5XXXdelta>, which describes differences between 5.11.3 and
19 XXX Any important notices here
21 =head1 Incompatible Changes
25 =item Filehandles are blessed directly into C<IO::Handle::>, as C<FileHandle> is merely a wrapper around C<IO::Handle>.
27 XXX Some description of why this change was made would be nice -- e.g. what
28 the benefit that justifies the incompatibility -- dagolden, 2009-12-20
32 =head1 Core Enhancements
34 XXX New core language features go here. Summarise user-visible core language
35 enhancements. Particularly prominent performance optimisations could go
36 here, but most should go in the L</Performance Enhancements> section.
38 =head2 Unicode version
40 Perl is shipped with the latest Unicode version, 5.2, October 2009. See
41 L<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0> for details about this release
42 of Unicode. See L<perlunicode> for instructions on installing and using
43 older versions of Unicode.
45 =head2 Unicode properties
47 Perl can now handle every Unicode character property. A new pod,
48 L<perluniprops>, lists all available non-Unihan character properties. By
49 default the Unihan properties and certain others (deprecated and Unicode
50 internal-only ones) are not exposed. See below for more details on
51 these; there is also a section in the pod listing them, and why they are
54 Perl now fully supports the Unicode compound-style of using C<=> and C<:>
55 in writing regular expressions: C<\p{property=value}> and
56 C<\p{property:value}> (both of which mean the same thing).
58 Perl now fully supports the Unicode loose matching rules for text
59 between the braces in C<\p{...}> constructs. In addition, Perl also allows
60 underscores between digits of numbers.
62 All the Unicode-defined synonyms for properties and property values are
65 C<qr/\X/>, which matches a Unicode logical character, has been expanded to work
66 better with various Asian languages. It now is defined as an C<extended
67 grapheme cluster>. (See L<http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29/>). One change
68 due to this is that C<\X> will match the whole sequence C<S<CR LF>>. Another
69 change is that C<\X> will match an isolated mark. Marks generally come after a
70 base character, but it is possible in Unicode to have them in isolation, and
71 C<\X> will now handle that case. Otherwise, this change should be transparent
72 for non-affected languages.
74 C<\p{...}> matches using the Canonical_Combining_Class property were
75 completely broken in previous Perls. This is now fixed.
77 In previous Perls, the Unicode Decomposition_Type=Compat property and a
78 Perl extension had the same name, which led to neither matching all the
79 correct values (with more than 100 mistakes in one, and several thousand
80 in the other). The Perl extension has now been renamed to be
81 Decomposition_Type=Noncanonical (short: dt=noncanon). It has the same
82 meaning as was previously intended, namely the union of all the
83 non-canonical Decomposition types, with Unicode Compat being just one of
86 C<\p{Uppercase}> and C<\p{Lowercase}> have been brought into line with the
87 Unicode definitions. This means they each match a few more characters
90 C<\p{Cntrl}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Control}>. This means it
91 no longer will match Private Use (gc=co), Surrogates (gc=cs), nor Format
92 (gc=cf) code points. The Format code points represent the biggest
93 possible problem. All but 36 of them are either officially deprecated
94 or strongly discouraged from being used. Of those 36, likely the most
95 widely used are the soft hyphen (U+00AD), and BOM, ZWSP, ZWNJ, WJ, and
96 similar, plus Bi-directional controls.
98 C<\p{Alpha}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Alphabetic}>. The Perl
99 definition included a number of things that aren't really alpha (all
100 marks), while omitting many that were. The Unicode definition is
101 clearly better, so we are switching to it. As a direct consequence, the
102 definitions of C<\p{Alnum}> and C<\p{Word}> which depend on Alpha also change.
104 C<\p{Word}> also now doesn't match certain characters it wasn't supposed
105 to, such as fractions.
107 C<\p{Print}> no longer matches the line control characters: tab, lf, cr,
108 ff, vt, and nel. This brings it in line with the documentation.
110 C<\p{Decomposition_Type=Canonical}> now includes the Hangul syllables
112 The Numeric type property has been extended to include the Unihan
115 There is a new Perl extension, the 'Present_In', or simply 'In'
116 property. This is an extension of the Unicode Age property, but
117 C<\p{In=5.0}> matches any code point whose usage has been determined as of
118 Unicode version 5.0. The C<\p{Age=5.0}> only matches code points added in 5.0.
120 A number of properties did not have the correct values for unassigned
121 code points. This is now fixed. The affected properties are
122 Bidi_Class, East_Asian_Width, Joining_Type, Decomposition_Type,
123 Hangul_Syllable_Type, Numeric_Type, and Line_Break.
125 The Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, ID_Continue, and ID_Start properties
126 have been updated to their current definitions.
128 Certain properties that are supposed to be Unicode internal-only were
129 erroneously exposed by previous Perls. Use of these in regular
130 expressions will now generate a deprecated warning message, if those
131 warnings are enabled. The properties are: Other_Alphabetic,
132 Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, Other_Grapheme_Extend,
133 Other_ID_Continue, Other_ID_Start, Other_Lowercase, Other_Math, and
136 An installation can now fairly easily change which Unicode properties
137 Perl understands. As mentioned above, certain properties are by default
138 turned off. These include all the Unihan properties (which should be
139 accessible via the CPAN module Unicode::Unihan) and any deprecated or
140 Unicode internal-only property that Perl has never exposed.
142 XXX what does "files in the To directory" mean? -- dagolden, 2009-12-20
144 The files in the To directory are now more clearly marked as being
145 stable, directly usable by applications. New hash entries in them give
146 the format of the normal entries which allows for easier machine
147 parsing. Perl can generate files in this directory for any property,
148 though most are suppressed. An installation can choose to change which
149 get written. Instructions are in L<perluniprops>.
153 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous
154 versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/>
155 directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the
158 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
160 XXX All changes to installed files in F<cpan/>, F<dist/>, F<ext/> and F<lib/>
161 go here, in a list ordered by distribution name. Minimally it should be the
162 module version, but it's more useful to the end user to give a paragraph's
163 summary of the module's changes. In an ideal world, dual-life modules would
164 have a F<Changes> file that could be cribbed.
166 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
174 =head2 Pragmata Changes
180 Upgraded from 1.13 to 1.14. Added the C<unicode_strings> feature:
182 use feature "unicode_strings";
184 This pragma turns on Unicode semantics for the case-changing operations
185 (uc/lc/ucfirst/lcfirst) on strings that don't have the internal UTF-8 flag set,
186 but that contain single-byte characters between 128 and 255.
190 The experimental C<legacy> pragma, introduced in 5.11.2, has been removed,
191 and its functionality replaced by the new feature pragma, C<use feature
196 Upgraded from 1.07 to 1.08. Added new C<warnings::fatal_enabled()> function.
200 =head2 Updated Modules
202 XXX This should be generated with Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl once
203 Module::Corelist is updated for 5.011003.
205 =head1 Utility Changes
207 XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go
208 here. Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
214 No longer reports "Message sent" when it hasn't actually sent the message
218 =head1 New Documentation
220 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
230 =head1 Changes to Existing Documentation
232 XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
233 Any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in L</New or Changed Diagnostics>.
236 The Pod specification (L<perlpodspec>) has been updated to bring the
237 specification in line with modern usage already supported by most Pod systems.
238 A parameter string may now follow the format name in a "begin/end" region.
239 Links to URIs with a text description are now allowed. The usage of
240 C<LE<lt>"section"E<gt>> has been marked as deprecated.
242 L<if.pm|if> has been documented in L<perlfunc/use> as a means to get
243 conditional loading of modules despite the implicit BEGIN block around C<use>.
247 =head1 Performance Enhancements
249 XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
250 may well be none in a stable release.
260 =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
262 XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
265 =head2 Configuration improvements
269 =head2 Compilation improvements
271 Make distclean work again
274 =head2 Testing improvements
278 =item It's now possible to override C<PERL5OPT> and friends in F<t/TEST>
282 =head2 Platform Specific Changes
292 Always add a manifest resource to C<perl.exe> to specify the <trustInfo>
293 settings for Windows Vista and later. Without this setting Windows
294 will treat C<perl.exe> as a legacy application and apply various
295 heuristics like redirecting access to protected file system areas
296 (like the "Program Files" folder) to the users "VirtualStore"
297 instead of generating a proper "permission denied" error.
299 For VC8 and VC9 this manifest setting is automatically generated by
300 the compiler/linker (together with the binding information for their
301 respective runtime libraries); for all other compilers we need to
302 embed the manifest resource explicitly in the external resource file.
304 This change also requests the Microsoft Common-Controls version 6.0
305 (themed controls introduced in Windows XP) via the dependency list
306 in the assembly manifest. For VC8 and VC9 this is specified using the
307 C</manifestdependency> linker commandline option instead.
315 =item Enable IPv6 support on cygwin 1.7 and newer
323 =item Make -UDEBUGGING the default on VMS for 5.12.0.
325 Like it has been everywhere else for ages and ages. Also make
326 command-line selection of -UDEBUGGING and -DDEBUGGING work in
327 configure.com; before the only way to turn it off was by saying
328 no in answer to the interactive question.
334 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
336 XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
337 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
338 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
344 Ensure that pp_qr returns a new regexp SV each time. Resolves RT #69852.
346 Instead of returning a(nother) reference to the (pre-compiled) regexp in the
347 optree, use reg_temp_copy() to create a copy of it, and return a reference to
348 that. This resolves issues about Regexp::DESTROY not being called in a timely
349 fashion (the original bug tracked by RT #69852), as well as bugs related to
350 blessing regexps, and of assigning to regexps, as described in correspondence
353 It transpires that we also need to undo the SvPVX() sharing when ithreads
354 cloning a Regexp SV, because mother_re is set to NULL, instead of a cloned
355 copy of the mother_re. This change might fix bugs with regexps and threads in
356 certain other situations, but as yet neither tests nor bug reports have
357 indicated any problems, so it might not actually be an edge case that it's
362 Several compilation errors and segfaults when perl was built with C<-Dmad> were fixed.
366 Fixes for lexer API changes in 5.11.2 which broke NYTProf's savesrc option.
370 =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
372 XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here.
378 Make split warn in void context
383 =head1 Changed Internals
385 XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
397 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here. Changes to
398 existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs that
399 they represent may be.
409 =head1 Known Problems
411 XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
412 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
413 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
415 This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
416 from either 5.11.3 or 5.11.3.
428 XXX Add any new known deprecations here.
430 The following items are now deprecated.
434 =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
436 Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner
437 scope is now deprecated. This rare use case was causing
438 problems in the implementation of scopes.
442 =head1 Platform Specific Notes
444 XXX Any changes specific to a particular platform. VMS and Win32 are the usual
445 stars here. It's probably best to group changes under the same section layout
446 as the main perldelta
450 XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
453 =head1 Acknowledgements
455 XXX The list of people to thank goes here.
458 =head1 Reporting Bugs
460 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
461 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
462 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
463 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
465 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
466 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
467 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
468 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
469 analysed by the Perl porting team.
471 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
472 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
473 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
474 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
475 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
476 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
477 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
478 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
483 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
486 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
488 The F<README> file for general stuff.
490 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
497 All changes through commit b4178430270dbe109e7609d0b50d6d54bf9e95d8
498 One "triage" pass done.
500 A second triage pass is still needed to remove unimportant changes
502 commit 9307c420fad2f6f5bd314f9ed66dd53288703e09
503 Author: Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
504 Date: Thu Dec 17 18:28:16 2009 -0800
506 Export PL_curinterp symbol for MULTIPLICITY without USE_ITHREADS
508 This is necessary for XS extensions that define PERL_CORE. In that
509 situation PERL_GET_CONTEXT will resolve to PL_curinterp, which is
510 normally not exported (extensions call Perl_Gcurinterp_ptr() to get a
511 pointer to PL_curinterp instead). With USE_ITHREADS defined
512 PERL_GET_CONTEXT will expand to Perl_get_context() even inside the
513 core because the context needs to be fetched from threadlocal storage.
515 commit 8703a9a4fd75723318bc4ba1afc42a215806f2d1
517 Correct some #ifdef USE_ITHREADS / USE_MULTI
519 Author: Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
520 Date: Wed Dec 16 15:42:19 2009 -0800
522 -t should only return TRUE for file handles connected to a TTY
524 The Microsoft C version of isatty() returns TRUE for all
525 character mode devices, including the /dev/null style "nul"
526 device and printers like "lpt1".
528 The included test has only been tested on Windows and Linux;
529 the device names for OS/2 and VMS are just best guesses...
531 commit 0f907b96d618c97cd2e020841a70ae037954a616
533 [perl #70171] 5.10.0 -> 5.10.1 Regression in fafafbaf70 (Big slowdown in 5.10 @_ parameter passing)
535 commit 2ab54efd6265713df5cd4bd0927024245675c1c2
537 fix bug 67156: overload: nomethod(..., '!') return value inverted
539 commit 412147f664b7f5805591ad996d7e5a9e70b3d80f
541 [perl #71204] diagnostics.pm suppresses 'Use of uninitialized value in range (or flip)' warning
544 commit 69dc4b30f4725ad5f212d45d3c856ac1caaacf17
545 Author: Father Chrysostomos <sprout@cpan.org>
546 Date: Mon Dec 14 12:19:35 2009 +0100
548 [perl #70764] $' fails to initialized for pre-compiled regular expression matches
550 The match vars are associated with the regexp that last matched
551 successfully. In the case of $str =~ $qr or /$qr/, since the $qr could
552 be used in multiple scopes that need their own sets of match vars, the
553 $qr is cloned by Perl_reg_temp_copy as of change 30677/28d8d7f. This
554 happens in pp_regcomp before pp_match has stringified the LHS, hence the
555 bug. In short, /$gror/ is not equivalent to
556 ($which = !$which) ? /$gror/ : /$gror/, which is weird.
558 Author: Reini Urban <rurban@x-ray.at>
559 Date: Sun Dec 13 08:06:43 2009 +0100
561 Eliminate OP_SETSTATE from cop.h header
563 It had been added with change 3728 to track linenumbers in
564 optimized else, disabled by change 4309,
565 and removed with change 33072.
567 Bump copyright, latest change was "Fix MULTICALL in List-Util" 2009-03-07
571 Fix for [perl #70910] wrong line number in syntax error message
573 Document config_args limitations reported in [perl #70912]
575 proper error on "grep $x (1,2,3)". Solves [perl #37314]
577 commit 8a27a13e89107aaf68c0748b68ee71fbd86d774b
579 [perl #71076] sort with active sub (5.10 regression)
581 One of the tests in sort.t causes a bus error (or sometimes â
\80\98Undefined
582 subroutine calledâ
\80\99) if run multiple times. This is because sort
583 decreases the refcount of an active sub used as a comparison routine.
585 commit 69c3dccf5322a59cb855347c04712ba11b65328f
587 Fix [perl #71078] Smart match against @_ gives false negatives
589 @_ can contain NULLs for undefined elements
591 [perl #71000] Wrong variable name in warning ; Add a new warning "Missing argument in %s"
594 preserve readonly flag when saving and restoring magic flags
596 commit c9930541bfa04399c3b648e83c9b750cee1154fb
598 [perl #70802] -i'*' refuses to work
600 commit adab996997d7ef1b54d382f5ab4304f438cd1dd0
602 Cleanup all scopes before exiting a pseudo-forked process.
604 perl_destruct() contains an assertion that the scope stack
605 is empty. The remaining scopes are due to fork() being
606 called from within a BEGIN block.
608 commit 576b33a19ccaf98d4dfe201d529c55c3747f0cb6
610 [rt.cpan.org #51574] Safe.pm sort {} bug accessing $a and $b with -Dusethreads
612 commit ee6ba15dedda3e88eb66891eaf387c00a4c0a2fb
614 Fix -DPERL_NO_UTF16_FILTER
616 commit dfd167e94af611f6248e804cb228b35ca4123bd6
618 Handle $@ being assigned a read-only value (without error or busting the stack).
620 Discovered whilst investigating RT #70862.
622 commit f5fa9033b8c1fdcbd7710850b3b0380d6b937853
624 Fix RT #70862 by converting ERRSV to GvSVn() to ensure a non-NULL GvSV().
626 commit ff868e665bf85a829dc47bfa1243b26d4367cacd
628 Add error codes for getaddrinfo() and getnameinfo()
630 commit 61fc5122f0d8a509834282b8ecb3252d2e4c9f5d
632 Make unicode semantics the default
636 commit 021f53de09926928546378b3552f9240c9241dde
637 Author: Gerard Goossen <gerard@ggoossen.net>
638 Date: Mon Nov 16 13:58:24 2009 +0100
640 Force OP_REQUIRE to scalar context at the end of ck_require and don't let it become void context. Fixes problem with require not always being in scalar context.
642 commit 6a0e50422a84b53e998825128c56791913cd03aa
643 Author: Craig A. Berry <craigberry@mac.com>
644 Date: Sat Nov 21 11:17:38 2009 -0600