=item *
-The (bogus) escape sequences \8, \9, and \_ now give an optional
-warning ("Unrecognized escape passed through"). There is no need
-to \-escape any C<\w> character.
+The (bogus) escape sequences \8 and \9 now give an optional warning
+("Unrecognized escape passed through"). There is no need to \-escape
+any C<\w> character.
=item *
the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar
functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...).
+=item *
+
+Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that
+depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new
+algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order.
+More details are in L<perldelta/Performance Enhancements>.
+
=back
=head1 Core Enhancements
=item *
+Formats now support zero-padded decimal fields.
+
+=item *
+
C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass
in multiple arguments.)
=item *
+The printf and sprintf now support parameter reordering using the
+C<%\d+\$> and C<*\d+\$> syntaxes.
+
+=item *
+
prototype(\&) is now available.
=item *
The Shell module now has an OO interface.
-=item *
-
=back
=head1 Utility Changes
map() that changes the size of the list should now work faster.
=item *
-
+
sort() has been changed to use mergesort internally as opposed to the
earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may result in slightly
slower sorting times, but in general the speedup should be at least
and that sort() is now stable (meaning that elements with identical
keys will stay ordered as they were before the sort).
+=item *
+
+Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm
+(http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html).
+This algorithm is reasonably fast while producing a much better spread
+of values. Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of all
+3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the DIEHARD
+random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this change
+has not affected the overall speed of Perl.
+
+
=back
=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context.
=item *
-
+
sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context
(they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself).
=back
+=back
+
=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully
No known fix.
+=head2 sprintf tests 129 and 130
+
+The op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 are known to fail in some platforms.
+Examples include any platform using sfio, and Tandem's NonStop-UX.
+The failing platforms do not comply with the ANSI C Standard, line
+19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to be exact. (They produce
+something else than "1" and "-1" when formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using
+the printf format "%.0f", most often they produce "0" and "-0".)
+
=head2 Storable tests fail in some platforms
If any Storable tests fail the use of Storable is not advisable.
st-store.t and st-retrieve may fail with Compaq C 6.2 on OpenVMS Alpha 7.2.
+=back
+
=head2 Threads Are Still Experimental
Multithreading is still an experimental feature. Some platforms
# is still an experimental feature. It is here to stop people
# from deploying threads in production. ;-)
#
-
+
and another known thread-related warning is
pragma/overload......Unbalanced saves: 3 more saves than restores
working order yet. The backend part that has seen perhaps the most
progress is the bytecode compiler.
-=back
-
=head1 Reporting Bugs
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles