3 perl589delta - what is new for perl v5.8.9
7 This document describes differences between the 5.8.8 release and
12 The 5.8.9 release will be the last significant release of the 5.8.x
13 series. Any future releases of 5.8.x will likely only be to deal with
14 security issues, and platform build failures. Hence you should look to
15 migrating to 5.10.x, if you have not started already.
16 See L</"Known Problems"> for more information.
18 =head1 Incompatible Changes
20 A particular construction in the source code of extensions written in C++
21 may need changing. See L</"Changed Internals"> for more details. All
22 extensions written in C, most written in C++, and all existing compiled
23 extensions are unaffected. This was necessary to improve C++ support.
25 Other than this, there are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.8.8.
26 If any exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
28 =head1 Core Enhancements
30 =head2 Unicode Character Database 5.1.0.
32 The copy of the Unicode Character Database included in Perl 5.8 has
33 been updated to 5.1.0 from 4.1.0. See
34 L<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.1.0/#NotableChanges> for the
37 =head2 stat and -X on directory handles
39 It is now possible to call C<stat> and the C<-X> filestat operators on
40 directory handles. As both directory and file handles are barewords, there
41 can be ambiguities over which was intended. In these situations the file
42 handle semantics are preferred. Both also treat C<*FILE{IO}> filehandles
43 like C<*FILE> filehandles.
45 =head2 Source filters in @INC
47 It's possible to enhance the mechanism of subroutine hooks in @INC by
48 adding a source filter on top of the filehandle opened and returned by the
49 hook. This feature was planned a long time ago, but wasn't quite working
50 until now. See L<perlfunc/require> for details. (Nicholas Clark)
52 =head2 Exceptions in constant folding
54 The constant folding routine is now wrapped in an exception handler, and
55 if folding throws an exception (such as attempting to evaluate 0/0), perl
56 now retains the current optree, rather than aborting the whole program.
57 Without this change, programs would not compile if they had expressions that
58 happened to generate exceptions, even though those expressions were in code
59 that could never be reached at runtime. (Nicholas Clark, Dave Mitchell)
63 You can now use C<no> followed by a version number to specify that you
64 want to use a version of perl older than the specified one.
66 =head2 Improved internal UTF-8 caching code
68 The code that caches calculated UTF-8 byte offsets for character offsets for
69 a string has been re-written. Several bugs have been located and eliminated,
70 and the code now makes better use of the information it has, so should be
71 faster. In particular, it doesn't scan to the end of a string before
72 calculating an offset within the string, which should speed up some operations
73 on long strings. It is now possible to disable the caching code at run time,
74 to verify that it is not the cause of suspected problems.
76 =head2 Runtime relocatable installations
78 There is now F<Configure> support for creating a perl tree that is relocatable
79 at run time. see L</Relocatable installations>.
81 =head2 New internal variables
85 =item C<${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}>
87 This variable gives the native status returned by the last pipe close,
88 backtick command, successful call to C<wait> or C<waitpid>, or from the
89 C<system> operator. See L<perlvar> for details. (Contributed by Gisle Aas.)
91 =item C<${^UTF8CACHE}>
93 This variable controls the state of the internal UTF-8 offset caching code.
94 1 for on (the default), 0 for off, -1 to debug the caching code by checking
95 all its results against linear scans, and panicing on any discrepancy.
99 =head2 C<readpipe> is now overridable
101 The built-in function C<readpipe> is now overridable. Overriding it permits
102 also to override its operator counterpart, C<qx//> (also known as C<``>).
104 =head2 simple exception handling macros
106 Perl 5.8.9 (and 5.10.0 onwards) now provides a couple of macros to do very
107 basic exception handling in XS modules. You can use these macros if you call
108 code that may C<croak>, but you need to do some cleanup before giving control
109 back to Perl. See L<perlguts/Exception Handling> for more details.
111 =head2 -D option enhancements
117 C<-Dq> suppresses the I<EXECUTING...> message when running under C<-D>
121 C<-Dl> logs runops loop entry and exit, and jump level popping.
125 C<-Dv> displays the process id as part of the trace output.
129 =head2 XS-assisted SWASHGET
131 Some pure-perl code that the regexp engine was using to retrieve Unicode
132 properties and transliteration mappings has been reimplemented in XS
133 for faster execution.
136 =head2 Constant subroutines
138 The interpreter internals now support a far more memory efficient form of
139 inlineable constants. Storing a reference to a constant value in a symbol
140 table is equivalent to a full typeglob referencing a constant subroutine,
141 but using about 400 bytes less memory. This proxy constant subroutine is
142 automatically upgraded to a real typeglob with subroutine if necessary.
143 The approach taken is analogous to the existing space optimisation for
144 subroutine stub declarations, which are stored as plain scalars in place
145 of the full typeglob.
147 However, to aid backwards compatibility of existing code, which (wrongly)
148 does not expect anything other than typeglobs in symbol tables, nothing in
149 core uses this feature, other than the regression tests.
151 Stubs for prototyped subroutines have been stored in symbol tables as plain
152 strings, and stubs for unprototyped subroutines as the number -1, since 5.005,
153 so code which assumes that the core only places typeglobs in symbol tables
154 has been making incorrect assumptions for over 10 years.
158 Compile support added for:
184 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
192 C<Module::Pluggable> is a simple framework to create modules that accept
193 pluggable sub-modules. The bundled version is 3.8
197 C<Module::CoreList> is a hash of hashes that is keyed on perl version as
198 indicated in C<$]>. The bundled version is 2.17
202 C<Win32API::File> now available in core on Microsoft Windows. The bundled
207 C<Devel::InnerPackage> finds all the packages defined by a single file. It is
208 part of the C<Module::Pluggable> distribution. The bundled version is 0.3
212 =head2 Updated Modules
218 C<attributes> upgraded to version 0.09
222 C<AutoLoader> upgraded to version 5.67
226 C<AutoSplit> upgraded to 1.06
230 C<autouse> upgraded to version 1.06
234 C<B> upgraded from 1.09_01 to 1.19
240 provides new pad related abstraction macros C<B::NV::COP_SEQ_RANGE_LOW>,
241 C<B::NV::COP_SEQ_RANGE_HIGH>, C<B::NV::PARENT_PAD_INDEX>,
242 C<B::NV::PARENT_FAKELEX_FLAGS>, which hides the difference in storage in
247 provides C<B::sub_generation>, which exposes C<PL_sub_generation>
251 provides C<B::GV::isGV_with_GP>, which on pre-5.10 perls always returns true.
