3 perldelta - what's new for perl5.004
7 This document describes differences between the 5.003 release (as
8 documented in I<Programming Perl>, second edition--the Camel Book) and
11 =head1 Supported Environments
13 Perl5.004 builds out of the box on Unix, Plan9, LynxOS, VMS, OS/2,
18 Most importantly, many bugs were fixed. See the F<Changes>
19 file in the distribution for details.
21 =head2 Compilation Option: Binary Compatibility With 5.003
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 just as in the 5.003 release. By default, binary compatibility
28 is preserved at the expense of symbol table pollution.
30 =head2 New Opcode Module and Revised Safe Module
32 A new Opcode module supports the creation, manipulation and
33 application of opcode masks. The revised Safe module has a new API
34 and is implemented using the new Opcode module. Please read the new
35 Opcode and Safe documentation.
37 =head2 Internal Change: FileHandle Deprecated
39 Filehandles are now stored internally as type IO::Handle.
40 Although C<use FileHandle> and C<*STDOUT{FILEHANDLE}>
41 are still supported for backwards compatibility,
42 C<use IO::Handle> (or C<IO::Seekable> or C<IO::File>) and
43 C<*STDOUT{IO}> are the way of the future.
45 =head2 Internal Change: PerlIO internal IO abstraction interface
47 It is now possible to build Perl with AT&T's sfio IO package
48 instead of stdio. See L<perlapio> for more details, and
49 the F<INSTALL> file for how to use it.
51 =head2 New and Changed Built-in Variables
57 Extended error message on some platforms. (Also known as
58 $EXTENDED_OS_ERROR if you C<use English>).
62 The current set of syntax checks enabled by C<use strict>. See the
63 documentation of C<strict> for more details. Not actually new, but
65 Because it is intended for internal use by Perl core components,
66 there is no C<use English> long name for this variable.
70 By default, running out of memory it is not trappable. However, if
71 compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as an emergency
72 pool after die()ing with this message. Suppose that your Perl were
73 compiled with -DEMERGENCY_SBRK and used Perl's malloc. Then
77 would allocate a 64K buffer for use when in emergency.
78 See the F<INSTALL> file for information on how to enable this option.
79 As a disincentive to casual use of this advanced feature,
80 there is no C<use English> long name for this variable.
84 The status returned by the last pipe close, back-tick (C<``>) command, or
85 system() operator, in the native system format. On UNIX and UNIX-like
86 systems, C<$^S> is a synonym for C<$?>. Elsewhere, C<$^S> can be used to
87 determine aspects of child status that are system-specific. Check C<$^O>
88 before using this variable. (Mnemonic: System-Specific Subprocess Status.
89 Also known as $SYSTEM_CHILD_STATUS if you C<use English>.)
93 =head2 New and Changed Built-in Functions
97 =item delete on slices
99 This now works. (e.g. C<delete @ENV{'PATH', 'MANPATH'}>)
103 is now supported on more platforms, and prefers fcntl
104 to lockf when emulating.
106 =item keys as an lvalue
108 As an lvalue, C<keys> allows you to increase the number of hash buckets
109 allocated for the given associative array. This can gain you a measure
110 of efficiency if you know the hash is going to get big. (This is
111 similar to pre-extending an array by assigning a larger number to
116 then C<%hash> will have at least 200 buckets allocated for it. These
117 buckets will be retained even if you do C<%hash = ()>; use C<undef
118 %hash> if you want to free the storage while C<%hash> is still in scope.
119 You can't shrink the number of buckets allocated for the hash using
120 C<keys> in this way (but you needn't worry about doing this by accident,
121 as trying has no effect).
123 =item my() in Control Structures
125 You can now use my() (with or without the parentheses) in the control
126 expressions of control structures such as:
128 while (my $line = <>) {
134 if ((my $answer = <STDIN>) =~ /^y(es)?$/i) {
136 } elsif ($answer =~ /^n(o)?$/i) {
140 die "`$answer' is neither `yes' nor `no'";
143 Also, you can declare a foreach loop control variable as lexical by
144 preceding it with the word "my". For example, in:
146 foreach my $i (1, 2, 3) {
150 $i is a lexical variable, and the scope of $i extends to the end of
151 the loop, but not beyond it.
