3 perldelta - what's new for perl v5.6 (as of v5.005_64)
7 This is an unsupported alpha release, meant for intrepid Perl developers
8 only. The included sources may not even build correctly on some platforms.
9 Subscribing to perl5-porters is the best way to monitor and contribute
10 to the progress of development releases (see www.perl.org for info).
12 This document describes differences between the 5.005 release and this one.
14 =head1 Incompatible Changes
16 =head2 Perl Source Incompatibilities
18 Beware that any new warnings that have been added or old ones
19 that have been enhanced are B<not> considered incompatible changes.
21 Since all new warnings must be explicitly requested via the C<-w>
22 switch or the C<warnings> pragma, it is ultimately the programmer's
23 responsibility to ensure that warnings are enabled judiciously.
27 =item STOP is a new keyword
29 In addition to C<BEGIN>, C<INIT>, C<END>, C<DESTROY> and C<AUTOLOAD>,
30 subroutines named C<STOP> are now special. These are queued up during
31 compilation and behave similar to END blocks, except they are called at
32 the end of compilation rather than at the end of execution. They cannot
35 =item Treatment of list slices of undef has changed
37 When taking a slice of a literal list (as opposed to a slice of
38 an array or hash), Perl used to return an empty list if the
39 result happened to be composed of all undef values.
41 The new behavior is to produce an empty list if (and only if)
42 the original list was empty. Consider the following example:
44 @a = (1,undef,undef,2)[2,1,2];
46 The old behavior would have resulted in @a having no elements.
47 The new behavior ensures it has three undefined elements.
49 Note in particular that the behavior of slices of the following
50 cases remains unchanged:
54 @a = (anything_returning_empty_list())[2,1,2];
60 =item Possibly changed pseudo-random number generator
62 In 5.005_0x and earlier, perl's rand() function used the C library
63 rand(3) function. As of 5.005_52, Configure tests for drand48(),
64 random(), and rand() (in that order) and picks the first one it finds.
65 Perl programs that depend on reproducing a specific set of pseudo-random
66 numbers will now likely produce different output. You can use
67 C<sh Configure -Drandfunc=rand> to obtain the old behavior.
69 =item Hashing function for hash keys has changed
71 Perl hashes are not order preserving. The apparently random order
72 encountered when iterating on the contents of a hash is determined
73 by the hashing algorithm used. To improve the distribution of lower
74 bits in the hashed value, the algorithm has changed slightly as of
75 5.005_52. When iterating over hashes, this may yield a random order
76 that is B<different> from that of previous versions.
78 =item C<undef> fails on read only values
80 Using the C<undef> operator on a readonly value (such as $1) has
81 the same effect as assigning C<undef> to the readonly value--it
84 =item Close-on-exec bit may be set on pipe() handles
86 On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on filehandles, the
87 flag will be set for any handles created by pipe(), if that is
88 warranted by the value of $^F that may be in effect. Earlier
89 versions neglected to set the flag for handles created with
90 pipe(). See L<perlfunc/pipe> and L<perlvar/$^F>.
92 =item Writing C<"$$1"> to mean C<"${$}1"> is unsupported
94 Perl 5.004 deprecated the interpretation of C<$$1> and
95 similar within interpolated strings to mean C<$$ . "1">,
98 In Perl 5.6 and later, C<"$$1"> always means C<"${$1}">.
100 =item delete(), values() and C<\(%h)> operate on aliases to values, not copies
102 delete(), each(), values() and hashes in a list context return the actual
103 values in the hash, instead of copies (as they used to in earlier
104 versions). Typical idioms for using these constructs copy the
105 returned values, but this can make a significant difference when
106 creating references to the returned values.
108 Keys in the hash are still returned as copies when iterating on
111 =item vec(EXPR,OFFSET,BITS) enforces powers-of-two BITS
113 vec() generates a run-time error if the BITS argument is not
114 a valid power-of-two integer.
116 =item Text of some diagnostic output has changed
118 Most references to internal Perl operations in diagnostics
119 have been changed to be more descriptive. This may be an
120 issue for programs that may incorrectly rely on the exact
121 text of diagnostics for proper functioning.
123 =item C<%@> has been removed
125 The undocumented special variable C<%@> that used to accumulate
126 "background" errors (such as those that happen in DESTROY())
127 has been removed, because it could potentially result in memory
130 =item Parenthesized not() behaves like a list operator
132 The C<not> operator now falls under the "if it looks like a function,
133 it behaves like a function" rule.
135 As a result, the parenthesized form can be used with C<grep> and C<map>.
136 The following construct used to be a syntax error before, but it works
139 grep not($_), @things;
141 On the other hand, using C<not> with a literal list slice may not
142 work. The following previously allowed construct:
144 print not (1,2,3)[0];
146 needs to be written with additional parentheses now:
148 print not((1,2,3)[0]);
150 The behavior remains unaffected when C<not> is not followed by parentheses.
154 =head2 C Source Incompatibilities
158 =item C<PERL_POLLUTE>
160 Release 5.005 grandfathered old global symbol names by providing preprocessor
161 macros for extension source compatibility. As of release 5.6, these
162 preprocessor definitions are not available by default. You need to explicitly
163 compile perl with C<-DPERL_POLLUTE> to get these definitions. For
164 extensions still using the old symbols, this option can be
165 specified via MakeMaker:
167 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
169 =item C<PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT>
171 PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT is automatically enabled whenever Perl is built
172 with one of -Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, or both. It is not
173 intended to be enabled by users at this time.
175 This new build option provides a set of macros for all API functions
176 such that an implicit interpreter/thread context argument is passed to
177 every API function. As a result of this, something like C<sv_setsv(foo,bar)>
178 amounts to a macro invocation that actually translates to something like
179 C<Perl_sv_setsv(my_perl,foo,bar)>. While this is generally expected
180 to not have any significant source compatibility issues, the difference
181 between a macro and a real function call will need to be considered.
183 This means that there B<is> a source compatibility issue as a result of
184 this if your extensions attempt to use pointers to any of the Perl API
187 Note that the above issue is not relevant to the default build of
188 Perl, whose interfaces continue to match those of prior versions
189 (but subject to the other options described here).
191 See L<perlguts/"The Perl API"> for detailed information on the
192 ramifications of building Perl using this option.
194 =item C<PERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC>
196 Enabling Perl's malloc in release 5.005 and earlier caused
197 the namespace of system versions of the malloc family of functions to
198 be usurped by the Perl versions, since by default they used the
201 Besides causing problems on platforms that do not allow these functions to
202 be cleanly replaced, this also meant that the system versions could not
203 be called in programs that used Perl's malloc. Previous versions of Perl
204 have allowed this behaviour to be suppressed with the HIDEMYMALLOC and
205 EMBEDMYMALLOC preprocessor definitions.
207 As of release 5.6, Perl's malloc family of functions have default names
208 distinct from the system versions. You need to explicitly compile perl with
209 C<-DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC> to get the older behaviour. HIDEMYMALLOC
210 and EMBEDMYMALLOC have no effect, since the behaviour they enabled is now
213 Note that these functions do B<not> constitute Perl's memory allocation API.
214 See L<perlguts/"Memory Allocation"> for further information about that.
218 =head2 Compatible C Source API Changes
222 =item C<PATCHLEVEL> is now C<PERL_VERSION>
224 The cpp macros C<PERL_REVISION>, C<PERL_VERSION>, and C<PERL_SUBVERSION>
225 are now available by default from perl.h, and reflect the base revision,
226 patchlevel, and subversion respectively. C<PERL_REVISION> had no
227 prior equivalent, while C<PERL_VERSION> and C<PERL_SUBVERSION> were
228 previously available as C<PATCHLEVEL> and C<SUBVERSION>.
230 The new names cause less pollution of the B<cpp> namespace and reflect what
231 the numbers have come to stand for in common practice. For compatibility,
232 the old names are still supported when F<patchlevel.h> is explicitly
233 included (as required before), so there is no source incompatibility
236 =item Support for C++ exceptions
238 change#3386, also needs perlguts documentation
239 [TODO - Chip Salzenberg <chip@perlsupport.com>]
243 =head2 Binary Incompatibilities
245 The default build of this release is binary compatible with the 5.005
246 release or its maintenance versions.
248 The usethreads or usemultiplicity builds are B<not> binary compatible
249 with the corresponding builds in 5.005.
251 =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
253 =head2 New Configure flags
255 The following new flags may be enabled on the Configure command line
256 by running Configure with C<-Dflag>.
264 =head2 -Dusethreads and -Duse64bits now more daring
266 The Configure options enabling the use of threads and the use of
267 64-bitness are now more daring in the sense that they no more have
268 an explicit list of operating systems of known threads/64-bit
269 capabilities. In other words: if your operating system has the
270 necessary APIs, you should be able just to go ahead and use them.
271 See also L<"64-bit support">.
275 Some platforms have "long doubles", floating point numbers of even
276 larger range than ordinary "doubles". To enable using long doubles for
277 Perl's scalars, use -Duselongdouble.
281 You can enable both -Duse64bits and -Dlongdouble by -Dusemorebits.
282 See also L<"64-bit support">.
284 =head2 -Duselargefiles
286 Some platforms support large files, files larger than two gigabytes.
287 See L<"Large file support"> for more information.
289 =head2 installusrbinperl
291 You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
292 to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl. This is useful if you
293 prefer not to modify /usr/bin for some reason or another but harmful
294 because many scripts assume to find Perl in /usr/bin/perl.
298 You can use "Configure -Dusesocks" which causes Perl to probe
299 for the SOCKS (v5, not v4) proxy protocol library,
300 http://www.socks.nec.com/
304 You can "post-edit" the Configure variables using the Configure C<-A>
305 flag. The editing happens immediately after the platform specific
306 hints files have been processed but before the actual configuration
307 process starts. Run C<Configure -h> to find out the full C<-A> syntax.
309 =head2 Enhanced Installation Directories
311 The installation structure has been enriched to improve the support for
312 maintaining multiple versions of perl, to provide locations for
313 vendor-supplied modules and scripts, and to ease maintenance of
314 locally-added modules and scripts. See the section on Installation
315 Directories in the INSTALL file for complete details. For most users
316 building and installing from source, the defaults should be fine.
320 =head2 Unicode and UTF-8 support
322 Perl can optionally use UTF-8 as its internal representation for character
323 strings. The C<utf8> pragma enables this support in the current lexical
324 scope. See L<utf8> for more information.
326 =head2 Interpreter threads
328 WARNING: This is an experimental feature in a pre-alpha state. Use
331 Perl 5.005_63 introduces the beginnings of support for running multiple
332 interpreters concurrently in different threads. In conjunction with
333 the perl_clone() API call, which can be used to selectively duplicate
334 the state of any given interpreter, it is possible to compile a
335 piece of code once in an interpreter, clone that interpreter
336 one or more times, and run all the resulting interpreters in distinct
339 On Windows, this feature is used to emulate fork() at the interpreter
340 level. See L<perlfork>.
342 This feature is still in evolution. It is eventually meant to be used
343 to selectively clone a subroutine and data reachable from that
344 subroutine in a separate interpreter and run the cloned subroutine
345 in a separate thread. Since there is no shared data between the
346 interpreters, little or no locking will be needed (unless parts of
347 the symbol table are explicitly shared). This is obviously intended
348 to be an easy-to-use replacement for the existing threads support.
350 Support for cloning interpreters must currently be manually enabled
351 by defining the cpp macro USE_ITHREADS on non-Windows platforms.
352 (See win32/Makefile for how to enable it on Windows.) The resulting
353 perl executable will be functionally identical to one that was built
354 without USE_ITHREADS, but the perl_clone() API call will only be
355 available in the former.
357 USE_ITHREADS enables Perl source code changes that provide a clear
358 separation between the op tree and the data it operates with. The
359 former is considered immutable, and can therefore be shared between
360 an interpreter and all of its clones, while the latter is considered
361 local to each interpreter, and is therefore copied for each clone.
363 Note that building Perl with the -Dusemultiplicity Configure option
364 is adequate if you wish to run multiple B<independent> interpreters
365 concurrently in different threads. USE_ITHREADS only needs to be
366 enabled if you wish to obtain access to perl_clone() and cloned
369 [XXX TODO - the Compiler backends may be broken when USE_ITHREADS is
372 =head2 Lexically scoped warning categories
374 You can now control the granularity of warnings emitted by perl at a finer
375 level using the C<use warnings> pragma. See L<warnings> and L<perllexwarn>
378 =head2 Lvalue subroutines
380 WARNING: This is an experimental feature.
383 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>,
384 Tuomas Lukka <lukka@fas.harvard.edu>)]
386 =head2 "our" declarations
388 An "our" declaration introduces a value that can be best understood
389 as a lexically scoped symbolic alias to a global variable in the
390 current package. This is mostly useful as an alternative to the
391 C<vars> pragma, but also provides the opportunity to introduce
392 typing and other attributes for such variables. See L<perlfunc/our>.
394 =head2 Weak references
396 WARNING: This is an experimental feature.
398 change#3385, also need perlguts documentation
400 [TODO - Tuomas Lukka <lukka@fas.harvard.edu>]
402 =head2 File globbing implemented internally
404 WARNING: This is currently an experimental feature. Interfaces and
405 implementation are likely to change.
407 Perl now uses the File::Glob implementation of the glob() operator
408 automatically. This avoids using an external csh process and the
409 problems associated with it.
411 =head2 Binary numbers supported
413 Binary numbers are now supported as literals, in s?printf formats, and
417 printf "The answer is: %b\n", oct("0b101010");
419 =head2 Some arrows may be omitted in calls through references
421 Perl now allows the arrow to be omitted in many constructs
422 involving subroutine calls through references. For example,
423 C<$foo[10]->('foo')> may now be written C<$foo[10]('foo')>.
424 This is rather similar to how the arrow may be omitted from
425 C<$foo[10]->{'foo'}>. Note however, that the arrow is still
426 required for C<foo(10)->('bar')>.
428 =head2 exists() and delete() are supported on array elements
430 The exists() and delete() builtins now work on simple arrays as well.
431 The behavior is similar to that on hash elements.
433 exists() can be used to check whether an array element exists without
434 autovivifying it. If the array is tied, the EXISTS() method in the
435 corresponding tied package will be invoked.
437 delete() may now be used to remove an element from the array and return
438 it. If the element happens to be the one at the end, the size of the
439 array also shrinks by one. If the array is tied, the DELETE() method
440 in the corresponding tied package will be invoked.
442 See L<perlfunc/exists> and L<perlfunc/delete> for examples.
444 =head2 syswrite() ease-of-use
446 The length argument of C<syswrite()> has become optional.
448 =head2 Filehandles can be autovivified
450 Similar to how constructs such as C<$x->[0]> autovivify a reference,
451 open() now autovivifies a filehandle if the first argument is an
452 uninitialized variable. This allows the constructs C<open(my $fh, ...)> and
453 C<open(local $fh,...)> to be used to create filehandles that will
454 conveniently be closed automatically when the scope ends, provided there
455 are no other references to them. This largely eliminates the need for
456 typeglobs when opening filehandles that must be passed around, as in the
461 or die "Can't open '@_': $!";
466 my $f = myopen("</etc/motd");
468 # $f implicitly closed here
471 [TODO - this idiom needs more pod penetration]
473 =head2 64-bit support
475 All platforms that have 64-bit integers either (a) natively as longs
476 or ints (b) via special compiler flags (c) using long long are able to
477 use "quads" (64-integers) as follows:
483 constants (decimal, hexadecimal, octal, binary) in the code
487 arguments to oct() and hex()
491 arguments to print(), printf() and sprintf() (flag prefixes ll, L, q)
499 pack() and unpack() "q" and "Q" formats
503 in basic arithmetics: + - * / %
507 vec() (but see the below note about bit arithmetics)
511 Note that unless you have the case (a) you will have to configure
512 and compile Perl using the -Duse64bits Configure flag.
514 Unfortunately bit arithmetics (&, |, ^, ~, <<, >>) for numbers are not
515 64-bit clean, they are explictly forced to be 32-bit. Bit arithmetics
516 for bit vectors (created by vec()) are not limited in their width.
518 Last but not least: note that due to Perl's habit of always using
519 floating point numbers the quads are still not true integers.
520 When quads overflow their limits (0...18_446_744_073_709_551_615 unsigned,
521 -9_223_372_036_854_775_808...9_223_372_036_854_775_807 signed), they
522 are silently promoted to floating point numbers, after which they will
523 start losing precision (their lower digits).
525 =head2 Large file support
527 If you have filesystems that support "large files" (files larger than
528 2 gigabytes), you may now also be able to create and access them from
529 Perl. You have to use Configure -Duselargefiles. Turning on the
530 large file support turns on also the 64-bit support, for obvious reasons.
532 Note that in addition to requiring a proper file system to do large
533 files you may also need to adjust your per-process (or your
534 per-system, or per-process-group, or per-user-group) maximum filesize
535 limits before running Perl scripts that try to handle large files,
536 especially if you intend to write such files.
538 Finally, in addition to your process/process group maximum filesize
539 limits, you may have quota limits on your filesystems that stop you
540 (your user id or your user group id) from using large files.
542 Adjusting your process/user/group/file system/operating system limits
543 is outside the scope of Perl core language. For process limits, you
544 may try increasing the limits using your shell's limits/limit/ulimit
545 command before running Perl. The BSD::Resource extension (not
546 included with the standard Perl distribution) may also be of use, it
547 offers the getrlimit/setrlimit interface that can be used to adjust
548 process resource usage limits, including the maximum filesize limit.
552 In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
553 range of precision of your double precision floating point numbers
554 (that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
555 this support (if it is available).
559 You can Configure -Dusemorebits to turn on both the 64-bit support
560 and the long double support.
562 =head2 Enhanced support for sort() subroutines
564 Perl subroutines with a prototype of C<($$)> and XSUBs in general can
565 now be used as sort subroutines. In either case, the two elements to
566 be compared are passed as normal parameters in @_. See L<perlfunc/sort>.
568 For unprototyped sort subroutines, the historical behavior of passing
569 the elements to be compared as the global variables $a and $b remains
572 =head2 Better syntax checks on parenthesized unary operators
576 print defined(&foo,&bar,&baz);
577 print uc("foo","bar","baz");
580 used to be accidentally allowed in earlier versions, and produced
581 unpredictable behaviour. Some produced ancillary warnings
582 when used in this way; others silently did the wrong thing.
584 The parenthesized forms of most unary operators that expect a single
585 argument now ensure that they are not called with more than one
586 argument, making the cases shown above syntax errors. The usual
589 print defined &foo, &bar, &baz;
590 print uc "foo", "bar", "baz";
593 remains unchanged. See L<perlop>.
595 =head2 POSIX character class syntax [: :] supported
597 For example to match alphabetic characters use /[[:alpha:]]/.
598 See L<perlre> for details.
600 =head2 Improved C<qw//> operator
602 The C<qw//> operator is now evaluated at compile time into a true list
603 instead of being replaced with a run time call to C<split()>. This
604 removes the confusing misbehaviour of C<qw//> in scalar context, which
605 had inherited that behaviour from split().
609 $foo = ($bar) = qw(a b c); print "$foo|$bar\n";
611 now correctly prints "3|a", instead of "2|a".
