File access tests now use current process privileges rather than the
user's default privileges, which could sometimes result in a mismatch
-between reported access and actual access.
+between reported access and actual access. This improvement is only
+available on VMS v6.0 and later.
There is a new C<kill> implementation based on C<sys$sigprc> that allows
older VMS systems (pre-7.0) to use C<kill> to send signals rather than
=item *
-accept() no longer leaks memory. [561]
+Signal handling now works better than it used to. It is now implemented
+using a Windows message loop, and is therefore less prone to random
+crashes.
=item *
-Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl.
-However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those
-generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). [561]
+fork() emulation is now more robust, but still continues to have a few
+esoteric bugs and caveats. See L<perlfork> for details. [561+]
+
+=item *
+
+A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+The following modules now work on Windows:
+
+ ExtUtils::Embed [561]
+ IO::Pipe
+ IO::Poll
+ Net::Ping
+
+=item *
+
+IO::File::new_tmpfile() is no longer limited to 32767 invocations
+per-process.
=item *
=item *
-Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows
-9x. [561]
+Compiling perl using the 64-bit Platform SDK tools is now supported.
=item *
-New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. [561]
+The Win32::SetChildShowWindow() builtin can be used to control the
+visibility of windows created by child processes. See L<Win32> for
+details.
=item *
-Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child
-processes. [561]
+Non-blocking waits for child processes (or pseudo-processes) are
+supported via C<waitpid($pid, &POSIX::WNOHANG)>.
=item *
-$ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C.
+The behavior of system() with multiple arguments has been rationalized.
+Each unquoted argument will be automatically quoted to protect whitespace,
+and any existing whitespace in the arguments will be preserved. This
+improves the portability of system(@args) by avoiding the need for
+Windows C<cmd> shell specific quoting in perl programs.
+
+Note that this means that some scripts that may have relied on earlier
+buggy behavior may no longer work correctly. For example,
+C<system("nmake /nologo", @args)> will now attempt to run the file
+C<nmake /nologo> and will fail when such a file isn't found.
+On the other hand, perl will now execute code such as
+C<system("c:/Program Files/MyApp/foo.exe", @args)> correctly.
=item *
-fork() emulation has been improved in various ways, but still continues
-to be experimental. See L<perlfork> for known bugs and caveats. [561+]
+The perl header files no longer suppress common warnings from the
+Microsoft Visual C++ compiler. This means that additional warnings may
+now show up when compiling XS code.
=item *
-A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN.
+Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl.
+However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those
+generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). [561]
=item *
-Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root.
-Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. [561]
+Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
+[561]
=item *
-HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html
+Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child
+processes. [561]
=item *
-The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the
-features enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary
-distribution). [561]
+New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. [561]
=item *
-Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry.
+Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root.
+Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. [561]
=item *
-Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. [561]
+The makefiles now default to the features enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl
+(a popular Win32 binary distribution). [561]
=item *
-ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses $ENV{LIB} to search for libraries.
+HTML files will now be installed in c:\perl\html instead of
+c:\perl\lib\pod\html
=item *
-Fake signal handling reenabled, bugs and all.
+REG_EXPAND_SZ keys are now allowed in registry settings used by perl. [561]
=item *
-%SIG has been enabled under USE_ITHREADS, but its use is completely
-unsupported under all configurations. [561]
+Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses $ENV{LIB} to search for libraries. [561]
=item *
Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run
-concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.)
+concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.) [561]
=item *
=item *
-Non-blocking waits for child processes (or pseudo-processes) are
-supported via C<waitpid($pid, &POSIX::WNOHANG)>.
-
-=item *
-
-Win64 compilation is now supported.
-
-=item *
-
-winsock handle leak fixed. [561]
+A socket handle leak in accept() has been fixed. [561]
=back
signedness handling of the C compiler, as do the 64bitint, arith, and pow
failures. Most of the rest point at problems with SysV IPC.
+=head2 PDL failing some tests
+
+Use PDL 2.3.4 or later.
+
=head2 Term::ReadKey not working on Win32
Use Term::ReadKey 2.20 or later.
./perl -Ilib ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t
-=head2 UNICOS
-
- ../lib/Math/Trig.t 26 1 3.85% 25
- ../lib/warnings.t 470 1 0.21% 429
-
-The Trig.t failure is caused by the slighly differing (from IEEE)
-floating point implementation of UNICOS. The warnings.t failure is
-also related: the test assumes a certain floating point output format;
-this assumption fails in UNICOS.
-
=head2 UNICOS/mk
=over 4
Self-tying of scalars and IO thingies works.
+=head2 Tied/Magical Array/Hash Elements Do Not Autovivify
+
+For normal arrays C<$foo = \$bar[1]> will assign C<undef> to
+C<$bar[1]> (assuming that it didn't exist before), but for
+tied/magical arrays and hashes such autovivification does not happen
+because there is currently no way to catch the reference creation.
+The same problem affects slicing over non-existent indices/keys of
+a tied/magical array/hash.
+
=head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles
Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff