=head1 DESCRIPTION
-This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release
-and the 5.8.0 release.
+This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release and
+the 5.8.0 release.
Many of the bug fixes in 5.8.0 were already seen in the 5.6.1
maintenance release since the two releases were kept closely
-coordinated.
+coordinated (while 5.8.0 was still called 5.7.something).
+
+Changes that were integrated into the 5.6.1 release are marked C<[561]>.
+In some cases the said bug/feature may have been further fixed/enhanced
+after 5.6.1.
+
+You can see the list of changes in the 5.6.1 (from 5.6.0) by reading
+L<perl561delta>.
If you are upgrading from Perl 5.005_03, you might also want
to read L<perl56delta>.
(Pure Perl modules should continue to work.)
-The major reason for the discontinity is the new IO architecture
-called PerlIO. PerlIO is the default configuration because
-without it many new features of Perl 5.8 cannot be used. In other
-words: you just have to recompile your modules, sorry about that.
+The major reason for the discontinuity is the new IO architecture
+called PerlIO. PerlIO is the default configuration because without
+it many new features of Perl 5.8 cannot be used. In other words:
+you just have to recompile your modules containing XS code, sorry
+about that.
In future releases of Perl, non-PerlIO aware XS modules may become
completely unsupported. This shouldn't be too difficult for module
(at the source code level) for the stdio interface.
Depending on your platform, there are also other reasons why
-we decided to break binary compatibility, please read on.
+we decided to break binary compatibility, please read on.
=head2 64-bit platforms and malloc
usually the system mallocs on such platforms are much better optimized
for such large memory models than the Perl malloc. Some memory-hungry
Perl applications like the PDL don't work well with Perl's malloc.
-Finally, other applications than Perl (like modperl) tend to prefer
+Finally, other applications than Perl (such as mod_perl) tend to prefer
the system malloc. Such platforms include Alpha and 64-bit HPPA,
MIPS, PPC, and Sparc.
dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This
change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled
modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other
-applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface.
+applications like mod_perl which are using the AIX native interface.
=head2 Attributes for C<my> variables now handled at run-time.
punctuation or digits (since they are not solely C<Latin>).
A number of other properties are now supported, including C<\p{L&}>,
-C<\p{Any}> C<\p{Assigned}>, C<\p{Unassigned}>, C<\p{Blank}> and
-C<\p{SpacePerl}> (along with their C<\P{...}> versions, of course).
+C<\p{Any}> C<\p{Assigned}>, C<\p{Unassigned}>, C<\p{Blank}> [561] and
+C<\p{SpacePerl}> [561] (along with their C<\P{...}> versions, of course).
See L<perlunicode> for details, and more additions.
The C<In> or C<Is> prefix to names used with the C<\p{...}> and C<\P{...}>
The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted
alphabetically to be csh-compliant (which is what happened before
in most UNIX platforms). (bsd_glob() does still sort platform
-natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.)
+natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.) [561]
=item *
Spurious syntax errors generated in certain situations, when glob()
-caused File::Glob to be loaded for the first time, have been fixed.
+caused File::Glob to be loaded for the first time, have been fixed. [561]
=item *
=item *
-After years of trying the suidperl is considered to be too complex to
+After years of trying, suidperl is considered to be too complex to
ever be considered truly secure. The suidperl functionality is likely
to be removed in a future release.
The 5.005 threads model (module C<Thread>) is deprecated and expected
to be removed in Perl 5.10. Multithreaded code should be migrated to
-the new ithreads model (see L<threads> and L<threads::shared>).
+the new ithreads model (see L<threads>, L<threads::shared> and
+L<perlthrtut>).
=item *
The tr///C and tr///U features have been removed and will not return;
the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar
-functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...).
+functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...). [561]
=item *
Earlier Perls treated "sub foo (@bar)" as equivalent to "sub foo (@)".
-The prototypes are now checked at compile-time for invalid characters.
-An optional warning is generated ("Illegal character in prototype...")
-but this may be upgraded to a fatal error in a future release.
+The prototypes are now checked better at compile-time for invalid
+syntax. An optional warning is generated ("Illegal character in
+prototype...") but this may be upgraded to a fatal error in a future
+release.
+
+=item *
+
+The existing behaviour when localising tied arrays and hashes is wrong,
+and will be changed in a future release, so do not rely on the existing
+behaviour. See L<"Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken">.
=back
The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded
to Unicode 3.2.0. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ .
+
=item *
For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities:
almost all the UCD files are included with the Perl distribution in
-the F<lib/unicore subdirectory>. The most notable omission, for space
+the F<lib/unicore> subdirectory. The most notable omission, for space
considerations, is the Unihan database.
=item *
arithmetics. (Previously Perl always preferred floating point numbers
in its math.)
+=head2 Arrays now always interpolate into double-quoted strings [561]
+
+In double-quoted strings, arrays now interpolate, no matter what. The
+behavior in earlier versions of perl 5 was that arrays would interpolate
+into strings if the array had been mentioned before the string was
+compiled, and otherwise Perl would raise a fatal compile-time error.
+In versions 5.000 through 5.003, the error was
+
+ Literal @example now requires backslash
+
+In versions 5.004_01 through 5.6.0, the error was
+
+ In string, @example now must be written as \@example
+
+The idea here was to get people into the habit of writing
+C<"fred\@example.com"> when they wanted a literal C<@> sign, just as
+they have always written C<"Give me back my \$5"> when they wanted a
+literal C<$> sign.
+
+Starting with 5.6.1, when Perl now sees an C<@> sign in a
+double-quoted string, it I<always> attempts to interpolate an array,
+regardless of whether or not the array has been used or declared
+already. The fatal error has been downgraded to an optional warning:
+
+ Possible unintended interpolation of @example in string
+
+This warns you that C<"fred@example.com"> is going to turn into
+C<fred.com> if you don't backslash the C<@>.
+See http://www.plover.com/~mjd/perl/at-error.html for more details
+about the history here.
+
=head2 Miscellaneous Changes
=over 4
=item *
+The $Config{byteorder} (and corresponding BYTEORDER in config.h) was
+previously wrong in platforms if sizeof(long) was 4, but sizeof(IV)
+was 8. The byteorder was only sizeof(long) bytes long (1234 or 4321),
+but now it is correctly sizeof(IV) bytes long, (12345678 or 87654321).
+(This problem didn't affect Windows platforms.)
+
+Also, $Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically--this is more
+robust with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries
+for more than one binary platform, and when cross-compiling.
+
+=item *
+
C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass
in multiple arguments.)
The builtin dump() now gives an optional warning
C<dump() better written as CORE::dump()>,
-meaning that by default C<dump(...)> is resolved as the builtin
+meaning that by default C<dump(...)> is resolved as the builtin
dump() which dumps core and aborts, not as (possibly) user-defined
C<sub dump>. To call the latter, qualify the call as C<&dump(...)>.
(The whole dump() feature is to considered deprecated, and possibly
=item *
END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block.
-Internally, the execution of END blocks is now controlled by
+Internally, the execution of END blocks is now controlled by
PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new
behaviour for Perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See
L<perlembed>.
=item *
-Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context.
-However, the lvalue subroutine feature still remains experimental.
+Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context. However,
+the lvalue subroutine feature still remains experimental.
=item *
=item *
-C<no Module;> now works even if there is no "sub unimport" in the Module.
+C<no Module;> does not produce an error even if Module does not have an
+unimport() method. This parallels the behavior of C<use> vis-a-vis
+C<import>. [561]
=item *
=item *
The following builtin functions are now overridable: each(), keys(),
-pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift().
+pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift(). [561]
=item *
-C<pack() / unpack()> now can group template letters with C<()> and then
+C<pack() / unpack()> can now group template letters with C<()> and then
apply repetition/count modifiers on the groups.
=item *
=item *
-my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works.
+my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+POSIX::sleep() now returns the number of I<unslept> seconds
+(as the POSIX standard says), as opposed to CORE::sleep() which
+returns the number of slept seconds.
=item *
=item *
-prototype(\&) is now available.
+The (\&) prototype now works properly. [561]
=item *
=item *
untie() will now call an UNTIE() hook if it exists. See L<perltie>
-for details.
+for details. [561]
=item *
Use of the C</c> match modifier without an accompanying C</g> modifier
elicits a new warning: C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g>.
-Use of C</c> in substitutions, even with C</g>, elicits
-C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///>.
+Use of C</c> in substitutions, even with C</g>, elicits
+C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///>.
Use of C</g> with C<split> elicits C<Use of /g modifier is meaningless
in split>.
Both variables and routines can have attribute handlers. Handlers can
be specific to type (SCALAR, ARRAY, HASH, or CODE), or specific to the
exact compilation phase (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, or END).
+See L<Attribute::Handlers>.
=item *
-B<B::Concise> is a new compiler backend for walking the Perl syntax
-tree, printing concise info about ops, from Stephen McCamant. The
-output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>.
+C<B::Concise>, by Stephen McCamant, is a new compiler backend for
+walking the Perl syntax tree, printing concise info about ops.
+The output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>.
=item *
-The new bignum, bigint, and bigrat pragmas implement transparent
-bignum support (using the Math::BigInt, Math::BigFloat, and
-Math::BigRat backends), by Tels.
+The new bignum, bigint, and bigrat pragmas, by Tels, implement
+transparent bignum support (using the Math::BigInt, Math::BigFloat,
+and Math::BigRat backends).
=item *
-C<Class::ISA> for reporting the search path for a class's ISA tree,
-by Sean Burke, has been added. See L<Class::ISA>.
+C<Class::ISA>, by Sean Burke, is a module for reporting the search
+path for a class's ISA tree. See L<Class::ISA>.
=item *
-C<Cwd> has now a split personality: if possible, an XS extension is
+C<Cwd> now has a split personality: if possible, an XS extension is
used, (this will hopefully be faster, more secure, and more robust)
but if not possible, the familiar Perl implementation is used.
=item *
-C<Devel::PPPort>, originally from Kenneth Albanowski and now
+C<Devel::PPPort>, originally by Kenneth Albanowski and now
maintained by Paul Marquess, has been added. It is primarily used
by C<h2xs> to enhance portability of XS modules between different
-versions of Perl.
+versions of Perl. See L<Devel::PPPort>.
=item *
=item *
-C<Encode>, orginally by Nick Ing-Simmons and now maintained by Dan
+C<Encode>, originally by Nick Ing-Simmons and now maintained by Dan
Kogai, provides a mechanism to translate between different character
encodings. Support for Unicode, ISO-8859-1, and ASCII are compiled in
to the module. Several other encodings (like the rest of the
C<Hash::Util> is the interface to the new I<restricted hashes>
feature. (Implemented by Jeffrey Friedl, Nick Ing-Simmons, and
-Michael Schwern.)
+Michael Schwern.) See L<Hash::Util>.
=item *
-C<I18N::Langinfo> can be use to query locale information.
+C<I18N::Langinfo> can be used to query locale information.
See L<I18N::Langinfo>.
=item *
-C<I18N::LangTags> has functions for dealing with RFC3066-style
-language tags, by Sean Burke. See L<I18N::LangTags>.