255 New type C<B::HE> added with methods C<VAL>, C<HASH> and C<SVKEY_force>
259 The C<B::GVf_IMPORTED_CV> flag is now set correctly when a proxy
260 constant subroutine is imported.
264 bugs fixed in the handling of C<PMOP>s.
268 C<B::BM::PREVIOUS> returns now C<U32>, not C<U16>.
269 C<B::CV::START> and C<B:CV::ROOT> return now C<NULL> on an XSUB,
270 C<B::CV::XSUB> and C<B::CV::XSUBANY> return 0 on a non-XSUB.
276 C<B::C> upgraded to 1.05
280 C<B::Concise> upgraded to 0.76
286 new option C<-src> causes the rendering of each statement (starting with
287 the nextstate OP) to be preceded by the first line of source code that
292 new option C<-stash="somepackage">, C<require>s "somepackage", and then renders
293 each function defined in its namespace.
297 now has documentation of detailed hint symbols.
303 C<B::Debug> upgraded to version 1.05
307 C<B::Deparse> upgraded to version 0.87
313 properly deparse C<print readpipe $x, $y>.
317 now handles C<''->()>, C<::()>, C<sub :: {}>, I<etc.> correctly [RT #43010].
318 All bugs in parsing these kinds of syntax are now fixed:
320 perl -MO=Deparse -e '"my %h = "->()'
321 perl -MO=Deparse -e '::->()'
322 perl -MO=Deparse -e 'sub :: {}'
323 perl -MO=Deparse -e 'package a; sub a::b::c {}'
324 perl -MO=Deparse -e 'sub the::main::road {}'
328 does B<not> deparse C<$^H{v_string}>, which is automatically set by the
335 C<B::Lint> upgraded to version 1.11
339 C<B::Terse> upgraded to version 1.05
343 C<base> upgraded to version 2.13
349 loading a module via base.pm would mask a global C<$SIG{__DIE__}> in that
354 push all classes at once in C<@ISA>
360 C<Benchmark> upgraded to version 1.10
364 C<bigint> upgraded to 0.23
368 C<bignum> upgraded to 0.23
372 C<bigrat> upgraded to 0.23
376 C<blib> upgraded to 0.04
380 C<Carp> upgraded to version 1.10
382 The argument backtrace code now shows C<undef> as C<undef>,
383 instead of a string I<"undef">.
387 C<CGI> upgraded to version 3.42
391 C<charnames> upgraded to 1.06
395 C<constant> upgraded to version 1.17
399 C<CPAN> upgraded to version 1.9301
403 C<Cwd> upgraded to version 3.29 with some platform specific
404 improvements (including for VMS).
408 C<Data::Dumper> upgraded to version 2.121_17
414 Fixes hash iterator current position with the pure Perl version [RT #40668]
418 Performance enhancements, which will be most evident on platforms where
419 repeated calls to C's C<realloc()> are slow, such as Win32.
425 C<DB_File> upgraded to version 1.817
429 C<DB_Filter> upgraded to version 0.02
433 C<Devel::DProf> upgraded to version 20080331.00
437 C<Devel::Peek> upgraded to version 1.04
441 C<Devel::PPPort> upgraded to version 3.14
445 C<diagnostics> upgraded to version 1.16
449 C<Digest> upgraded to version 1.15
453 C<Digest::MD5> upgraded to version 2.37
457 C<DirHandle> upgraded to version 1.02
463 now localises C<$.>, C<$@>, C<$!>, C<$^E>, and C<$?> before closing the
464 directory handle to suppress leaking any side effects of warnings about it
465 already being closed.
471 C<DynaLoader> upgraded to version 1.09
473 C<DynaLoader> can now dynamically load a loadable object from a file with a
474 non-default file extension.
478 C<Encode> upgraded to version 2.26
480 C<Encode::Alias> includes a fix for encoding "646" on Solaris (better known as
485 C<English> upgraded to version 1.03
489 C<Errno> upgraded to version 1.10
493 C<Exporter> upgraded to version 5.63
497 C<ExtUtils::Command> upgraded to version 1.15
501 C<ExtUtils::Constant> upgraded to version 0.21
505 C<ExtUtils::Embed> upgraded to version 1.28
509 C<ExtUtils::Install> upgraded to version 1.50_01
513 C<ExtUtils::Installed> upgraded to version 1.43
517 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> upgraded to version 6.48
523 support for C<INSTALLSITESCRIPT> and C<INSTALLVENDORSCRIPT>
530 C<ExtUtils::Manifest> upgraded to version 1.55
534 C<ExtUtils::ParseXS> upgraded to version 2.19
538 C<Fatal> upgraded to version 1.06
544 allows built-ins in C<CORE::GLOBAL> to be made fatal.
550 C<Fcntl> upgraded to version 1.06
554 C<fields> upgraded to version 2.12
558 C<File::Basename> upgraded to version 2.77
562 C<FileCache> upgraded to version 1.07
566 C<File::Compare> upgraded to 1.1005
570 C<File::Copy> upgraded to 2.13
582 C<File::DosGlob> upgraded to 1.01
586 C<File::Find> upgraded to version 1.13
590 C<File::Glob> upgraded to version 1.06
596 fixes spurious results with brackets inside braces.
602 C<File::Path> upgraded to version 2.07_02
606 C<File::Spec> upgraded to version 3.29
612 improved handling of bad arguments.
616 some platform specific improvements (including for VMS and Cygwin), with
617 an optimisation on C<abs2rel> when handling both relative arguments.
623 C<File::stat> upgraded to version 1.01
627 C<File::Temp> upgraded to version 0.20
631 C<filetest> upgraded to version 1.02
635 C<Filter::Util::Call> upgraded to version 1.07
639 C<Filter::Simple> upgraded to version 0.83
643 C<FindBin> upgraded to version 1.49
647 C<GDBM_File> upgraded to version 1.09
651 C<Getopt::Long> upgraded to version 2.37
655 C<Getopt::Std> upgraded to version 1.06
659 C<Hash::Util> upgraded to version 0.06
663 C<if> upgraded to version 0.05
667 C<IO> upgraded to version 1.23
669 Reduced number of calls to C<getpeername> in C<IO::Socket>
673 C<IPC::Open> upgraded to version 1.03
677 C<IPC::Open3> upgraded to version 1.03
681 C<IPC::SysV> upgraded to version 2.00
685 C<lib> upgraded to version 0.61
691 avoid warning about loading F<.par> files.
697 C<libnet> upgraded to version 1.22
701 C<List::Util> upgraded to 1.19
705 C<Locale::Maketext> upgraded to 1.13
709 C<Math::BigFloat> upgraded to version 1.60
713 C<Math::BigInt> upgraded to version 1.89
717 C<Math::BigRat> upgraded to version 0.22
723 implements new C<as_float> method.
729 C<Math::Complex> upgraded to version 1.54.
733 C<Math::Trig> upgraded to version 1.18.
737 C<NDBM_File> upgraded to version 1.07
743 improve F<g++> handling for systems using GDBM compatibility headers.
749 C<Net::Ping> upgraded to version 2.35
753 C<NEXT> upgraded to version 0.61
759 fix several bugs with C<NEXT> when working with C<AUTOLOAD>, C<eval> block, and
760 within overloaded stringification.
766 C<ODBM_File> upgraded to 1.07
770 C<open> upgraded to 1.06
774 C<ops> upgraded to 1.02
778 C<PerlIO::encoding> upgraded to version 0.11
782 C<PerlIO::scalar> upgraded to version 0.06
788 [RT #40267] C<PerlIO::scalar> doesn't respect readonly-ness.
794 C<PerlIO::via> upgraded to version 0.05
798 C<Pod::Html> upgraded to version 1.09
802 C<Pod::Parser> upgraded to version 1.35
806 C<Pod::Usage> upgraded to version 1.35
810 C<POSIX> upgraded to version 1.15
816 C<POSIX> constants that duplicate those in C<Fcntl> are now imported from
817 C<Fcntl> and re-exported, rather than being duplicated by C<POSIX>
821 C<POSIX::remove> can remove empty directories.
825 C<POSIX::setlocale> safer to call multiple times.
829 C<POSIX::SigRt> added, which provides access to POSIX realtime signal
830 functionality on systems that support it.
836 C<re> upgraded to version 0.06_01
840 C<Safe> upgraded to version 2.16
844 C<Scalar::Util> upgraded to 1.19
848 C<SDBM_File> upgraded to version 1.06
852 C<SelfLoader> upgraded to version 1.17
856 C<Shell> upgraded to version 0.72
860 C<sigtrap> upgraded to version 1.04
864 C<Socket> upgraded to version 1.81
870 this fixes an optimistic use of C<gethostbyname>
876 C<Storable> upgraded to 2.19
880 C<Switch> upgraded to version 2.13
884 C<Sys::Syslog> upgraded to version 0.27
888 C<Term::ANSIColor> upgraded to version 1.12
892 C<Term::Cap> upgraded to version 1.12
896 C<Term::ReadLine> upgraded to version 1.03
900 C<Test::Builder> upgraded to version 0.80
904 C<Test::Harness> upgraded version to 2.64
910 this makes it able to handle newlines.
916 C<Test::More> upgraded to version 0.80
920 C<Test::Simple> upgraded to version 0.80
924 C<Text::Balanced> upgraded to version 1.98
928 C<Text::ParseWords> upgraded to version 3.27
932 C<Text::Soundex> upgraded to version 3.03
936 C<Text::Tabs> upgraded to version 2007.1117
940 C<Text::Wrap> upgraded to version 2006.1117
944 C<Thread> upgraded to version 2.01
948 C<Thread::Semaphore> upgraded to version 2.09
952 C<Thread::Queue> upgraded to version 2.11
958 added capability to add complex structures (e.g., hash of hashes) to queues.
962 added capability to dequeue multiple items at once.
966 added new methods to inspect and manipulate queues: C<peek>, C<insert> and
973 C<Tie::Handle> upgraded to version 4.2
977 C<Tie::Hash> upgraded to version 1.03
981 C<Tie::Memoize> upgraded to version 1.1
987 C<Tie::Memoize::EXISTS> now correctly caches its results.
993 C<Tie::RefHash> upgraded to version 1.38
997 C<Tie::Scalar> upgraded to version 1.01
1001 C<Tie::StdHandle> upgraded to version 4.2
1005 C<Time::gmtime> upgraded to version 1.03
1009 C<Time::Local> upgraded to version 1.1901
1013 C<Time::HiRes> upgraded to version 1.9715 with various build improvements
1014 (including VMS) and minor platform-specific bug fixes (including
1019 C<threads> upgraded to 1.71
1025 new thread state information methods: C<is_running>, C<is_detached>
1026 and C<is_joinable>. C<list> method enhanced to return running or joinable
1031 new thread signal method: C<kill>
1035 added capability to specify thread stack size.
1039 added capability to control thread exiting behavior. Added a new C<exit>
1046 C<threads::shared> upgraded to version 1.27
1052 smaller and faster implementation that eliminates one internal structure and
1053 the consequent level of indirection.
1057 user locks are now stored in a safer manner.
1061 new function C<shared_clone> creates a copy of an object leaving
1062 shared elements as-is and deep-cloning non-shared elements.
1066 added new C<is_shared> method.
1072 C<Unicode::Normalize> upgraded to version 1.02
1076 C<Unicode::UCD> upgraded to version 0.25
1080 C<warnings> upgraded to version 1.05_01
1084 C<Win32> upgraded to version 0.38
1090 added new function C<GetCurrentProcessId> which returns the regular Windows
1091 process identifier of the current process, even when called from within a fork.
1097 C<XSLoader> upgraded to version 0.10
1101 C<XS::APItest> and C<XS::Typemap> are for internal use only and hence
1102 no longer installed. Many more tests have been added to C<XS::APItest>.
1106 =head1 Utility Changes
1108 =head2 debugger upgraded to version 1.31
1114 Andreas KE<ouml>nig contributed two functions to save and load the debugger
1119 C<NEXT::AUTOLOAD> no longer emits warnings under the debugger.
1123 The debugger should now correctly find tty the device on OS X 10.5 and VMS
1124 when the program C<fork>s.
1128 LVALUE subs now work inside the debugger.
1132 =head2 F<perlthanks>
1134 Perl 5.8.9 adds a new utility F<perlthanks>, which is a variant of F<perlbug>,
1135 but for sending non-bug-reports to the authors and maintainers of Perl.
1136 Getting nothing but bug reports can become a bit demoralising - we'll see if
1137 this changes things.
1141 F<perlbug> now checks if you're reporting about a non-core module and suggests
1142 you report it to the CPAN author instead.
1150 won't define an empty string as a constant [RT #25366]
1154 has examples for C<h2xs -X>
1164 now attempts to deal sensibly with the difference in path implications
1165 between C<""> and C<< E<lt>E<gt> >> quoting in C<#include> statements.
1169 now generates correct correct code for C<#if defined A || defined B>
1174 =head1 New Documentation
1176 As usual, the documentation received its share of corrections, clarifications
1177 and other nitfixes. More C<< X<...> >> tags were added for indexing.
1179 L<perlunitut> is a tutorial written by Juerd Waalboer on Unicode-related
1180 terminology and how to correctly handle Unicode in Perl scripts.
1182 L<perlunicode> is updated in section user defined properties.
1184 L<perluniintro> has been updated in the example of detecting data that is not
1185 valid in particular encoding.
1187 L<perlcommunity> provides an overview of the Perl Community along with further
1190 L<CORE> documents the pseudo-namespace for Perl's core routines.
1192 =head1 Changes to Existing Documentation
1194 L<perlglossary> adds I<deprecated modules and features> and I<to be dropped modules>.
1196 L<perlhack> has been updated and added resources on smoke testing.
1198 The Perl FAQs (F<perlfaq1>..F<perlfaq9>) have been updated.
1200 L<perlcheat> is updated with better details on C<\w>, C<\d>, and C<\s>.
1202 L<perldebug> is updated with information on how to call the debugger.
1204 L<perldiag> documentation updated with I<subroutine with an ampersand> on the
1205 argument to C<exists> and C<delete> and also several terminology updates on
1208 L<perlfork> documents the limitation of C<exec> inside pseudo-processes.
1216 Documentation is fixed in section C<caller> and C<pop>.
1220 Function C<alarm> now mentions C<Time::HiRes::ualarm> in preference
1225 Regarding precedence in C<-X>, filetest operators are the same as unary
1226 operators, but not regarding parsing and parentheses (spotted by Eirik Berg
1231 L<reverse> function documentation received scalar context examples.
1235 L<perllocale> documentation is adjusted for number localization and
1236 C<POSIX::setlocale> to fix Debian bug #379463.
1238 L<perlmodlib> is updated with C<CPAN::API::HOWTO> and
1239 C<Sys::Syslog::win32::Win32>
1241 L<perlre> documentation updated to reflect the differences between
1242 C<[[:xxxxx:]]> and C<\p{IsXxxxx}> matches. Also added section on C</g> and
1245 L<perlreguts> describe the internals of the regular expressions engine. It has
1246 been contributed by Yves Orton.
1248 L<perlrebackslash> describes all perl regular expression backslash and escape
1251 L<perlrecharclass> describes the syntax and use of character classes in
1252 Perl Regular Expressions.
1254 L<perlrun> is updated to clarify on the hash seed I<PERL_HASH_SEED>. Also more
1255 information in options C<-x> and C<-u>.
1257 L<perlsub> example is updated to use a lexical variable for C<opendir> syntax.
1259 L<perlvar> fixes confusion about real GID C<$(> and effective GID C<$)>.
1261 Perl thread tutorial example is fixed in section
1262 L<perlthrtut/Queues: Passing Data Around> and L<perlothrtut>.
1264 L<perlhack> documentation extensively improved by Jarkko Hietaniemi and others.
1266 L<perltoot> provides information on modifying C<@UNIVERSAL::ISA>.
1268 L<perlport> documentation extended to include different C<kill(-9, ...)>
1269 semantics on Windows. It also clearly states C<dump> is not supported on Win32
1272 F<INSTALL> has been updated and modernised.
1274 =head1 Performance Enhancements
1280 The default since perl 5.000 has been for perl to create an empty scalar
1281 with every new typeglob. The increased use of lexical variables means that
1282 most are now unused. Thanks to Nicholas Clark's efforts, Perl can now be
1283 compiled with C<-DPERL_DONT_CREATE_GVSV> to avoid creating these empty scalars.
1284 This will significantly decrease the number of scalars allocated for all
1285 configurations, and the number of scalars that need to be copied for ithread
1286 creation. Whilst this option is binary compatible with existing perl
1287 installations, it does change a long-standing assumption about the
1288 internals, hence it is not enabled by default, as some third party code may
1289 rely on the old behaviour.
1291 We would recommend testing with this configuration on new deployments of
1292 perl, particularly for multi-threaded servers, to see whether all third party
1293 code is compatible with it, as this configuration may give useful performance
1294 improvements. For existing installations we would not recommend changing to
1295 this configuration unless thorough testing is performed before deployment.
1299 C<diagnostics> no longer uses C<$&>, which results in large speedups
1300 for regexp matching in all code using it.
1304 Regular expressions classes of a single character are now treated the same as
1305 if the character had been used as a literal, meaning that code that uses
1306 char-classes as an escaping mechanism will see a speedup. (Yves Orton)
1310 Creating anonymous array and hash references (ie. C<[]> and C<{}>) now incurs
1311 no more overhead than creating an anonymous list or hash. Nicholas Clark
1312 provided changes with a saving of two ops and one stack push, which was measured
1313 as a slightly better than 5% improvement for these operations.
1317 Many calls to C<strlen()> have been eliminated, either because the length was
1318 already known, or by adopting or enhancing APIs that pass lengths. This has
1319 been aided by the adoption of a C<my_sprintf()> wrapper, which returns the
1320 correct C89 value - the length of the formatted string. Previously we could
1321 not rely on the return value of C<sprintf()>, because on some ancient but
1322 extant platforms it still returns C<char *>.
1326 C<index> is now faster if the search string is stored in UTF-8 but only contains
1327 characters in the Latin-1 range.
1331 The Unicode swatch cache inside the regexp engine is now used. (the lookup had
1332 a key mismatch, present since the initial implementation). [RT #42839]
1336 =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
1338 =head2 Relocatable installations
1340 There is now F<Configure> support for creating a relocatable perl tree. If
1341 you F<Configure> with C<-Duserelocatableinc>, then the paths in C<@INC> (and
1342 everything else in C<%Config>) can be optionally located via the path of the
1345 At start time, if any paths in C<@INC> or C<Config> that F<Configure> marked
1346 as relocatable (by starting them with C<".../">), then they are prefixed the
1347 directory of C<$^X>. This allows the relocation can be configured on a
1348 per-directory basis, although the default with C<-Duserelocatableinc> is that
1349 everything is relocated. The initial install is done to the original configured
1352 =head2 Configuration improvements
1354 F<Configure> is now better at removing temporary files. Tom Callaway
1355 (from RedHat) also contributed patches that complete the set of flags
1356 passed to the compiler and the linker, in particular that C<-fPIC> is now
1357 enabled on Linux. It will also croak when your F</dev/null> isn't a device.
1359 A new configuration variable C<d_pseudofork> has been to F<Configure>, and is
1360 available as C<$Config{d_pseudofork}> in the C<Config> module. This
1361 distinguishes real C<fork> support from the pseudofork emulation used on
1364 F<Config.pod> and F<config.sh> are now placed correctly for cross-compilation.
1366 C<$Config{useshrplib}> is now 'true' rather than 'yes' when using a shared perl
1369 =head2 Compilation improvements
1371 Parallel makes should work properly now, although there may still be problems
1372 if C<make test> is instructed to run in parallel.
1374 Many compilation warnings have been cleaned up. A very stubborn compiler
1375 warning in C<S_emulate_eaccess()> was killed after six attempts.
1376 F<g++> support has been tuned, especially for FreeBSD.
1378 F<mkppport> has been integrated, and all F<ppport.h> files in the core will now
1379 be autogenerated at build time (and removed during cleanup).
1381 =head2 Installation improvements.
1383 F<installman> now works with C<-Duserelocatableinc> and C<DESTDIR>.
1385 F<installperl> no longer installs:
1391 static library files of statically linked extensions when a shared perl library
1392 is being used. (They are not needed. See L</Windows> below).
1396 F<SIGNATURE> and F<PAUSE*.pub> (CPAN files)
1400 F<NOTES> and F<PATCHING> (ExtUtils files)
1404 F<perlld> and F<ld2> (Cygwin files)
1408 =head2 Platform Specific Changes
1410 There are improved hints for AIX, Cygwin, DEC/OSF, FreeBSD, HP/UX, Irix 6
1411 Linux, MachTen, NetBSD, OS/390, QNX, SCO, Solaris, SunOS, System V Release 5.x
1412 (UnixWare 7, OpenUNIX 8), Ultrix, UMIPS, uts and VOS.
1420 Drop C<-std=c89> and C<-ansi> if using C<long long> as the main integral type,
1421 else in FreeBSD 6.2 (and perhaps other releases), system headers do not
1422 declare some functions required by perl.
1432 Starting with Solaris 10, we do not want versioned shared libraries, because
1433 those often indicate a private use only library. These problems could often
1434 be triggered when L<SUNWbdb> (Berkeley DB) was installed. Hence if Solaris 10
1435 is detected set C<ignore_versioned_solibs=y>.
1445 Allow IEEE math to be deselected on OpenVMS I64 (but it remains the default).
1449 Record IEEE usage in C<config.h>
1453 Help older VMS compilers by using C<ccflags> when building C<munchconfig.exe>.
1457 Don't try to build old C<Thread> extension on VMS when C<-Duseithreads> has
1462 Passing a raw string of "NaN" to F<nawk> causes a core dump - so the string
1463 has been changed to "*NaN*"
1467 F<t/op/stat.t> tests will now test hard links on VMS if they are supported.
1477 When using a shared perl library F<installperl> no longer installs static
1478 library files, import library files and export library files (of statically
1479 linked extensions) and empty bootstrap files (of dynamically linked
1480 extensions). This fixes a problem building PAR-Packer on Win32 with a debug
1485 Various improvements to the win32 build process, including support for Visual
1486 C++ 2005 Express Edition (aka Visual C++ 8.x).
1490 F<perl.exe> will now have an icon if built with MinGW or Borland.
1494 Improvements to the perl-static.exe build process.
1498 Add Win32 makefile option to link all extensions statically.
1502 The F<WinCE> directory has been merged into the F<Win32> directory.
1506 C<setlocale> tests have been re-enabled for Windows XP onwards.
1510 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
1514 Many many bugs related to the internal Unicode implementation (UTF-8) have
1515 been fixed. In particular, long standing bugs related to returning Unicode
1516 via C<tie>, overloading or C<$@> are now gone, some of which were never
1519 C<unpack> will internally convert the string back from UTF-8 on numeric types.
1520 This is a compromise between the full consistency now in 5.10, and the current
1521 behaviour, which is often used as a "feature" on string types.
1523 Using C<:crlf> and C<UTF-16> IO layers together will now work.
1525 Fixed problems with C<split>, Unicode C</\s+/> and C</ \0/>.
1527 Fixed bug RT #40641 - encoding of Unicode characters in regular expressions.
1529 Fixed a bug where using certain patterns in a regexp led to a panic.
1532 Perl no longer segfaults (due to infinite internal recursion) if the locale's
1533 character is not UTF-8 [RT #41442]:
1536 print STDERR "\x{201e}"; # „
1540 Inconsistencies have been fixed in the reference counting PerlIO uses to keep
1541 track of Unix file descriptors, and the API used by XS code to manage getting
1542 and releasing C<FILE *>s
1546 Several bugs have been fixed in Magic, the internal system used to implement
1547 features such as C<tie>, tainting and threads sharing.
1549 C<undef @array> on a tied array now correctly calls the C<CLEAR> method.
1551 Some of the bitwise ops were not checking whether their arguments were magical
1552 before using them. [RT #24816]
1554 Magic is no longer invoked twice by the expression C<\&$x>
1556 A bug with assigning large numbers and tainting has been resolved.
1559 A new entry has been added to the MAGIC vtable - C<svt_local>. This is used
1560 when copying magic to the new value during C<local>, allowing certain problems
1561 with localising shared variables to be resolved.
1563 For the implementation details, see L<perlguts/Magic Virtual Tables>.
1565 =head2 Reblessing overloaded objects now works
1567 Internally, perl object-ness is on the referent, not the reference, even
1568 though methods can only be called via a reference. However, the original
1569 implementation of overloading stored flags related to overloading on the
1570 reference, relying on the flags being copied when the reference was copied,
1571 or set at the creation of a new reference. This manifests in a bug - if you
1572 rebless an object from a class that has overloading, into one that does not,
1573 then any other existing references think that they (still) point to an
1574 overloaded object, choose these C code paths, and then throw errors.
1575 Analogously, blessing into an overloaded class when other references exist will
1576 result in them not using overloading.
1578 The implementation has been fixed for 5.10, but this fix changes the semantics
1579 of flag bits, so is not binary compatible, so can't be applied to 5.8.9.
1580 However, 5.8.9 has a work-around that implements the same bug fix. If the
1581 referent has multiple references, then all the other references are located and
1582 corrected. A full search is avoided whenever possible by scanning lexicals
1583 outwards from the current subroutine, and the argument stack.
1585 A certain well known Linux vendor applied incomplete versions of this bug fix
1586 to their F</usr/bin/perl> and then prematurely closed bug reports about
1587 performance issues without consulting back upstream. This not being enough,
1588 they then proceeded to ignore the necessary fixes to these unreleased changes
1589 for 11 months, until massive pressure was applied by their long-suffering
1590 paying customers, catalysed by the failings being featured on a prominent blog
1593 =head2 C<strict> now propagates correctly into string evals
1595 Under 5.8.8 and earlier:
1597 $ perl5.8.8 -e 'use strict; eval "use foo bar" or die $@'
1598 Can't locate foo.pm in @INC (@INC contains: ... .) at (eval 1) line 2.
1599 BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 2.
1601 Under 5.8.9 and later:
1603 $ perl5.8.9 -e 'use strict; eval "use foo bar" or die $@'
1604 Bareword "bar" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at (eval 1) line 1.
1606 This may cause problems with programs that parse the error message and rely
1607 on the buggy behaviour.
1615 The tokenizer no longer treats C<=cute> (and other words beginning
1616 with C<=cut>) as a synonym for C<=cut>.
1620 Calling C<CORE::require>
1622 C<CORE::require> and C<CORE::do> were always parsed as C<require> and C<do>
1623 when they were overridden. This is now fixed.
1627 Stopped memory leak on long F</etc/groups> entries.
1631 C<while (my $x ...) { ...; redo }> shouldn't C<undef $x>.
1633 In the presence of C<my> in the conditional of a C<while()>, C<until()>,
1634 or C<for(;;)> loop, we now add an extra scope to the body so that C<redo>
1635 doesn't C<undef> the lexical.
1639 The C<encoding> pragma now correctly ignores anything following an C<@>
1640 character in the C<LC_ALL> and C<LANG> environment variables. [RT # 49646]
1644 A segfault observed with some F<gcc> 3.3 optimisations is resolved.
1648 A possible segfault when C<unpack> used in scalar context with C<()> groups
1649 is resolved. [RT #50256]
1653 Resolved issue where C<$!> could be changed by a signal handler interrupting
1658 Fixed bug RT #37886, symbolic deferencing was allowed in the argument of
1659 C<defined> even under the influence of C<use strict 'refs'>.
1663 Fixed bug RT #43207, where C<lc>/C<uc> inside C<sort> affected the return
1668 Fixed bug RT #45607, where C<*{"BONK"} = \&{"BONK"}> didn't work correctly.
1672 Fixed bug RT #35878, croaking from a XSUB called via C<goto &xsub> corrupts perl
1677 Fixed bug RT #32539, F<DynaLoader.o> is moved into F<libperl.so> to avoid the
1678 need to statically link DynaLoader into the stub perl executable. With this
1679 F<libperl.so> provides everything needed to get a functional embedded perl
1684 Fix bug RT #36267 so that assigning to a tied hash doesn't change the
1689 Fix bug RT #6006, regexp replaces using large replacement variables
1690 fail some of the time, I<i.e.> when substitution contains something
1691 like C<${10}> (note the bracket) instead of just C<$10>.
1695 Fix bug RT #45053, C<Perl_newCONSTSUB()> is now thread safe.
1699 =head2 Platform Specific Fixes
1701 =head3 Darwin / MacOS X
1707 Various improvements to 64 bit builds.
1711 Mutex protection added in C<PerlIOStdio_close()> to avoid race conditions.
1712 Hopefully this fixes failures in the threads tests F<free.t> and F<blocks.t>.
1716 Added forked terminal support to the debugger, with the ability to update the
1727 A build problem with specifying C<USE_MULTI> and C<USE_ITHREADS> but without
1728 C<USE_IMP_SYS> has been fixed.
1732 C<OS2::REXX> upgraded to version 1.04
1742 Aligned floating point build policies for F<cc> and F<gcc>.
1752 Revisited a patch from 5.6.1 for RH7.2 for Intel's F<icc> [RT #7916], added an
1753 additional check for C<$Config{gccversion}>.
1763 Use C<-DPTR_IS_LONG> when using 64 bit integers
1773 Fixed C<PerlIO::Scalar> in-memory file record-style reads.
1777 pipe shutdown at process exit should now be more robust.
1781 Bugs in VMS exit handling tickled by C<Test::Harness> 2.64 have been fixed.
1785 Fix C<fcntl()> locking capability test in F<configure.com>.
1789 Replaced C<shrplib='define'> with C<useshrplib='true'> on VMS.
1799 C<File::Find> used to fail when the target directory is a bare drive letter and
1800 C<no_chdir> is 1 (the default is 0). [RT #41555]
1804 A build problem with specifying C<USE_MULTI> and C<USE_ITHREADS> but without
1805 C<USE_IMP_SYS> has been fixed.
1809 The process id is no longer truncated to 16 bits on some Windows platforms
1810 ( http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=72443 )
1814 Fixed bug RT #54828 in F<perlio.c> where calling C<binmode> on Win32 and Cgywin
1815 may cause a segmentation fault.
1819 =head2 Smaller fixes
1825 It is now possible to overload C<eq> when using C<nomethod>.
1829 Various problems using C<overload> with 64 bit integers corrected.
1833 The reference count of C<PerlIO> file descriptors is now correctly handled.
1837 On VMS, escaped dots will be preserved when converted to UNIX syntax.
1841 C<keys %+> no longer throws an C<'ambiguous'> warning.
1845 Using C<#!perl -d> could trigger an assertion, which has been fixed.
1849 Don't stringify tied code references in C<@INC> when calling C<require>.
1853 Code references in C<@INC> report the correct file name when C<__FILE__> is
1858 Width and precision in sprintf didn't handle characters above 255 correctly.
1863 List slices with indices out of range now work more consistently.
1868 A change introduced with perl 5.8.1 broke the parsing of arguments of the form
1869 C<-foo=bar> with the C<-s> on the <#!> line. This has been fixed. See
1870 http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=43483
1874 C<tr///> is now threadsafe. Previously it was storing a swash inside its OP,
1875 rather than in a pad.
1879 F<pod2html> labels anchors more consistently and handles nested definition
1884 C<threads> cleanup veto has been extended to include C<perl_free()> and
1889 On some systems, changes to C<$ENV{TZ}> would not always be
1890 respected by the underlying calls to C<localtime_r()>. Perl now
1891 forces the inspection of the environment on these systems.
1895 The special variable C<$^R> is now more consistently set when executing
1896 regexps using the C<(?{...})> construct. In particular, it will still
1897 be set even if backreferences or optional sub-patterns C<(?:...)?> are
1902 =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
1904 =head2 panic: sv_chop %s
1906 This new fatal error occurs when the C routine C<Perl_sv_chop()> was passed a
1907 position that is not within the scalar's string buffer. This is caused by
1908 buggy XS code, and at this point recovery is not possible.
1910 =head2 Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
1912 This new fatal error occurs when the perl process has to abort due to
1913 too many pending signals, which is bound to prevent perl from being
1914 able to handle further incoming signals safely.
1916 =head2 panic: attempt to call %s in %s
1918 This new fatal error occurs when the ACL version file test operator is used
1919 where it is not available on the current platform. Earlier checks mean that
1920 it should never be possible to get this.
1922 =head2 FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1924 New error indicating that a tied array has claimed to have a negative
1927 =head2 Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1929 Previously the internal error from the SV upgrade code was the less informative
1930 I<Can't upgrade that kind of scalar>. It now reports the current internal type,
1931 and the new type requested.
1933 =head2 %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
1935 This error, thrown if an invalid argument is provided to C<exists> now
1936 correctly includes "or a subroutine". [RT #38955]
1938 =head2 Cannot make the non-overridable builtin %s fatal
1940 This error in C<Fatal> previously did not show the name of the builtin in
1941 question (now represented by %s above).
1943 =head2 Unrecognized character '%s' in column %d
1945 This error previously did not state the column.
1947 =head2 Offset outside string
1949 This can now also be generated by a C<seek> on a file handle using
1952 =head2 Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regexp; marked by <-- HERE in m/%s/
1954 New error, introduced as part of the fix to RT #40641 to handle encoding
1955 of Unicode characters in regular expression comments.
1957 =head2 Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1959 A more informative fatal error issued when calling C<dump> on Win32 and
1960 Cygwin. (Given that the purpose of C<dump> is to abort with a core dump,
1961 and core dumps can't be produced on these platforms, this is more useful than
1964 =head1 Changed Internals
1966 The perl sources can now be compiled with a C++ compiler instead of a C
1967 compiler. A necessary implementation details is that under C++, the macro
1968 C<XS> used to define XSUBs now includes an C<extern "C"> definition. A side
1969 effect of this is that B<C++> code that used the construction
1971 typedef XS(SwigPerlWrapper);
1973 now needs to be written
1975 typedef XSPROTO(SwigPerlWrapper);
1977 using the new C<XSPROTO> macro, in order to compile. C extensions are
1978 unaffected, although C extensions are encouraged to use C<XSPROTO> too.
1979 This change was present in the 5.10.0 release of perl, so any actively
1980 maintained code that happened to use this construction should already have
1981 been adapted. Code that needs changing will fail with a compilation error.
1983 C<set> magic on localizing/assigning to a magic variable will now only
1984 trigger for I<container magics>, i.e. it will for C<%ENV> or C<%SIG>
1985 but not for C<$#array>.
1987 The new API macro C<newSVpvs()> can be used in place of constructions such as
1988 C<newSVpvn("ISA", 3)>. It takes a single string constant, and at C compile
1989 time determines its length.
1991 The new API function C<Perl_newSV_type()> can be used as a more efficient
1992 replacement of the common idiom
1995 sv_upgrade(sv, type);
1997 Similarly C<Perl_newSVpvn_flags()> can be used to combine
1998 C<Perl_newSVpv()> with C<Perl_sv_2mortal()> or the equivalent
1999 C<Perl_sv_newmortal()> with C<Perl_sv_setpvn()>
2001 Two new macros C<mPUSHs()> and C<mXPUSHs()> are added, to make it easier to
2002 push mortal SVs onto the stack. They were then used to fix several bugs where
2003 values on the stack had not been mortalised.
2005 A C<Perl_signbit()> function was added to test the sign of an C<NV>. It
2006 maps to the system one when available.
2008 C<Perl_av_reify()>, C<Perl_lex_end()>, C<Perl_mod()>, C<Perl_op_clear()>,
2009 C<Perl_pop_return()>, C<Perl_qerror()>, C<Perl_setdefout()>,
2010 C<Perl_vivify_defelem()> and C<Perl_yylex()> are now visible to extensions.
2011 This was required to allow C<Data::Alias> to work on Windows.
2013 C<Perl_find_runcv()> is now visible to perl core extensions. This was required
2014 to allow C<Sub::Current> to work on Windows.
2016 C<ptr_table*> functions are now available in unthreaded perl. C<Storable>
2017 takes advantage of this.
2019 There have been many small cleanups made to the internals. In particular,
2020 C<Perl_sv_upgrade()> has been simplified considerably, with a straight-through
2021 code path that uses C<memset()> and C<memcpy()> to initialise the new body,
2022 rather than assignment via multiple temporary variables. It has also
2023 benefited from simplification and de-duplication of the arena management
2026 A lot of small improvements in the code base were made due to reports from
2027 the Coverity static code analyzer.
2029 Corrected use and documentation of C<Perl_gv_stashpv()>, C<Perl_gv_stashpvn()>,
2030 C<Perl_gv_stashsv()> functions (last parameter is a bitmask, not boolean).
2032 C<PERL_SYS_INIT>, C<PERL_SYS_INIT3> and C<PERL_SYS_TERM> macros have been
2033 changed into functions.
2035 C<PERLSYS_TERM> no longer requires a context. C<PerlIO_teardown()>
2036 is now called without a context, and debugging output in this function has
2037 been disabled because that required that an interpreter was present, an invalid
2038 assumption at termination time.
2040 All compile time options which affect binary compatibility have been grouped
2041 together into a global variable (C<PL_bincompat_options>).
2043 The values of C<PERL_REVISION>, C<PERL_VERSION> and C<PERL_SUBVERSION> are
2044 now baked into global variables (and hence into any shared perl library).
2045 Additionally under C<MULTIPLICITY>, the perl executable now records the size of
2046 the interpreter structure (total, and for this version). Coupled with
2047 C<PL_bincompat_options> this will allow 5.8.10 (and later), when compiled with a
2048 shared perl library, to perform sanity checks in C<main()> to verify that the
2049 shared library is indeed binary compatible.
2051 Symbolic references can now have embedded NULs. The new public function
2052 C<Perl_get_cvn_flags()> can be used in extensions if you have to handle them.
2054 =head2 Macro cleanups
2056 The core code, and XS code in F<ext> that is not dual-lived on CPAN, no longer
2057 uses the macros C<PL_na>, C<NEWSV()>, C<Null()>, C<Nullav>, C<Nullcv>,
2058 C<Nullhv>, C<Nullhv> I<etc>. Their use is discouraged in new code,
2059 particularly C<PL_na>, which is a small performance hit.
2063 Many modules updated from CPAN incorporate new tests. Some core specific
2064 tests have been added:
2068 =item ext/DynaLoader/t/DynaLoader.t
2070 Tests for the C<DynaLoader> module.
2074 Tests for compile-time constant folding.
2078 Tests incorporated from 5.10.0 which check that there is no unexpected
2079 interaction between the internal types C<PVBM> and C<PVGV>.
2081 =item t/lib/proxy_constant_subs.t
2083 Tests for the new form of constant subroutines.
2085 =item t/op/attrhand.t
2087 Tests for C<Attribute::Handlers>.
2091 Tests for C<dbmopen>.
2093 =item t/op/inccode-tie.t
2095 Calls all tests in F<t/op/inccode.t> after first tying C<@INC>.
2097 =item t/op/incfilter.t
2099 Tests for for source filters returned from code references in C<@INC>.
2103 Tests for RT #30970.
2105 =item t/op/qrstack.t
2107 Tests for RT #41484.
2111 Tests for the C<qr//> construct.
2113 =item t/op/regexp_qr_embed.t
2115 Tests for the C<qr//> construct within another regexp.
2117 =item t/op/regexp_qr.t
2119 Tests for the C<qr//> construct.
2123 Tests for RT #32840.
2125 =item t/op/studytied.t
2127 Tests for C<study> on tied scalars.
2131 Tests for C<subst> run under C<-T> mode.
2133 =item t/op/symbolcache.t
2135 Tests for C<undef> and C<delete> on stash entries that are bound to
2136 subroutines or methods.
2138 =item t/op/upgrade.t
2140 Tests for C<Perl_sv_upgrade()>.
2142 =item t/mro/package_aliases.t
2144 MRO tests for C<isa> and package aliases.
2148 Tests for calling C<Pod::Parser> twice.
2150 =item t/run/cloexec.t
2152 Tests for inheriting file descriptors across C<exec> (close-on-exec).
2156 Tests for the UTF-8 caching code.
2160 Test that strange encodings do not upset C<Perl_pp_chr()>.
2164 Tests for RT #40641.
2166 =item t/uni/latin2.t
2168 Tests for RT #40641.
2170 =item t/uni/overload.t
2172 Tests for returning Unicode from overloaded values.
2176 Tests for returning Unicode from tied variables.
2180 =head1 Known Problems
2182 There are no known new bugs.
2184 However, programs that rely on bugs that have been fixed will have problems.
2185 Also, many bug fixes present in 5.10.0 can't be back-ported to the 5.8.x
2186 branch, because they require changes that are binary incompatible, or because
2187 the code changes are too large and hence too risky to incorporate.
2189 We have only limited volunteer labour, and the maintenance burden is
2190 getting increasingly complex. Hence this will be the last significant
2191 release of the 5.8.x series. Any future releases of 5.8.x will likely
2192 only be to deal with security issues, and platform build
2193 failures. Hence you should look to migrating to 5.10.x, if you have
2194 not started already. Alternatively, if business requirements constrain
2195 you to continue to use 5.8.x, you may wish to consider commercial
2196 support from firms such as ActiveState.
2198 =head1 Platform Specific Notes
2202 C<readdir()>, C<cwd()>, C<$^X> and C<@INC> now use the alternate (short)
2203 filename if the long name is outside the current codepage (Jan Dubois).
2205 =head3 Updated Modules
2211 C<Win32> upgraded to version 0.38. Now has a documented 'WinVista' response
2212 from C<GetOSName> and support for Vista's privilege elevation in C<IsAdminUser>.
2213 Support for Unicode characters in path names. Improved cygwin and Win64
2218 C<Win32API> updated to 0.1001_01
2222 C<killpg()> support added to C<MSWin32> (Jan Dubois).
2226 C<File::Spec::Win32> upgraded to version 3.2701
2232 =head3 Updated Modules
2238 C<OS2::Process> upgraded to 1.03
2240 Ilya Zakharevich has added and documented several C<Window*> and C<Clipbrd*>
2245 C<OS2::REXX::DLL>, C<OS2::REXX> updated to version 1.03
2251 =head3 Updated Modules
2257 C<DCLsym> upgraded to version 1.03
2261 C<Stdio> upgraded to version 2.4
2265 C<VMS::XSSymSet> upgraded to 1.1.
2271 Nick Ing-Simmons, long time Perl hacker, author of the C<Tk> and C<Encode>
2272 modules, F<perlio.c> in the core, and 5.003_02 pumpking, died of a heart
2273 attack on 25th September 2006. He will be missed.
2275 =head1 Acknowledgements
2277 Some of the work in this release was funded by a TPF grant.
2279 Steve Hay worked behind the scenes working out the causes of the differences
2280 between core modules, their CPAN releases, and previous core releases, and
2281 the best way to rectify them. He doesn't want to do it again. I know this
2282 feeling, and I'm very glad he did it this time, instead of me.
2284 Paul Fenwick assembled a team of 18 volunteers, who broke the back of writing
2285 this document. In particular, Bradley Dean, Eddy Tan, and Vincent Pit
2286 provided half the team's contribution.
2288 Schwern verified the list of updated module versions, correcting quite a few
2289 errors that I (and everyone else) had missed, both wrongly stated module
2290 versions, and changed modules that had not been listed.
2292 The crack Berlin-based QA team of Andreas KE<ouml>nig and Slaven Rezic
2293 tirelessly re-built snapshots, tested most everything CPAN against
2294 them, and then identified the changes responsible for any module regressions,
2295 ensuring that several show-stopper bugs were stomped before the first release
2298 The other core committers contributed most of the changes, and applied most
2299 of the patches sent in by the hundreds of contributors listed in F<AUTHORS>.
2301 And obviously, Larry Wall, without whom we wouldn't have Perl.
2303 =head1 Reporting Bugs
2305 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
2306 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
2307 bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be
2308 information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
2310 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
2311 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
2312 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
2313 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
2314 analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search
2315 the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/
2317 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2318 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2319 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2320 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2321 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2322 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2323 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2324 issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2328 The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
2330 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
2332 The F<README> file for general stuff.
2334 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.