153 Note that you still cannot use my() on global punctuation variables
154 such as $_ and the like.
156 =item unpack() and pack()
158 A new format 'w' represents a BER compressed integer (as defined in
159 ASN.1). Its format is a sequence of one or more bytes, each of which
160 provides seven bits of the total value, with the most significant
161 first. Bit eight of each byte is set, except for the last byte, in
162 which bit eight is clear.
166 If the first argument to C<use> is a number, it is treated as a version
167 number instead of a module name. If the version of the Perl interpreter
168 is less than VERSION, then an error message is printed and Perl exits
169 immediately. Because C<use> occurs at compile time, this check happens
170 immediately during the compilation process, unlike C<require VERSION>,
171 which waits until run-time for the check. This is often useful if you
172 need to check the current Perl version before C<use>ing library modules
173 which have changed in incompatible ways from older versions of Perl.
174 (We try not to do this more than we have to.)
176 =item use Module VERSION LIST
178 If the VERSION argument is present between Module and LIST, then the
179 C<use> will call the VERSION method in class Module with the given
180 version as an argument. The default VERSION method, inherited from
181 the Universal class, croaks if the given version is larger than the
182 value of the variable $Module::VERSION. (Note that there is not a
183 comma after VERSION!)
185 This version-checking mechanism is similar to the one currently used
186 in the Exporter module, but it is faster and can be used with modules
187 that don't use the Exporter. It is the recommended method for new
190 =item prototype(FUNCTION)
192 Returns the prototype of a function as a string (or C<undef> if the
193 function has no prototype). FUNCTION is a reference to or the name of the
194 function whose prototype you want to retrieve.
195 (Not actually new; just never documented before.)
199 Functions documented in the Camel to default to $_ now in
200 fact do, and all those that do are so documented in L<perlfunc>.
202 =item C<m//g> does not trigger a pos() reset on failure
204 The C<m//g> match iteration construct used to reset the iteration
205 when it failed to match (so that the next C<m//g> match would start at
206 the beginning of the string). You now have to explicitly do a
207 C<pos $str = 0;> to reset the "last match" position, or modify the
208 string in some way. This change makes it practical to chain C<m//g>
209 matches together in conjunction with ordinary matches using the C<\G>
210 zero-width assertion. See L<perlop> and L<perlre>.
212 =item nested C<sub{}> closures work now
214 Prior to the 5.004 release, nested anonymous functions
215 didn't work right. They do now.
217 =item formats work right on changing lexicals
219 Just like anonymous functions that contain lexical variables
220 that change (like a lexical index variable for a C<foreach> loop),
221 formats now work properly. For example, this silently failed
222 before, and is fine now:
225 foreach $i ( 1 .. 10 ) {
235 =head2 New Built-in Methods
237 The C<UNIVERSAL> package automatically contains the following methods that
238 are inherited by all other classes:
244 C<isa> returns I<true> if its object is blessed into a sub-class of C<CLASS>
246 C<isa> is also exportable and can be called as a sub with two arguments. This
247 allows the ability to check what a reference points to. Example:
249 use UNIVERSAL qw(isa);
251 if(isa($ref, 'ARRAY')) {
257 C<can> checks to see if its object has a method called C<METHOD>,
258 if it does then a reference to the sub is returned; if it does not then
259 I<undef> is returned.
261 =item VERSION( [NEED] )
263 C<VERSION> returns the version number of the class (package). If the
264 NEED argument is given then it will check that the current version (as
265 defined by the $VERSION variable in the given package) not less than
266 NEED; it will die if this is not the case. This method is normally
267 called as a class method. This method is called automatically by the
268 C<VERSION> form of C<use>.
270 use A 1.2 qw(some imported subs);
276 C<class> returns the class name of its object.
280 C<is_instance> returns true if its object is an instance of some
281 class, false if its object is the class (package) itself. Example
283 A->is_instance(); # False
286 $var->is_instance(); # False
288 $ref = bless [], 'A';
289 $ref->is_instance(); # True
291 This can be useful for methods that wish to easily distinguish
292 whether they were invoked as class or as instance methods.
295 my $classname = shift;
296 if ($classname->is_instance()) {
297 die "unexpectedly called as instance not class method";
304 B<NOTE:> C<can> directly uses Perl's internal code for method lookup, and
305 C<isa> uses a very similar method and caching strategy. This may cause
306 strange effects if the Perl code dynamically changes @ISA in any package.
308 You may add other methods to the UNIVERSAL class via Perl or XS code.
309 You do not need to C<use UNIVERSAL> in order to make these methods
310 available to your program. This is necessary only if you wish to
311 have C<isa> available as a plain subroutine in the current package.
313 =head2 TIEHANDLE Now Supported
315 See L<perltie> for other kinds of tie()s.
319 =item TIEHANDLE classname, LIST
321 This is the constructor for the class. That means it is expected to
322 return an object of some sort. The reference can be used to
323 hold some internal information.
328 return bless \$i, shift;
331 =item PRINT this, LIST
333 This method will be triggered every time the tied handle is printed to.
334 Beyond its self reference it also expects the list that was passed to
340 return print join( $, => map {uc} @_), $\;
345 This method will be called when the handle is read from. The method
346 should return undef when there is no more data.
350 return "PRINT called $$r times\n";
355 As with the other types of ties, this method will be called when the
356 tied handle is about to be destroyed. This is useful for debugging and
357 possibly for cleaning up.
365 =item Efficiency Enhancements
367 All hash keys with the same string are only allocated once, so
368 even if you have 100 copies of the same hash, the immutable keys
369 never have to be re-allocated.
371 Functions that have an empty prototype and that do nothing but return
372 a fixed value are now inlined (e.g. C<sub PI () { 3.14159 }>).
376 Three new pragmatic modules exist:
384 Looks for MakeMaker-like I<'blib'> directory structure starting in
385 I<dir> (or current directory) and working back up to five levels of
388 Intended for use on command line with B<-M> option as a way of testing
389 arbitrary scripts against an uninstalled version of a package.
393 Tells the compiler to enable (or disable) the use of POSIX locales for
396 When C<use locale> is in effect, the current LC_CTYPE locale is used
397 for regular expressions and case mapping; LC_COLLATE for string
398 ordering; and LC_NUMERIC for numeric formating in printf and sprintf
399 (but B<not> in print). LC_NUMERIC is always used in write, since
400 lexical scoping of formats is problematic at best.
402 Each C<use locale> or C<no locale> affects statements to the end of
403 the enclosing BLOCK or, if not inside a BLOCK, to the end of the
404 current file. Locales can be switched and queried with
407 See L<perllocale> for more information.
411 Disable unsafe opcodes, or any named opcodes, when compiling Perl code.
417 =head2 Installation Directories
419 The I<installperl> script now places the Perl source files for
420 extensions in the architecture-specific library directory, which is
421 where the shared libraries for extensions have always been. This
422 change is intended to allow administrators to keep the Perl 5.004
423 library directory unchanged from a previous version, without running
424 the risk of binary incompatibility between extensions' Perl source and
429 New constants in the existing Fcntl modules are now supported,
430 provided that your operating system happens to support them:
433 O_ASYNC O_DEFER O_DSYNC O_FSYNC O_SYNC
436 These constants are intended for use with the Perl operators sysopen()
437 and fcntl() and the basic database modules like SDBM_File. For the
438 exact meaning of these and other Fcntl constants please refer to your
439 operating system's documentation for fcntl() and open().
441 In addition, the Fcntl module now provides these constants for use
442 with the Perl operator flock():
444 LOCK_SH LOCK_EX LOCK_NB LOCK_UN
446 These constants are defined in all environments (because where there is
447 no flock() system call, Perl emulates it). However, for historical
448 reasons, these constants are not exported unless they are explicitly
449 requested with the ":flock" tag (e.g. C<use Fcntl ':flock'>).
451 =head2 Module Information Summary
453 Brand new modules, arranged by topic rather than strictly
456 CPAN interface to Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
457 CPAN::FirstTime create a CPAN configuration file
458 CPAN::Nox run CPAN while avoiding compiled extensions
460 IO.pm Top-level interface to IO::* classes
461 IO/File.pm IO::File extension Perl module
462 IO/Handle.pm IO::Handle extension Perl module
463 IO/Pipe.pm IO::Pipe extension Perl module
464 IO/Seekable.pm IO::Seekable extension Perl module
465 IO/Select.pm IO::Select extension Perl module
466 IO/Socket.pm IO::Socket extension Perl module
468 Opcode.pm Disable named opcodes when compiling Perl code
470 ExtUtils/Embed.pm Utilities for embedding Perl in C programs
471 ExtUtils/testlib.pm Fixes up @INC to use just-built extension
473 Fatal.pm Make do-or-die equivalents of functions
474 FindBin.pm Find path of currently executing program
476 Class/Template.pm Structure/member template builder
477 File/stat.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::stat
478 Net/hostent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::gethost*
479 Net/netent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getnet*
480 Net/protoent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getproto*
481 Net/servent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getserv*
482 Time/gmtime.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::gmtime
483 Time/localtime.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::localtime
484 Time/tm.pm Perl implementation of "struct tm" for {gm,local}time
485 User/grent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getgr*
486 User/pwent.pm Object-oriented wrapper around CORE::getpw*
488 Tie/RefHash.pm Base class for tied hashes with references as keys
490 UNIVERSAL.pm Base class for *ALL* classes
494 The IO module provides a simple mechanism to load all of the IO modules at one
495 go. Currently this includes:
503 For more information on any of these modules, please see its
504 respective documentation.
508 The Math::Complex module has been totally rewritten, and now supports
509 more operations. These are overloaded:
511 + - * / ** <=> neg ~ abs sqrt exp log sin cos atan2 "" (stringify)
513 And these functions are now exported:
517 tan cotan asin acos atan acotan
518 sinh cosh tanh cotanh asinh acosh atanh acotanh
523 There have been quite a few changes made to DB_File. Here are a few of
530 Fixed a handful of bugs.
534 By public demand, added support for the standard hash function exists().
538 Made it compatible with Berkeley DB 1.86.
542 Made negative subscripts work with RECNO interface.
546 Changed the default flags from O_RDWR to O_CREAT|O_RDWR and the default
547 mode from 0640 to 0666.
551 Made DB_File automatically import the open() constants (O_RDWR,
552 O_CREAT etc.) from Fcntl, if available.
556 Updated documentation.
560 Refer to the HISTORY section in DB_File.pm for a complete list of
561 changes. Everything after DB_File 1.01 has been added since 5.003.
565 Major rewrite - support added for both udp echo and real icmp pings.
567 =head2 Overridden Built-ins
569 Many of the Perl built-ins returning lists now have
570 object-oriented overrides. These are:
582 For example, you can now say
586 $his = (stat($filename)->st_uid == pwent($whoever)->pw_uid);
588 =head1 Utility Changes
594 =item C<void> XSUBs now default to returning nothing
596 Due to a documentation/implementation bug in previous versions of
597 Perl, XSUBs with a return type of C<void> have actually been
598 returning one value. Usually that value was the GV for the XSUB,
599 but sometimes it was some already freed or reused value, which would
600 sometimes lead to program failure.
602 In Perl 5.004, if an XSUB is declared as returning C<void>, it
603 actually returns no value, i.e. an empty list (though there is a
604 backward-compatibility exception; see below). If your XSUB really
605 does return an SV, you should give it a return type of C<SV *>.
607 For backward compatibility, I<xsubpp> tries to guess whether a
608 C<void> XSUB is really C<void> or if it wants to return an C<SV *>.
609 It does so by examining the text of the XSUB: if I<xsubpp> finds
610 what looks like an assignment to C<ST(0)>, it assumes that the
611 XSUB's return type is really C<SV *>.
615 =head1 C Language API Changes
619 =item C<gv_fetchmethod> and C<perl_call_sv>
621 The C<gv_fetchmethod> function finds a method for an object, just like
622 in Perl 5.003. The GV it returns may be a method cache entry.
623 However, in Perl 5.004, method cache entries are not visible to users;
624 therefore, they can no longer be passed directly to C<perl_call_sv>.
625 Instead, you should use the C<GvCV> macro on the GV to extract its CV,
626 and pass the CV to C<perl_call_sv>.