+C<I18N::LangTags>, by Sean Burke, has functions for dealing with
+RFC3066-style language tags. See L<I18N::LangTags>.
=item *
-C<ExtUtils::Constant> is a new tool for extension writers for
-generating XS code to import C header constants, by Nicholas Clark.
+C<ExtUtils::Constant>, by Nicholas Clark, is a new tool for extension
+writers for generating XS code to import C header constants.
See L<ExtUtils::Constant>.
=item *
-C<Filter::Simple> is an easy-to-use frontend to Filter::Util::Call,
-from Damian Conway. See L<Filter::Simple>.
+C<Filter::Simple>, by Damian Conway, is an easy-to-use frontend to
+Filter::Util::Call. See L<Filter::Simple>.
# in MyFilter.pm:
=item *
-C<File::Temp> allows one to create temporary files and directories in
-an easy, portable, and secure way, by Tim Jenness. See L<File::Temp>.
+C<File::Temp>, by Tim Jenness, allows one to create temporary files
+and directories in an easy, portable, and secure way. See
+L<File::Temp>.
=item *
-C<Filter::Util::Call> provides you with the framework to write
-I<Source Filters> in Perl, from Paul Marquess. For most uses the
+C<Filter::Util::Call>, by Paul Marquess, provides you with the
+framework to write I<source filters> in Perl. For most uses, the
frontend Filter::Simple is to be preferred. See L<Filter::Util::Call>.
=item *
-C<if> is a new pragma for conditional inclusion of modules, from
-Ilya Zakharevich.
+C<if>, by Ilya Zakharevich, is a new pragma for conditional inclusion
+of modules.
=item *
-L<libnet> is a collection of perl5 modules related to network
-programming, from Graham Barr. See L<Net::FTP>, L<Net::NNTP>,
-L<Net::Ping> (not part of libnet, but related), L<Net::POP3>,
-L<Net::SMTP>, and L<Net::Time>.
+L<libnet>, by Graham Barr, is a collection of perl5 modules related
+to network programming. See L<Net::FTP>, L<Net::NNTP>, L<Net::Ping>
+(not part of libnet, but related), L<Net::POP3>, L<Net::SMTP>,
+and L<Net::Time>.
-Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure.
+Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured; use F<libnetcfg>
+to configure it.
=item *
-C<List::Util> is a selection of general-utility list subroutines, like
-sum(), min(), first(), and shuffle(), by Graham Barr. See L<List::Util>.
+C<List::Util>, by Graham Barr, is a selection of general-utility
+list subroutines, such as sum(), min(), first(), and shuffle().
+See L<List::Util>.
=item *
C<Locale::Constants>, C<Locale::Country>, C<Locale::Currency>
-C<Locale::Language>, and L<Locale::Script>, from Neil Bowers, have
+C<Locale::Language>, and L<Locale::Script>, by Neil Bowers, have
been added. They provide the codes for various locale standards, such
as "fr" for France, "usd" for US Dollar, and "ja" for Japanese.
=item *
-C<Locale::Maketext> is localization framework from Sean Burke. See
+C<Locale::Maketext>, by Sean Burke, is a localization framework. See
L<Locale::Maketext>, and L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13>. The latter is an
article about software localization, originally published in The Perl
-Journal #13, republished here with kind permission.
+Journal #13, and republished here with kind permission.
=item *
C<Math::BigRat> for big rational numbers, to accompany Math::BigInt and
-Math::BigFloat, from Tels.
+Math::BigFloat, from Tels. See L<Math::BigRat>.
=item *
=item *
-C<MIME::Base64> allows you to encode data in base64, from Gisle Aas,
+C<MIME::Base64>, by Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data in base64,
as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions)>.
=item *
-C<MIME::QuotedPrint> allows you to encode data in quoted-printable
-encoding, as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
-Extensions)>, from Gisle Aas.
+C<MIME::QuotedPrint>, by Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data
+in quoted-printable encoding, as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME
+(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)>.
use MIME::QuotedPrint;
=item *
-C<NEXT> is pseudo-class for method redispatch, from Damian Conway.
+C<NEXT>, by Damian Conway, is a pseudo-class for method redispatch.
See L<NEXT>.
=item *
=item *
-C<PerlIO::Scalar> provides the implementation of IO to "in memory"
-Perl scalars as discussed above, from Nick Ing-Simmons. It also
-serves as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future
-possibilities include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code.
-See L<PerlIO::Scalar>.
+C<PerlIO::Scalar>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation
+of IO to "in memory" Perl scalars as discussed above. It also serves
+as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future possibilities
+include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See L<PerlIO::Scalar>.
=item *
-C<PerlIO::Via> acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps PerlIO layer
-functionality provided by a class (typically implemented in perl
-code), from Nick Ing-Simmons.
+C<PerlIO::Via>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps
+PerlIO layer functionality provided by a class (typically implemented
+in perl code).
use MIME::QuotedPrint;
open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path);
=item *
C<Scalar::Util> is a selection of general-utility scalar subroutines,
-like blessed(), reftype(), and tainted(). See L<Scalar::Util>.
+such as blessed(), reftype(), and tainted(). See L<Scalar::Util>.
=item *
storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and
compact binary format. Because in effect Storable does serialisation
of Perl data structues, with it you can also clone deep, hierarchical
-datastructures. Storable was created by Raphael Manfredi but it is
-now maintained by the Perl development team. Storable has been
+datastructures. Storable was originally created by Raphael Manfredi,
+but it is now maintained by Abhijit Menon-Sen. Storable has been
enhanced to understand the two new hash features, Unicode keys and
restricted hashes. See L<Storable>.