613 =head2 pack() format 'Z' supported
615 The new format type 'Z' is useful for packing and unpacking null-terminated
616 strings. See L<perlfunc/"pack">.
618 =head2 pack() format modifier '!' supported
620 The new format type modifier '!' is useful for packing and unpacking
621 native shorts, ints, and longs. See L<perlfunc/"pack">.
623 =head2 pack() and unpack() support counted strings
625 The template character '/' can be used to specify a counted string
626 type to be packed or unpacked. See L<perlfunc/"pack">.
628 =head2 Comments in pack() templates
630 The '#' character in a template introduces a comment up to
631 end of the line. This facilitates documentation of pack()
634 =head2 $^X variables may now have names longer than one character
636 Formerly, $^X was synonymous with ${"\cX"}, but $^XY was a syntax
637 error. Now variable names that begin with a control character may be
638 arbitrarily long. However, for compatibility reasons, these variables
639 I<must> be written with explicit braces, as C<${^XY}> for example.
640 C<${^XYZ}> is synonymous with ${"\cXYZ"}. Variable names with more
641 than one control character, such as C<${^XY^Z}>, are illegal.
643 The old syntax has not changed. As before, `^X' may be either a
644 literal control-X character or the two-character sequence `caret' plus
645 `X'. When braces are omitted, the variable name stops after the
646 control character. Thus C<"$^XYZ"> continues to be synonymous with
647 C<$^X . "YZ"> as before.
649 As before, lexical variables may not have names beginning with control
650 characters. As before, variables whose names begin with a control
651 character are always forced to be in package `main'. All such variables
652 are reserved for future extensions, except those that begin with
653 C<^_>, which may be used by user programs and are guaranteed not to
654 acquire special meaning in any future version of Perl.
656 =head2 C<use attrs> implicit in subroutine attributes
658 Formerly, if you wanted to mark a subroutine as being a method call or
659 as requiring an automatic lock() when it is entered, you had to declare
660 that with a C<use attrs> pragma in the body of the subroutine.
661 That can now be accomplished with a declaration syntax, like this:
663 sub mymethod : locked, method ;
665 sub mymethod : locked, method {
669 F<AutoSplit.pm> and F<SelfLoader.pm> have been updated to keep the attributes
670 with the stubs they provide. See L<attributes>.
672 =head2 Regular expression improvements
674 change#2827,2373,2372,2365,1813,1800,4112,4158,4215,4301
675 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
677 =head2 Overloading improvements
680 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
682 =head2 open() with more than two arguments
684 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
686 =head2 Support for interpolating named characters
689 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
691 =head2 Experimental support for user-hooks in @INC
693 [TODO - Ken Fox <kfox@ford.com>]
695 =head2 C<require> and C<do> may be overridden
697 C<require> and C<do 'file'> operations may be overridden locally
698 by importing subroutines of the same name into the current package
699 (or globally by importing them into the CORE::GLOBAL:: namespace).
700 Overriding C<require> will also affect C<use>, provided the override
701 is visible at compile-time.
702 See L<perlsub/"Overriding Built-in Functions">.
704 =head2 New variable $^C reflects C<-c> switch
706 C<$^C> has a boolean value that reflects whether perl is being run
707 in compile-only mode (i.e. via the C<-c> switch). Since
708 BEGIN blocks are executed under such conditions, this variable
709 enables perl code to determine whether actions that make sense
710 only during normal running are warranted. See L<perlvar>.
712 =head2 Optional Y2K warnings
714 If Perl is built with the cpp macro C<PERL_Y2KWARN> defined,
715 it emits optional warnings when concatenating the number 19
718 This behavior must be specifically enabled when running Configure.
719 See L<INSTALL> and L<README.Y2K>.
721 =head1 Significant bug fixes
723 =head2 E<lt>HANDLEE<gt> on empty files
725 With C<$/> set to C<undef>, slurping an empty file returns a string of
726 zero length (instead of C<undef>, as it used to) the first time the
727 HANDLE is read. Further reads yield C<undef>.
729 This means that the following will append "foo" to an empty file (it used
732 perl -0777 -pi -e 's/^/foo/' empty_file
736 perl -pi -e 's/^/foo/' empty_file
738 is unchanged (it continues to leave the file empty).
740 =head2 C<eval '...'> improvements
742 Line numbers (as reflected by caller() and most diagnostics) within
743 C<eval '...'> were often incorrect when here documents were involved.
744 This has been corrected.
746 Lexical lookups for variables appearing in C<eval '...'> within
747 functions that were themselves called within an C<eval '...'> were
748 searching the wrong place for lexicals. The lexical search now
749 correctly ends at the subroutine's block boundary.
751 Parsing of here documents used to be flawed when they appeared as
752 the replacement expression in C<eval 's/.../.../e'>. This has
755 =head2 All compilation errors are true errors
757 Some "errors" encountered at compile time were by neccessity
758 generated as warnings followed by eventual termination of the
759 program. This enabled more such errors to be reported in a
760 single run, rather than causing a hard stop at the first error
761 that was encountered.
763 The mechanism for reporting such errors has been reimplemented
764 to queue compile-time errors and report them at the end of the
765 compilation as true errors rather than as warnings. This fixes
766 cases where error messages leaked through in the form of warnings
767 when code was compiled at run time using C<eval STRING>, and
768 also allows such errors to be reliably trapped using __DIE__ hooks.
770 =head2 Automatic flushing of output buffers
772 fork(), exec(), system(), qx//, and pipe open()s now flush buffers
773 of all files opened for output when the operation
774 was attempted. This mostly eliminates confusing
775 buffering mishaps suffered by users unaware of how Perl internally
778 =head2 Better diagnostics on meaningless filehandle operations
780 Constructs such as C<open(E<lt>FHE<gt>)> and C<close(E<lt>FHE<gt>)>
781 are compile time errors. Attempting to read from filehandles that
782 were opened only for writing will now produce warnings (just as
783 writing to read-only filehandles does).
785 =head2 Where possible, buffered data discarded from duped input filehandle
787 C<open(NEW, "E<lt>&OLD")> now attempts to discard any data that
788 was previously read and buffered in C<OLD> before duping the handle.
789 On platforms where doing this is allowed, the next read operation
790 on C<NEW> will return the same data as the corresponding operation
791 on C<OLD>. Formerly, it would have returned the data from the start
792 of the following disk block instead.
794 =head2 eof() has the same old magic as <>
796 C<eof()> would return true if no attempt to read from C<E<lt>E<gt>> had
797 yet been made. C<eof()> has been changed to have a little magic of its
798 own, it now opens the C<E<lt>E<gt>> files.
800 =head2 system(), backticks and pipe open now reflect exec() failure
802 On Unix and similar platforms, system(), qx() and open(FOO, "cmd |")
803 etc., are implemented via fork() and exec(). When the underlying
804 exec() fails, earlier versions did not report the error properly,
805 since the exec() happened to be in a different process.
807 The child process now communicates with the parent about the
808 error in launching the external command, which allows these
809 constructs to return with their usual error value and set $!.
811 =head2 Implicitly closed filehandles are safer
813 Sometimes implicitly closed filehandles (as when they are localized,
814 and Perl automatically closes them on exiting the scope) could
815 inadvertently set $? or $!. This has been corrected.
817 =head2 C<(\$)> prototype and C<$foo{a}>
819 An scalar reference prototype now correctly allows a hash or
820 array element in that slot.
822 =head2 Pseudo-hashes work better
824 Dereferencing some types of reference values in a pseudo-hash,
825 such as C<$ph->{foo}[1]>, was accidentally disallowed. This has
828 When applied to a pseudo-hash element, exists() now reports whether
829 the specified value exists, not merely if the key is valid.
831 delete() now works on pseudo-hashes. When given a pseudo-hash element
832 or slice it deletes the values corresponding to the keys (but not the keys
833 themselves). See L<perlref/"Pseudo-hashes: Using an array as a hash">.
835 =head2 C<goto &sub> and AUTOLOAD
837 The C<goto &sub> construct works correctly when C<&sub> happens
840 =head2 C<-bareword> allowed under C<use integer>
842 The autoquoting of barewords preceded by C<-> did not work
843 in prior versions when the C<integer> pragma was enabled.
846 =head2 Boolean assignment operators are legal lvalues
848 Constructs such as C<($a ||= 2) += 1> are now allowed.
850 =head2 C<sort $coderef @foo> allowed
852 sort() did not accept a subroutine reference as the comparison
853 function in earlier versions. This is now permitted.
855 =head2 Failures in DESTROY()
857 When code in a destructor threw an exception, it went unnoticed
858 in earlier versions of Perl, unless someone happened to be
859 looking in $@ just after the point the destructor happened to
860 run. Such failures are now visible as warnings when warnings are
863 =head2 Locale bugs fixed
865 printf() and sprintf() previously reset the numeric locale
866 back to the default "C" locale. This has been fixed.
868 Numbers formatted according to the local numeric locale
869 (such as using a decimal comma instead of a decimal dot) caused
870 "isn't numeric" warnings, even while the operations accessing
871 those numbers produced correct results. The warnings are gone.
875 The C<eval 'return sub {...}'> construct could sometimes leak
876 memory. This has been fixed.
878 Operations that aren't filehandle constructors used to leak memory
879 when used on invalid filehandles. This has been fixed.
881 Constructs that modified C<@_> could fail to deallocate values
882 in C<@_> and thus leak memory. This has been corrected.
884 =head2 Spurious subroutine stubs after failed subroutine calls
886 Perl could sometimes create empty subroutine stubs when a
887 subroutine was not found in the package. Such cases stopped
888 later method lookups from progressing into base packages.
889 This has been corrected.
891 =head2 Consistent numeric conversions
894 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
896 =head2 Taint failures under C<-U>
898 When running in unsafe mode, taint violations could sometimes
899 cause silent failures. This has been fixed.
901 =head2 END blocks and the C<-c> switch
903 Prior versions used to run BEGIN B<and> END blocks when Perl was
904 run in compile-only mode. Since this is typically not the expected
905 behavior, END blocks are not executed anymore when the C<-c> switch
908 See L<STOP blocks> for how to run things when the compile phase ends.
910 =head2 Potential to leak DATA filehandles
912 Using the C<__DATA__> token creates an implicit filehandle to
913 the file that contains the token. It is the program's
914 responsibility to close it when it is done reading from it.
916 This caveat is now better explained in the documentation.
919 =head2 Diagnostics follow STDERR
921 Diagnostic output now goes to whichever file the C<STDERR> handle
922 is pointing at, instead of always going to the underlying C runtime
925 =head2 Other fixes for better diagnostics
927 Line numbers are no longer suppressed (under most likely circumstances)
928 during the global destruction phase.
930 Diagnostics emitted from code running in threads other than the main
931 thread are now accompanied by the thread ID.
933 Embedded null characters in diagnostics now actually show up. They
934 used to truncate the message in prior versions.
936 $foo::a and $foo::b are now exempt from "possible typo" warnings only
937 if sort() is encountered in package foo.
939 Unrecognized alphabetic escapes encountered when parsing quote
940 constructs now generate a warning, since they may take on new
941 semantics in later versions of Perl.
943 =head1 Performance enhancements
945 =head2 Simple sort() using { $a <=> $b } and the like are optimized
947 Many common sort() operations using a simple inlined block are now
948 optimized for faster performance.
950 =head2 Optimized assignments to lexical variables
952 Certain operations in the RHS of assignment statements have been
953 optimized to directly set the lexical variable on the LHS,
954 eliminating redundant copying overheads.
956 =head2 Method lookups optimized
958 [TODO - Chip Salzenberg <chip@perlsupport.com>]
960 =head2 Faster mechanism to invoke XSUBs
963 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
965 =head2 Perl_malloc() improvements
968 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
970 =head2 Faster subroutine calls
972 Minor changes in how subroutine calls are handled internally
973 provide marginal improvements in performance.
975 =head1 Platform specific changes
977 =head2 Additional supported platforms
983 VM/ESA is now supported.
987 Siemens BS2000 is now supported under the POSIX Shell.
991 The Mach CThreads (NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP) are now supported by the Thread
996 GNU/Hurd is now supported.
1000 Rhapsody is now supported.
1004 EPOC is is now supported (on Psion 5).
1014 Perl now works with djgpp 2.02 (and 2.03 alpha).
1018 Environment variable names are not converted to uppercase any more.
1022 Wrong exit code from backticks now fixed.
1026 This port is still using its own builtin globbing.
1032 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
1036 [TODO - Charles Bailey <bailey@newman.upenn.edu>]
1040 Site library searches failed to look for ".../site/5.XXX/lib"
1041 if ".../site/5.XXXYY/lib" wasn't found. This has been corrected.
1043 When given a pathname that consists only of a drivename, such
1044 as C<A:>, opendir() and stat() now use the current working
1045 directory for the drive rather than the drive root.
1047 The builtin XSUB functions in the Win32:: namespace are
1048 documented. See L<Win32>.
1050 $^X now contains the full path name of the running executable.
1052 A Win32::GetLongPathName() function is provided to complement
1053 Win32::GetFullPathName() and Win32::GetShortPathName(). See L<Win32>.
1055 POSIX::uname() is supported.
1057 system(1,...) now returns true process IDs rather than process
1058 handles. kill() accepts any real process id, rather than strictly
1059 return values from system(1,...).
1061 The C<Shell> module is supported.
1063 Rudimentary support for building under command.com in Windows 95
1066 Scripts are read in binary mode by default to allow ByteLoader (and
1067 the filter mechanism in general) to work properly. For compatibility,
1068 the DATA filehandle will be set to text mode if a carriage return is
1069 detected at the end of the line containing the __END__ or __DATA__
1070 token; if not, the DATA filehandle will be left open in binary mode.
1071 Earlier versions always opened the DATA filehandle in text mode.
1081 Compatibility tests for C<sub : attrs> vs the older C<use attrs>.
1085 IO constants (SEEK_*, _IO*).
1089 Directory-related IO methods (new, read, close, rewind, tied delete).
1091 =item lib/io_multihomed
1093 INET sockets with multi-homed hosts.
1105 Regression tests for C<my ($x,@y,%z) : attrs> and <sub : attrs>.
1109 File test operators.
1113 Verify operations that access pad objects (lexicals and temporaries).
1117 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
1125 While used internally by Perl as a pragma, this module also
1126 provides a way to fetch subroutine and variable attributes.
1131 The Perl Compiler suite has been extensively reworked for this
1134 [TODO - Vishal Bhatia <vishal@gol.com>,
1135 Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ni-s.u-net.com>]
1139 The ByteLoader is a dedicated extension to generate and run
1140 Perl bytecode. See L<ByteLoader>.
1144 References can now be used.
1146 The new version also allows a leading underscore in constant names, but
1147 disallows a double leading underscore (as in "__LINE__"). Some other names
1148 are disallowed or warned against, including BEGIN, END, etc. Some names
1149 which were forced into main:: used to fail silently in some cases; now they're
1150 fatal (outside of main::) and an optional warning (inside of main::).
1151 The ability to detect whether a constant had been set with a given name has
1159 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
1163 A C<Maxdepth> setting can be specified to avoid venturing
1164 too deeply into deep data structures. See L<Data::Dumper>.
1166 Dumping C<qr//> objects works correctly.
1170 C<DB> is an experimental module that exposes a clean abstraction
1171 to Perl's debugging API.
1175 DB_File can now be built with Berkeley DB versions 1, 2 or 3.
1176 See C<ext/DB_File/Changes>.
1180 Devel::DProf, a Perl source code profiler has been added. See
1181 L<Devel::DProf> and L<dprofpp>.
1185 The Dumpvalue module provides screen dumps of Perl data.
1189 Overall, Benchmark results exhibit lower average error and better timing
1192 You can now run tests for I<n> seconds instead of guessing the right
1193 number of tests to run: e.g. timethese(-5, ...) will run each
1194 code for at least 5 CPU seconds. Zero as the "number of repetitions"
1195 means "for at least 3 CPU seconds". The output format has also
1196 changed. For example:
1198 use Benchmark;$x=3;timethese(-5,{a=>sub{$x*$x},b=>sub{$x**2}})
1200 will now output something like this:
1202 Benchmark: running a, b, each for at least 5 CPU seconds...
1203 a: 5 wallclock secs ( 5.77 usr + 0.00 sys = 5.77 CPU) @ 200551.91/s (n=1156516)
1204 b: 4 wallclock secs ( 5.00 usr + 0.02 sys = 5.02 CPU) @ 159605.18/s (n=800686)
1206 New features: "each for at least N CPU seconds...", "wallclock secs",
1207 and the "@ operations/CPU second (n=operations)".
1209 timethese() now returns a reference to a hash of Benchmark objects containing
1210 the test results, keyed on the names of the tests.
1212 timethis() now returns the iterations field in the Benchmark result object
1215 timethese(), timethis(), and the new cmpthese() (see below) can also take
1216 a format specifier of 'none' to suppress output.
1218 A new function countit() is just like timeit() except that it takes a
1219 TIME instead of a COUNT.
1221 A new function cmpthese() prints a chart comparing the results of each test
1222 returned from a timethese() call. For each possible pair of tests, the
1223 percentage speed difference (iters/sec or seconds/iter) is shown.
1225 For other details, see L<Benchmark>.
1229 The Devel::Peek module provides access to the internal representation
1230 of Perl variables and data. It is a data debugging tool for the XS programmer.
1232 =item ExtUtils::MakeMaker
1234 change#4135, also needs docs in module pod
1235 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
1239 More Fcntl constants added: F_SETLK64, F_SETLKW64, O_LARGEFILE for
1240 large (more than 4G) file access (64-bit support is not yet
1241 working, though, so no need to get overly excited), Free/Net/OpenBSD
1242 locking behaviour flags F_FLOCK, F_POSIX, Linux F_SHLCK, and
1243 O_ACCMODE: the mask of O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, and O_RDWR.
1247 A compare_text() function has been added, which allows custom
1248 comparison functions. See L<File::Compare>.
1252 File::Find now works correctly when the wanted() function is either
1253 autoloaded or is a symbolic reference.
1255 A bug that caused File::Find to lose track of the working directory
1256 when pruning top-level directories has been fixed.
1258 File::Find now also supports several other options to control its
1259 behavior. It can follow symbolic links if the C<follow> option is
1260 specified. Enabling the C<no_chdir> option will make File::Find skip
1261 changing the current directory when walking directories. The C<untaint>
1262 flag can be useful when running with taint checks enabled.
1268 This extension implements BSD-style file globbing. By default,
1269 it will also be used for the internal implementation of the glob()
1270 operator. See L<File::Glob>.
1274 New methods have been added to the File::Spec module: devnull() returns
1275 the name of the null device (/dev/null on Unix) and tmpdir() the name of
1276 the temp directory (normally /tmp on Unix). There are now also methods
1277 to convert between absolute and relative filenames: abs2rel() and
1278 rel2abs(). For compatibility with operating systems that specify volume
1279 names in file paths, the splitpath(), splitdir(), and catdir() methods
1282 =item File::Spec::Functions
1284 The new File::Spec::Functions modules provides a function interface
1285 to the File::Spec module. Allows shorthand
1287 $fullname = catfile($dir1, $dir2, $file);
1291 $fullname = File::Spec->catfile($dir1, $dir2, $file);
1295 Getopt::Long licensing has changed to allow the Perl Artistic License
1296 as well as the GPL. It used to be GPL only, which got in the way of
1297 non-GPL applications that wanted to use Getopt::Long.
1299 Getopt::Long encourages the use of Pod::Usage to produce help
1300 messages. For example:
1306 GetOptions('help|?' => \$help, man => \$man) or pod2usage(2);
1307 pod2usage(1) if $help;
1308 pod2usage(-exitstatus => 0, -verbose => 2) if $man;
1314 sample - Using GetOpt::Long and Pod::Usage
1318 sample [options] [file ...]
1321 -help brief help message
1322 -man full documentation
1330 Print a brief help message and exits.
1334 Prints the manual page and exits.
1340 B<This program> will read the given input file(s) and do someting
1341 useful with the contents thereof.
1345 See L<Pod::Usage> for details.
1347 A bug that prevented the non-option call-back E<lt>E<gt> from being
1348 specified as the first argument has been fixed.
1350 To specify the characters E<lt> and E<gt> as option starters, use
1351 E<gt>E<lt>. Note, however, that changing option starters is strongly
1356 write() and syswrite() will now accept a single-argument
1357 form of the call, for consistency with Perl's syswrite().
1359 You can now create a TCP-based IO::Socket::INET without forcing
1360 a connect attempt. This allows you to configure its options
1361 (like making it non-blocking) and then call connect() manually.
1363 A bug that prevented the IO::Socket::protocol() accessor
1364 from ever returning the correct value has been corrected.
1368 Java Perl Lingo is now distributed with Perl. See jpl/README
1369 for more information.
1373 C<use lib> now weeds out any trailing duplicate entries.
1374 C<no lib> removes all named entries.
1378 The bitwise operations C<E<lt>E<lt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<&>, C<|>,
1379 and C<~> are now supported on bigints.
1383 The accessor methods Re, Im, arg, abs, rho, and theta can now also
1384 act as mutators (accessor $z->Re(), mutator $z->Re(3)).
1388 A little bit of radial trigonometry (cylindrical and spherical),
1389 radial coordinate conversions, and the great circle distance were added.
1393 [TODO - Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com>]
1395 =item Pod::Text and Pod::Man
1397 [TODO - Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>]
1401 An EXISTS method has been added to this module (and sdbm_exists() has
1402 been added to the underlying sdbm library), so one can now call exists
1403 on an SDBM_File tied hash and get the correct result, rather than a
1406 A bug that may have caused data loss when more than one disk block
1407 happens to be read from the database in a single FETCH() has been
1412 The timelocal() and timegm() functions used to silently return bogus
1413 results when the date fell outside the machine's integer range. They
1414 now consistently croak() if the date falls in an unsupported range.
1418 The error return value in list context has been changed for all functions
1419 that return a list of values. Previously these functions returned a list
1420 with a single element C<undef> if an error occurred. Now these functions
1421 return the empty list in these situations. This applies to the following
1427 The remaining functions are unchanged and continue to return C<undef> on
1428 error even in list context.
1430 The Win32::SetLastError(ERROR) function has been added as a complement
1431 to the Win32::GetLastError() function.
1433 The new Win32::GetFullPathName(FILENAME) returns the full absolute
1434 pathname for FILENAME in scalar context. In list context it returns
1435 a two-element list containing the fully qualified directory name and
1436 the filename. See L<Win32>.
1440 A new feature called "DBM Filters" has been added to all the
1441 DBM modules--DB_File, GDBM_File, NDBM_File, ODBM_File, and SDBM_File.
1442 DBM Filters add four new methods to each DBM module:
1449 These can be used to filter key-value pairs before the pairs are
1450 written to the database or just after they are read from the database.
1451 See L<perldbmfilter> for further information.
1457 C<use attrs> is now obsolete, and is only provided for
1458 backward-compatibility. It's been replaced by the C<sub : attributes>
1459 syntax. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> and L<attributes>.
1461 C<use utf8> to enable UTF-8 and Unicode support.
1463 C<use caller 'encoding'> allows modules to inherit pragmatic attributes
1464 from the caller's context. C<encoding> is currently the only supported
1467 Lexical warnings pragma, C<use warnings;>, to control optional warnings.
1470 C<use filetest> to control the behaviour of filetests (C<-r> C<-w>
1471 ...). Currently only one subpragma implemented, "use filetest
1472 'access';", that uses access(2) or equivalent to check permissions
1473 instead of using stat(2) as usual. This matters in filesystems
1474 where there are ACLs (access control lists): the stat(2) might lie,
1475 but access(2) knows better.
1477 =head1 Utility Changes
1481 [TODO - Kurt Starsinic <kstar@chapin.edu>]
1485 C<perlcc> now supports the C and Bytecode backends. By default,
1486 it generates output from the simple C backend rather than the
1487 optimized C backend.
1489 Support for non-Unix platforms has been improved.
1494 [TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
1496 =head1 Documentation Changes
1500 =item perlcompile.pod
1502 An introduction to using the Perl Compiler suite.
1504 =item perlfilter.pod
1506 An introduction to writing Perl source filters.
1510 Some guidelines for hacking the Perl source code.
1512 =item perlopentut.pod
1514 A tutorial on using open() effectively.
1516 =item perlreftut.pod
1518 A tutorial that introduces the essentials of references.
1522 A tutorial on managing class data for object modules.
1526 =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
1530 =item "my sub" not yet implemented
1532 (F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
1535 =item '!' allowed only after types %s
1537 (F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
1538 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1540 =item / cannot take a count
1542 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
1543 but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
1544 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1546 =item / must be followed by a, A or Z
1548 (F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
1549 which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
1550 to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
1551 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1553 =item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
1555 (F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
1556 Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
1557 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1559 =item / must follow a numeric type
1561 (F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
1562 but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
1563 See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1565 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
1567 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
1568 by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
1569 C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
1571 =item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
1573 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
1574 by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
1576 =item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
1578 (W) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
1579 as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
1580 or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
1581 which is probably not what you had in mind.
1583 =item %s() called too early to check prototype
1585 (W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
1586 definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
1587 conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
1588 declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
1589 definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
1590 if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
1591 an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
1593 =item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
1595 (W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
1596 That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
1597 doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
1600 =item (in cleanup) %s
1602 (W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
1603 the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
1604 the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
1605 number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
1606 of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
1609 Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
1610 could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
1612 =item <> should be quotes
1614 (F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
1617 =item Attempt to join self
1619 (F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
1620 impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
1621 need to move the join() to some other thread.
1623 =item Bad evalled substitution pattern
1625 (F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
1626 substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
1627 most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
1629 =item Bad realloc() ignored
1631 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
1632 malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
1633 setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
1635 =item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
1637 (W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1638 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1639 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1641 =item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
1643 (W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
1645 =item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
1647 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
1648 %ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
1649 so it was truncated to the string shown.
1651 =item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
1653 (P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
1655 =item Can't ignore signal CHLD, forcing to default
1657 (W) Perl has detected that it is being run with the SIGCHLD signal
1658 (sometimes known as SIGCLD) disabled. Since disabling this signal
1659 will interfere with proper determination of exit status of child
1660 processes, Perl has reset the signal to its default value.
1661 This situation typically indicates that the parent program under
1662 which Perl may be running (e.g. cron) is being very careless.
1664 =item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
1666 (F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
1667 such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1669 =item Can't read CRTL environ
1671 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
1672 from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
1673 missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
1674 or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
1676 =item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
1678 (S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
1679 was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
1680 file. The file was left unmodified.
1682 =item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
1684 (F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
1685 as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
1686 This is not allowed.
1688 =item Can't weaken a nonreference
1690 (F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
1691 references can be weakened.
1693 =item Character class [:%s:] unknown
1695 (F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
1698 =item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
1700 (W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
1701 I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
1702 for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
1703 are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
1706 =item Constant is not %s reference
1708 (F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
1709 is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
1710 message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
1711 indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
1712 See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
1714 =item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
1716 (F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
1717 corresponding bit of $^H as well.
1719 =item constant(%s): %s
1721 (F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
1722 character names) were not correctly set up.
1724 =item defined(@array) is deprecated
1726 (D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
1727 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
1728 just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
1730 =item defined(%hash) is deprecated
1732 (D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
1733 undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
1734 just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
1736 =item Did not produce a valid header
1740 =item Document contains no data
1744 =item entering effective %s failed
1746 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1747 effective uids or gids failed.
1749 =item false [] range "%s" in regexp
1751 (W) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
1752 another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
1753 range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
1756 =item Filehandle %s opened only for output
1758 (W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
1759 intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
1760 "+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
1761 you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
1764 =item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
1766 (W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
1767 (4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
1768 L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
1770 =item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
1772 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
1773 environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
1774 used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
1776 =item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
1778 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
1779 or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
1780 didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
1783 =item Illegal binary digit %s
1785 (F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1787 =item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
1789 (W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
1790 Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
1792 =item Illegal number of bits in vec
1794 (F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
1795 two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
1797 =item Integer overflow in %s number
1799 (W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
1800 as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
1801 architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
1802 32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
1803 representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
1804 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
1805 transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
1806 internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
1809 =item Invalid %s attribute: %s
1811 The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
1812 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1814 =item Invalid %s attributes: %s
1816 The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
1817 by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
1819 =item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
1821 The offending range is now explicitly displayed.
1823 =item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
1825 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1826 elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
1827 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1828 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1830 =item Invalid separator character %s in subroutine attribute list
1832 (F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
1833 elements of a subroutine attribute list. If the previous attribute
1834 had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
1837 =item leaving effective %s failed
1839 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
1840 effective uids or gids failed.
1842 =item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
1844 (F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
1845 values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
1846 See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
1848 =item Method %s not permitted
1852 =item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
1854 (F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
1855 double-quotish context.
1857 =item Missing command in piped open
1859 (W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
1860 construction, but the command was missing or blank.
1862 =item Missing name in "my sub"
1864 (F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
1865 have a name with which they can be found.
1867 =item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
1869 (S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
1870 timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
1871 to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
1872 to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
1875 =item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
1877 (W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
1878 and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
1879 on portability concerns.
1881 See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
1883 =item panic: del_backref
1885 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
1888 =item panic: kid popen errno read
1890 (F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
1892 =item panic: magic_killbackrefs
1894 (P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
1895 references to an object.
1897 =item Possible Y2K bug: %s
1899 (W) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
1900 could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
1902 =item Premature end of script headers
1906 =item Repeat count in pack overflows
1908 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
1909 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
1911 =item Repeat count in unpack overflows
1913 (F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
1914 your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
1916 =item realloc() of freed memory ignored
1918 (S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
1921 =item Reference is already weak
1923 (W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
1924 Doing so has no effect.
1926 =item setpgrp can't take arguments
1928 (F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
1929 unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
1931 =item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
1933 (W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
1934 makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
1935 Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
1936 the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
1937 repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
1939 =item switching effective %s is not implemented
1941 (F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
1942 real and effective uids or gids.
1944 =item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
1946 =item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
1948 (W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
1949 of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
1950 built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
1951 rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
1952 L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
1953 %ENV which produced the warning.
1955 =item Unknown open() mode '%s'
1957 (F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
1958 of valid modes: C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>,
1959 C<+L<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
1961 =item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
1963 (P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
1964 iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
1965 data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
1966 subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
1968 =item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
1970 (W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
1971 by Perl. The character was understood literally.
1973 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
1975 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
1976 attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
1977 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
1978 character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
1980 =item Unterminated attribute list
1982 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
1983 of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
1984 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
1985 too soon. See L<attributes>.
1987 =item Unterminated attribute parameter in subroutine attribute list
1989 (F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing a
1990 subroutine attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
1991 character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
1992 character to get your parentheses to balance.
1994 =item Unterminated subroutine attribute list
1996 (F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
1997 of a subroutine attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
1998 block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
2001 =item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
2003 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
2004 element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
2005 than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
2008 =item Version number must be a constant number
2010 (P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
2011 its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
2016 =head1 Obsolete Diagnostics
2020 =item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
2022 (W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
2023 with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
2024 If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
2025 expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
2026 backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
2028 =item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
2030 (W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
2031 to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
2032 names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
2033 appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
2034 might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
2035 or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
2037 =item regexp too big
2039 (F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
2040 address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
2041 the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
2042 Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
2043 way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
2045 =item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
2047 (D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
2048 by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
2049 "${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
2051 However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
2052 because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
2053 "$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
2054 old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
2055 warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
2061 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the
2062 articles recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
2063 There may also be information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl
2066 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
2067 program included with your release. Make sure to trim your bug down
2068 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
2069 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.com to be
2070 analysed by the Perl porting team.
2074 The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
2076 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
2078 The F<README> file for general stuff.
2080 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
2084 Written by Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@activestate.com>>, with many
2085 contributions from The Perl Porters.
2087 Send omissions or corrections to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>.