628 The most likely symptom of passing the result of C<gv_fetchmethod> to
629 C<perl_call_sv> is Perl's producing an "Undefined subroutine called"
630 error on the I<second> call to a given method (since there is no cache
635 =head1 Documentation Changes
637 Many of the base and library pods were updated. These
638 new pods are included in section 1:
648 Locale support (internationalization and localization).
652 Tutorial on Perl OO programming.
656 Perl internal IO abstraction interface.
660 Although not new, this has been massively updated.
664 Although not new, this has been massively updated.
668 =head1 New Diagnostics
670 Several new conditions will trigger warnings that were
671 silent before. Some only affect certain platforms.
672 The following new warnings and errors outline these.
673 These messages are classified as follows (listed in
674 increasing order of desperation):
676 (W) A warning (optional).
677 (D) A deprecation (optional).
678 (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
679 (F) A fatal error (trappable).
680 (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
681 (X) A very fatal error (non-trappable).
682 (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).
686 =item "my" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same scope
688 (S) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the same scope, effectively
689 eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always
690 a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist
691 until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are
694 =item %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
696 (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash element, such as
699 $ref->[12]->{"susie"}
701 or a hash slice, such as
703 @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
704 @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}
706 =item Allocation too large: %lx
708 (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MSDOS machine.
710 =item Allocation too large
712 (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount" bytes.
714 =item Attempt to free non-existent shared string
716 (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table of strings to
717 optimize the storage and access of hash keys and other strings. This
718 indicates someone tried to decrement the reference count of a string
719 that can no longer be found in the table.
721 =item Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
723 (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to substr() used
724 as an lvalue, which is pretty strange. Perhaps you forgot to
725 dereference it first. See L<perlfunc/substr>.
727 =item Unsupported function fork
729 (F) Your version of executable does not support forking.
731 Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be different flavors of
732 Perl executables, some of which may support fork, some not. Try changing
733 the name you call Perl by to C<perl_>, C<perl__>, and so on.
735 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
737 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
738 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
739 names. Since it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
740 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
741 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce non-standard names,
742 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
744 =item Can't use bareword ("%s") as %s ref while "strict refs" in use
746 (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict refs". Symbolic references
747 are disallowed. See L<perlref>.
749 =item Constant subroutine %s redefined
751 (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously been eligible for
752 inlining. See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> for commentary and
757 (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent of C<die "">) or
758 you called it with no args and both C<$@> and C<$_> were empty.
760 =item Integer overflow in hex number
762 (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too big for your
763 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest hex literal is
766 =item Integer overflow in octal number
768 (S) The literal octal number you have specified is too big for your
769 architecture. On a 32-bit architecture the largest octal literal is
772 =item Name "%s::%s" used only once: possible typo
774 (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names.
775 If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention
776 it again somehow to suppress the message (the C<use vars> pragma is
777 provided for just this purpose).
779 =item Null picture in formline
781 (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid format picture
782 specification. It was found to be empty, which probably means you
783 supplied it an uninitialized value. See L<perlform>.
785 =item Offset outside string
787 (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation with an offset
788 pointing outside the buffer. This is difficult to imagine.
789 The sole exception to this is that C<sysread()>ing past the buffer
790 will extend the buffer and zero pad the new area.
792 =item Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `%s'
794 (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be broken by importing stubs.
795 Stubs should never be implicitely created, but explicit calls to C<can>
798 =item Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package `s'
800 (P) Internal error trying to resolve overloading specified by a method
801 name (as opposed to a subroutine reference).
805 (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
806 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request.
808 The request was judged to be small, so the possibility to trap it
809 depends on the way Perl was compiled. By default it is not trappable.
810 However, if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of C<$^M> as
811 an emergency pool after die()ing with this message. In this case the
812 error is trappable I<once>.
814 =item Out of memory during request for %s
816 (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating there was insufficient
817 remaining memory (or virtual memory) to satisfy the request. However,
818 the request was judged large enough (compile-time default is 64K), so
819 a possibility to shut down by trapping this error is granted.
821 =item Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
823 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; as with literal
824 strings, comment characters are not ignored, but are instead treated
825 as literal data. (You may have used different delimiters than the
826 exclamation marks parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
829 You probably wrote something like this:
836 when you should have written this:
843 If you really want comments, build your list the
844 old-fashioned way, with quotes and commas:
848 'b', # another comment
851 =item Possible attempt to separate words with commas
853 (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace; therefore commas
854 aren't needed to separate the items. (You may have used different
855 delimiters than the parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
858 You probably wrote something like this:
862 which puts literal commas into some of the list items. Write it without
863 commas if you don't want them to appear in your data:
867 =item Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
869 (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to select a single element of
870 a hash. Generally it's better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
871 The difference is that C<$foo{&bar}> always behaves like a scalar, both when
872 assigning to it and when evaluating its argument, while C<@foo{&bar}> behaves
873 like a list when you assign to it, and provides a list context to its
874 subscript, which can do weird things if you're expecting only one subscript.
876 =item untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
878 (W) A copy of the object returned from C<tie> (or C<tied>) was still
879 valid when C<untie> was called.
881 =item Value of %s construct can be "0"; test with defined()
883 (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>, <*> (glob), or
884 C<readdir> as a boolean value. Each of these constructs can return a
885 value of "0"; that would make the conditional expression false, which
886 is probably not what you intended. When using these constructs in
887 conditional expressions, test their values with the C<defined> operator.
889 =item Variable "%s" may be unavailable
891 (W) An inner (nested) I<anonymous> subroutine is inside a I<named>
892 subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the anonymous
893 (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable defined in
894 the outermost subroutine. For example:
896 sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }
898 If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
899 indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the variable
900 as you would expect. But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
901 referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active, it will see
902 the value of the shared variable as it was before and during the
903 *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is probably not what
906 In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
907 subroutine anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. Perl has specific
908 support for shared variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
909 subroutine in between interferes with this feature.
911 =item Variable "%s" will not stay shared
913 (W) An inner (nested) I<named> subroutine is referencing a lexical
914 variable defined in an outer subroutine.
916 When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably see the value of
917 the outer subroutine's variable as it was before and during the
918 *first* call to the outer subroutine; in this case, after the first
919 call to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and outer
920 subroutines will no longer share a common value for the variable. In
921 other words, the variable will no longer be shared.
923 Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and references a
924 lexical variable outside itself, then the outer and inner subroutines
925 will I<never> share the given variable.
927 This problem can usually be solved by making the inner subroutine
928 anonymous, using the C<sub {}> syntax. When inner anonymous subs that
929 reference variables in outer subroutines are called or referenced,
930 they are automatically re-bound to the current values of such
933 =item Warning: something's wrong
935 (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent of C<warn "">) or
936 you called it with no args and C<$_> was empty.
938 =item Got an error from DosAllocMem
940 (P) An error peculiar to OS/2. Most probably you're using an obsolete
941 version of Perl, and this should not happen anyway.
943 =item Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
945 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERLLIB_PREFIX should be of the form
953 with non-empty prefix1 and prefix2. If C<prefix1> is indeed a prefix of
954 a builtin library search path, prefix2 is substituted. The error may appear
955 if components are not found, or are too long. See L<perlos2/"PERLLIB_PREFIX">.
957 =item PERL_SH_DIR too long
959 (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the directory to find the
960 C<sh>-shell in. See L<perlos2/"PERL_SH_DIR">.
962 =item Process terminated by SIG%s
964 (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications, while *nix
965 applications die in silence. It is considered a feature of the OS/2
966 port. One can easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see
967 L<perlipc/"Signals">. See L<perlos2/"Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT">.
973 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the headers of
974 recently posted articles in the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
975 There may also be information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl
978 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
979 program included with your release. Make sure you trim your bug
980 down to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along
981 with the output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.com
982 to be analysed by the Perl porting team.
986 The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
988 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. This file has been
989 significantly updated for 5.004, so even veteran users should
992 The F<README> file for general stuff.
994 The F<Copying> file for copyright information.
998 Constructed by Tom Christiansen, grabbing material with permission
999 from innumerable contributors, with kibitzing by more than a few Perl
1002 Last update: Tue Jan 14 14:03:02 EST 1997