=item *
-C<Switch>, from Damian Conway, has been added. Just by saying
+C<Switch>, by Damian Conway, has been added. Just by saying
use Switch;
=item *
-C<Test::More> is yet another framework for writing test scripts,
-more extensive than Test::Simple, by Michael Schwern. See L<Test::More>.
+C<Test::More>, by Michael Schwern, is yet another framework for writing
+test scripts, more extensive than Test::Simple. See L<Test::More>.
=item *
-C<Test::Simple> has basic utilities for writing tests, by Michael
-Schwern. See L<Test::Simple>.
+C<Test::Simple>, by Michael Schwern, has basic utilities for writing
+tests. See L<Test::Simple>.
=item *
-C<Text::Balanced> has been added, for extracting delimited text
-sequences from strings, from Damian Conway.
+C<Text::Balanced>, by Damian Conway, has been added, for extracting
+delimited text sequences from strings.
use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited';
$a will be "'never say never'", $b will be ', he never said'.
-In addition to extract_delimited() there are also extract_bracketed(),
+In addition to extract_delimited(), there are also extract_bracketed(),
extract_quotelike(), extract_codeblock(), extract_variable(),
extract_tagged(), extract_multiple(), gen_delimited_pat(), and
-gen_extract_tagged(). With these you can implement rather advanced
+gen_extract_tagged(). With these, you can implement rather advanced
parsing algorithms. See L<Text::Balanced>.
=item *
-C<threads> is an interface to interpreter threads, by Arthur Bergman.
+C<threads>, by Arthur Bergman, is an interface to interpreter threads.
Interpreter threads (ithreads) is the new thread model introduced in
Perl 5.6 but only available as an internal interface for extension
-writers (and for Win32 Perl for C<fork()> emulation). See L<threads>.
+writers (and for Win32 Perl for C<fork()> emulation). See L<threads>,
+L<threads::shared>, and L<perlthrtut>.
=item *
-C<threads::shared> allows data sharing for interpreter threads, from
-Arthur Bergman. In the ithreads model any data sharing between
+C<threads::shared>, by Arthur Bergman, allows data sharing for
+interpreter threads. In the ithreads model any data sharing between
threads must be explicit, as opposed to the old 5.005 thread model
where data sharing was implicit. See L<threads::shared>.
=item *
C<Tie::File>, by Mark-Jason Dominus, associates a Perl array with the
-lines of a file.
+lines of a file. See L<Tie::File>.
=item *
C<Tie::Memoize>, by Ilya Zakharevich, provides on-demand loaded hashes.
+See L<Tie::Memoize>.
=item *
C<Tie::RefHash::Nestable>, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash
references (unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained
-within Tie::RefHash, see L<Tie::RefHash>.
+within Tie::RefHash. See L<Tie::RefHash>.
=item *
-C<Time::HiRes> provides high resolution timing (ualarm, usleep,
-and gettimeofday), from Douglas E. Wegscheid. See L<Time::HiRes>.
+C<Time::HiRes>, by Douglas E. Wegscheid, provides high resolution
+timing (ualarm, usleep, and gettimeofday). See L<Time::HiRes>.
=item *
=item *
-C<Unicode::Collate> implements the UCA (Unicode Collation Algorithm)
-for sorting Unicode strings, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Collate>.
+C<Unicode::Collate>, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki, implements the UCA
+(Unicode Collation Algorithm) for sorting Unicode strings.
+See L<Unicode::Collate>.
=item *
-C<Unicode::Normalize> implements the various Unicode normalization
-forms, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Normalize>.
+C<Unicode::Normalize>, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki, implements the various
+Unicode normalization forms. See L<Unicode::Normalize>.
=item *
-C<XS::Typemap>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises XS
-typemaps. Nothing gets installed but for extension writers the code
-is worth studying.
+C<XS::Typemap>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises
+XS typemaps. Nothing gets installed, but the code is worth studying
+for extension writers.
=back
=item *
-The attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments.
+attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments.
=item *
=item *
-B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced. It now can deparse almost
-all of the standard test suite (so that the tests still succeed).
-There is a make target "test.deparse" for trying this out.
+B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced by Robin Houston. It can
+now deparse almost all of the standard test suite (so that the tests
+still succeed). There is a make target "test.deparse" for trying this
+out.
+
+=item *
+
+Carp now has better interface documentation, and the @CARP_NOT
+interface has been added to get optional control over where errors
+are reported independently of @ISA, by Ben Tilly.
=item *
=item *
-Data::Dumper has now an option to sort hashes.
+The return value of Cwd::fastcwd() is now tainted.
+
+=item *
+
+Data::Dumper now has an option to sort hashes.
=item *
-Data::Dumper has now an option to dump code references
+Data::Dumper now has an option to dump code references
using B::Deparse.
=item *
=item *
+Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics
+(this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have
+compiled with debugging).
+
+=item *
+
The English module can now be used without the infamous performance
hit by saying
use English '-no_match_vars';
-(Assuming, of course, that one doesn't need the troublesome variables
+(Assuming, of course, that you don't need the troublesome variables
C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and
C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>.
=item *
-Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten to use the
-new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>).
+ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses File::Spec internally, which hopefully
+leads to better portability.
+
+=item *
+
+Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten by Nicholas Clark
+to use the new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>).
This means that they will be more robust and hopefully faster.
=item *
-File::Find now chdir()s correctly when chasing symbolic links.
+File::Find now chdir()s correctly when chasing symbolic links. [561]
=item *
=item *
-File::Glob::glob() renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob() to avoid
-prototype mismatch with CORE::glob().
+File::Glob::glob() has been renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob()
+because the name clashes with the builtin glob(). The older
+name is still available for compatibility, but is deprecated. [561]
=item *
=item *
-Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics
-(this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have
-compiled with debugging).
-
-=item *
-
IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors.
=item *
-IO::Socket has now atmark() method, which returns true if the socket
+IO::Socket now has an atmark() method, which returns true if the socket
is positioned at the out-of-band mark. The method is also exportable
as a sockatmark() function.
=item *
-IO::Socket::INET has support for ReusePort option (if your platform
-supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr. For clarity
-you may want to prefer ReuseAddr.
+IO::Socket::INET failed to open the specified port if the service name
+was not known. It now correctly uses the supplied port number as is. [561]
=item *
-IO::Socket::INET now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning
-that the operating system will make one up.)
+IO::Socket::INET has support for the ReusePort option (if your
+platform supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr.
+For clarity, you may want to prefer ReuseAddr.
=item *
-use lib now works identically to @INC. Removing directories
-with 'no lib' now works.
+IO::Socket::INET now supports a value of zero for C<LocalPort>
+(usually meaning that the operating system will make one up.)
=item *
-ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses File::Spec internally, which hopefully
-leads into better portability.
+'use lib' now works identically to @INC. Removing directories
+with 'no lib' now works.
=item *
-Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt have undergone a full rewrite.
-They are now magnitudes faster, and they support various
-bignum libraries such as GMP and PARI as their backends.
+Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt have undergone a full rewrite by Tels.
+They are now magnitudes faster, and they support various bignum
+libraries such as GMP and PARI as their backends.
=item *
=item *
-Net::Ping has been muchly enhanced: multihoming is now supported,
-Win32 functionality is better, there is now time measuring
-functionality (optionally high-resolution using Time::HiRes),
-and there is now "external" protocol which uses Net::Ping::External
-module which runs your external ping utility and parses the output.
-A version of Net::Ping::External is available in CPAN.
+Net::Ping has been considerably enhanced by Rob Brown: multihoming is
+now supported, Win32 functionality is better, there is now time
+measuring functionality (optionally high-resolution using
+Time::HiRes), and there is now "external" protocol which uses
+Net::Ping::External module which runs your external ping utility and
+parses the output. A version of Net::Ping::External is available in
+CPAN.
Note that some of the Net::Ping tests are disabled when running
under the Perl distribution since one cannot assume one or more
=item *
-In Safe the C<%INC> now localised in a Safe compartment so that
+In Safe, C<%INC> is now localised in a Safe compartment so that
use/require work.
=item *
=item *
-C<h2xs> now uses C<Devel::PPort> for better portability between
+C<h2xs> now uses C<Devel::PPPort> for better portability between
different versions of Perl.
=item *
-C<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect
-newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is
-more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a
-prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined),
-less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the
-old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants),
-and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your
-extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy).
-L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs.
+C<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant|ExtUtils::Constant> module
+which will affect newly created extensions that define constants.
+Since the new code is more correct (if you have two constants where the
+first one is a prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never>
+got defined), less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant,
+as opposed to the old code that used floating point numbers even for
+integer constants), and slightly faster, you might want to consider
+regenerating your extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating
+easy). L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs.
=item *
-C<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet.
+C<libnetcfg> has been added to configure libnet.
=item *
C<perlcc> has been rewritten and its user interface (that is,
command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc.
(The perlbc tools has been removed. Use C<perlcc -B> instead.)
+B<Note that perlcc is still considered very experimental and
+unsupported.> [561]
=item *
=item *
-C<xsubpp> now understands POD documentation embedded in the *.xs files.
+C<xsubpp> now understands POD documentation embedded in the *.xs
+files. [561]
=item *
-C<xsubpp> now supports OUT keyword.
+C<xsubpp> now supports the OUT keyword.
=back
=item *
-perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms.
+perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC
+platforms.
=item *
=item *
perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide.
-Yes, much quicker than perlretut.
+Yes, much quicker than perlretut. [561]
=item *
=item *
perltootc has been renamed as perltooc (to not to conflict
-with perltoot in filesystems restricted to "8.3" names)
+with perltoot in filesystems restricted to "8.3" names).
=item *
perlnetware perlos2 perlos390 perlplan9 perlqnx perlsolaris
perltru64 perluts perlvmesa perlvms perlvos perlwin32
+Eastern Asian Perl users are now welcomed in their own languages:
+README.jp (Japanese), README.ko (Korean), README.cn (simplified
+Chinese) and README.tw (traditional Chinese), which are written in
+normal pod but encoded in EUC-JP, EUC-KR, EUC-CN and Big5. These
+will get installed as
+
+ perljp perlko perlcn perltw
+
=over 4
=item *
map() could get pathologically slow when the result list it generates
is larger than the source list. The performance has been improved for
-common scenarios.
+common scenarios. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+sort() is also fully reentrant, in the sense that the sort function
+can itself call sort(). This did not work reliably in previous
+releases. [561]
=item *
will yield (4,3,1,1,5,9), guaranteed. The even and odd numbers
appear in the output in the same order they appeared in the input.
-Mergesort has worst case O(NlogN) behaviour, the best value
+Mergesort has worst case O(N log N) behaviour, the best value
attainable. And, ironically, this mergesort does particularly
well where quicksort goes quadratic: mergesort sorts (1..$N, 1..$N)
in O(N) time. But quicksort was rescued at the last moment because
=item *
-In many platforms the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to
+In many platforms, the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to
build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems
to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler
'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead.
=item *
-If binary compatibility with the 5.005 release is not wanted, Configure
-no longer suggests including the 5.005 modules in @INC.
+Since Perl 5.8 is not binary-compatible with previous releases
+of Perl, Configure no longer suggests including the 5.005
+modules in @INC.
=item *
-Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively.
+Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively. [561]
=item *
Configure support for pdp11-style memory models has been removed due
-to obsolescence.
+to obsolescence. [561]
=item *
=item *
-$Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically (this is more robust
-with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries for
-more than one binary platform.)
-
-=item *
-
Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, "-perlio" doesn't
get appended to the $Config{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore.
Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command
=item *
-In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be
+In AFS installations, one can configure the root of the AFS to be
somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure
parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>.
=item *
-APPLLIB_EXP, a less-know configuration-time definition, has been
+APPLLIB_EXP, a lesser-known configuration-time definition, has been
documented. It can be used to prepend site-specific directories
-to Perl's default search path (@INC), see INSTALL for information.
+to Perl's default search path (@INC); see INSTALL for information.
=item *
=item *
-In addition to config.over a new override file, config.arch, is
-available. That is supposed to be used by hints file writers for
-architecture-wide changes (as opposed to config.over which is for
-site-wide changes).
+In addition to config.over, a new override file, config.arch, is
+available. This file is supposed to be used by hints file writers
+for architecture-wide changes (as opposed to config.over which is
+for site-wide changes).
=item *
-If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside
+If your file system supports symbolic links, you can build Perl outside
of the source directory by
mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
-unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
+unaffected. After Configure has finished, you can just say
make all test
and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
+[561]
=item *
-For Perl developers several new make targets for profiling
-and debugging have been added, see L<perlhack>.
+For Perl developers, several new make targets for profiling
+and debugging have been added; see L<perlhack>.
=over 8
=item *
If you are on IRIX or Tru64 platforms, new profiling/debugging options
-have been added, see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and
+have been added; see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and
Third Degree.
=back
rules for the conversion. Some platforms that used to use gcvt may
now resort to the slower sprintf.
+=item *
+
+The obsolete method of making a special (e.g., debugging) flavor
+of perl by saying
+
+ make LIBPERL=libperld.a
+
+has been removed. Use -DDEBUGGING instead.
+
=back
=head2 New Or Improved Platforms
=item *
-DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>.
+The DG/UX platform now supports 5.005-style threads.
+See L<perldgux>.
=item *
-DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2.
+The DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near
+osvers 4.5.2.
=item *
-EBCDIC platforms (z/OS, also known as OS/390, POSIX-BC, and VM/ESA)
+EBCDIC platforms (z/OS (also known as OS/390), POSIX-BC, and VM/ESA)
have been regained. Many test suite tests still fail and the
co-existence of Unicode and EBCDIC isn't quite settled, but the
situation is much better than with Perl 5.6. See L<perlos390>,
Building perl with -Duseithreads or -Duse5005threads now works under
HP-UX 10.20 (previously it only worked under 10.30 or later). You will
-need a thread library package installed. See README.hpux.
+need a thread library package installed. See README.hpux. [561]
=item *
-MacOS Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since
-perl 5.004 but now the source code bases of standard Perl
-and MacPerl have been synchronised)
+Mac OS Classic is now supported in the mainstream source package
+(MacPerl has of course been available since perl 5.004 but now the
+source code bases of standard Perl and MacPerl have been synchronised)
+[561]
=item *
-MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+
-filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.)
+Mac OS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+
+filesystems. (The case-insensitivity used to confuse the Perl build
+process.)
=item *
-NCR MP-RAS is now supported.
+NCR MP-RAS is now supported. [561]
=item *
=item *
-NonStop-UX is now supported.
+NonStop-UX is now supported. [561]
=item *
=item *
Perl has been tested with the GNU pth userlevel thread package
-( http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/pth.html ) . All but one thread
-test worked, and that one failure was because of test results arriving
-in unexpected order.
+( http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/pth.html ). All thread tests
+of Perl now work, but not without adding some yield()s to the tests,
+so while pth (and other userlevel thread implementations) can be
+considered to be "working" with Perl ithreads, keep in mind the
+possible non-preemptability of the underlying thread implementation.
=item *
-Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported.
+Stratus VOS is now supported using Perl's native build method
+(Configure). This is the recommended method to build Perl on
+VOS. The older methods, which build miniperl, are still
+available. See L<perlvos>.
+
+=item *
+
+The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. [561]
=item *
=item *
-z/OS (formerly known as OS/390, formerly known as MVS OE) has now
+z/OS (formerly known as OS/390, formerly known as MVS OE) now has
support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default,
-however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure.
+however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure. [561]
=back
=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been
-hunted down. Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite
-a bit.
+hunted down. Most importantly, anonymous subs used to leak quite
+a bit. [561]
=over 4
=item *
caller() could cause core dumps in certain situations. Carp was sometimes
-affected by this problem.
+affected by this problem. In particular, caller() now returns a
+subroutine name of C<(unknown)> for subroutines that have been removed
+from the symbol table.
=item *
chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in
-reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order.
+reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order. [561]
=item *
Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm)
when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x,
-which needs them.
+which needs them. [561]
=item *
The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as
"0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35,
in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This
-was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation
+was caused by Perl's using the operating system libraries in a situation
where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now
Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts.
Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code,
condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks
-line number, the C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, all debugger output
-now goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set.
+line number, C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, and all debugger output
+now goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set. [561]
=item *
-Perl 5.6.0 could emit spurious warnings about redefinition of dl_error()
-when statically building extensions into perl. This has been corrected.
+Perl 5.6.0 could emit spurious warnings about redefinition of
+dl_error() when statically building extensions into perl.
+This has been corrected. [561]
=item *
=item *
C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works.
+
=item *
Infinity is now recognized as a number.
=item *
UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke
-the Tk extension with 5.6.0.)
+the Tk extension with 5.6.0.) [561]
=item *
=item *
C<use warnings qw(FATAL all)> did not work as intended. This has been
-corrected.
+corrected. [561]
=item *
warnings::enabled() now reports the state of $^W correctly if the caller
-isn't using lexical warnings.
+isn't using lexical warnings. [561]
=item *
-Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works.
+Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works. [561]
=item *
=item *
-Localised tied variables no more leak memory
+Localised tied variables no longer leak memory
use Tie::Hash;
tie my %tied_hash => 'Tie::StdHash';
...
- # Used to leak memory every time local() was called,
- # in a loop this added up.
+ # Used to leak memory every time local() was called;
+ # in a loop, this added up.
local($tied_hash{Foo}) = 1;
=item *
-Localised hash elements (and %ENV) are correctly unlocalised to not to
-exist, if that's what they were.
+Localised hash elements (and %ENV) are correctly unlocalised to not
+exist, if they didn't before they were localised.
use Tie::Hash;
# Nothing has set the FOO element so far
{ local $tied_hash{FOO} = 'Bar' }
-
- # Here the FOO element would have been C<undef>,
- # but no more so.
+
+ # This used to print, but not now.
+ print "exists!\n" if exists $tied_hash{FOO};
As a side effect of this fix, tied hash interfaces B<must> define
the EXISTS and DELETE methods.
=item *
Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to
-return 27406, instead of 27047).
+return 27406, instead of 27047). [561]
=item *
Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be
-more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number.
+more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number. [561]
=item *
Numeric conversions did not recognize changes in the string value
-properly in certain circumstances.
+properly in certain circumstances. [561]
=item *
-Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with our().
+Attributes (such as :shared) didn't work with our().
=item *
-our() variables will not cause "will not stay shared" warnings.
+our() variables will not cause bogus "Variable will not stay shared"
+warnings. [561]
=item *
"our" variables of the same name declared in two sibling blocks
resulted in bogus warnings about "redeclaration" of the variables.
-The problem has been corrected.
+The problem has been corrected. [561]
=item *
=item *
The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments
-to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options.
+to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options. [561]
=item *
=item *
-C<qw(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>.
+C<qw(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>: that is, as three
+characters, not four. [561]
=item *
pos() did not return the correct value within s///ge in earlier
-versions. This is now handled correctly.
+versions. This is now handled correctly. [561]
=item *
sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context
(they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself).
The comparison block is now run in scalar context, and the arguments
-to be sorted are always provided list context.
+to be sorted are always provided list context. [561]
=item *
The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does
not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the
-behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation.
+behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation. [561]
=item *
=item *
The RE engine found in Perl 5.6.0 accidentally pessimised certain kinds
-of simple pattern matches. These are now handled better.
+of simple pattern matches. These are now handled better. [561]
=item *
Regular expression debug output (whether through C<use re 'debug'>
-or via C<-Dr>) now looks better.
+or via C<-Dr>) now looks better. [561]
=item *
Multi-line matches like C<"a\nxb\n" =~ /(?!\A)x/m> were flawed. The
-bug has been fixed.
+bug has been fixed. [561]
=item *
Use of $& could trigger a core dump under some situations. This
-is now avoided.
+is now avoided. [561]
=item *
The regular expression captured submatches ($1, $2, ...) are now
more consistently unset if the match fails, instead of leaving false
-data lying around in them.
+data lying around in them. [561]
=item *
-readline() on files opened in "slurp" mode could return an extra "" at
-the end in certain situations. This has been corrected.
+readline() on files opened in "slurp" mode could return an extra
+"" (blank line) at the end in certain situations. This has been
+corrected. [561]
=item *
Autovivification of symbolic references of special variables described
in L<perlvar> (as in C<${$num}>) was accidentally disabled. This works
-again now.
+again now. [561]
=item *
=item *
-Tie::ARRAY SPLICE method was broken.
+Tie::Array's SPLICE method was broken.
=item *
-Allow read-only string on left hand side of non-modifying tr///.
+Allow a read-only string on the left-hand side of a non-modifying tr///.
=item *
=item *
-BOMs (byte order marks) in the beginning of Perl files
+BOMs (byte order marks) at the beginning of Perl files
(scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped.
-UTF-16 (UCS-2) encoded Perl files should now be read correctly.
+UTF-16 and UCS-2 encoded Perl files should now be read correctly.
=item *
=item *
-Generating illegal Unicode code points like U+FFFE, or the UTF-16
+Generating illegal Unicode code points such as U+FFFE, or the UTF-16
surrogates, now also generates an optional warning.
=item *
=item *
Perl 5.6.0 parsed m/\x{ab}/ incorrectly, leading to spurious warnings.
-This has been corrected.
+This has been corrected. [561]
=item *
-Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes like C<IsDigit>.
+Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes such as C<IsDigit>.
=back
=item *
Large unsigned numbers (those above 2**31) could sometimes lose their
-unsignedness, causing bogus results in arithmetic operations.
+unsignedness, causing bogus results in arithmetic operations. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and
+Markov chain input and the few found crashes and lockups have been
+fixed.
=back
EPOC
-EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc.
+EPOC now better supported. See README.epoc. [561]
=item *
HP-UX
-README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now works.
+README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now works;
+now uses HP-UX malloc instead of Perl malloc.
=item *
=item *
-Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL).
+Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL). [561]
=item *
Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using
-accept(), revcfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and getsockname().
+accept(), recvfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and
+getsockname().
=back
=item *
-MacOS Classic
+Mac OS Classic
-Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in MacOS Classic should
-now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and
-the missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing
-list for details.
+Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in Mac OS Classic should
+now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and the
+missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing list
+for details.
=item *
MPE/iX
-MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix.
+MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix. [561]
=item *
NetBSD/threads: try installing the GNU pth (should be in the
packages collection, or http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/),
-and Configure with -Duseithreads.
+and Configure with -Duseithreads.
=item *
OS/2
-Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL).
+Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL). [561]
=item *
=item *
+Stratus VOS
+
+The native build method requires at least VOS Release 14.5.0
+and GNU C++/GNU Tools 2.0.1 or later. The Perl pack function
+now maps overflowed values to +infinity and underflowed values
+to -infinity.
+
+=item *
+
Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1)
The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}.
Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either
during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime;
-now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using
+now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using
only 46 bit integers for speed.
=item *
The C<waitpid> emulation has been improved. The worst bug (now fixed)
was that a pid of -1 would cause a wildcard search of all processes on
-the system. The most significant enhancement is that we can now
-usually get the completion status of a terminated process.
+the system.
POSIX-style signals are now emulated much better on VMS versions prior
to 7.0.
+The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being
+statically built in.
+
The C<system> function and backticks operator have improved
-functionality and better error handling.
+functionality and better error handling. [561]
File access tests now use current process privileges rather than the
user's default privileges, which could sometimes result in a mismatch
between reported access and actual access.
+There is a new C<kill> implementation based on C<sys$sigprc> that allows
+older VMS systems (pre-7.0) to use C<kill> to send signals rather than
+simply force exit. This implementation also allows later systems to
+call C<kill> from within a signal handler.
+
+Iterative logical name translations are now limited to 10 iterations in
+imitation of SHOW LOGICAL and other OpenVMS facilities.
+
=item *
Windows
=item *
-accept() no longer leaks memory.
+accept() no longer leaks memory. [561]
=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++).
+generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). [561]
=item *
=item *
-Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
+Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows
+9x. [561]
=item *
-New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses.
+New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. [561]
=item *
Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child
-processes.
+processes. [561]
=item *
=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.
+Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. [561]
=item *
=item *
-The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features
-enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary distribution).
+The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the
+features enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary
+distribution). [561]
=item *
=item *
-Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one.
+Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses $ENV{LIB} to search for libraries.
=item *
=item *
%SIG has been enabled under USE_ITHREADS, but its use is completely
-unsupported under all configurations.
+unsupported under all configurations. [561]
=item *
=item *
-C<File::Spec->tmpdir()> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp
+C<< File::Spec->tmpdir() >> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp
(works better when perl is running as service).
=item *
-Better UNC path handling under ithreads.
+Better UNC path handling under ithreads. [561]
=item *
-wait(), waitpid() and backticks now return the correct exit status under
-Windows 9x.
+wait(), waitpid(), and backticks now return the correct exit status
+under Windows 9x. [561]
=item *
-winsock handle leak fixed.
+Non-blocking waits for child processes (or pseudo-processes) are
+supported via C<waitpid($pid, &POSIX::WNOHANG)>.
=item *
-The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and
-Markov chain input and the few found crashes and lockups have been
-fixed.
+Win64 compilation is now supported.
+
+=item *
+
+winsock handle leak fixed. [561]
=back
The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings
drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package,
-for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>.
+for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>.
=item *
=item *
Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your
-Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace
+Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT [561] and -DR options to trace
tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables,
respectively.
Certain regex modifiers such as C<(?o)> make sense only if applied to
the entire regex. You will get an optional warning if you try to do
-otherwise.
+otherwise.
=item *
=back
-=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed
+=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed [561]
(This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)
=head1 New Tests
-Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib>
-subsection. There are now about 56 000 individual tests (spread over
-about 620 test scripts), in the regression suite (5.6.1 has about
-11700 tests, in 258 test scripts) Many of the new tests are introduced
-by the new modules, but still in general Perl is now more thoroughly
-tested.
+Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> and F<ext>
+subsections. There are now about 65 000 individual tests (spread over
+about 700 test scripts), in the regression suite (5.6.1 has about
+11700 tests, in 258 test scripts) Many of the new tests are of course
+introduced by the new modules, but still in general Perl is now more
+thoroughly tested.
Because of the large number of tests, running the regression suite
will take considerably longer time than it used to: expect the suite
-to take up to 4-5 times longer to run than in perl 5.6. In a really
+to take up to 4-5 times longer to run than in perl 5.6. On a really
fast machine you can hope to finish the suite in about 6-8 minutes
(wallclock time).
=item *
-In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
+If using the AIX native make command, instead of just "make" issue
+"make all". In some setups the former has been known to spuriously
+also try to run "make install". Alternatively, you may want to use
+GNU make.
+
+=item *
+
+In AIX 4.2, Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
-In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
+In newer AIX releases, this has been solved by linking Perl with
the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
(such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
-therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
+therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against libC_r.
=item *
vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl
The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code,
-resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests
-are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least
-vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly.
-"lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell you the vac version. See README.aix.
+resulting in a few random tests failing when run as part of "make
+test", but when the failing tests are run by hand, they succeed.
+We suggest upgrading to at least vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been
+known to compile Perl correctly. "lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell
+you the vac version. See README.aix.
=item *
=back
-=head2 Amiga Perl Invoking Mystery
+=head2 Alpha systems with old gccs fail several tests
+
+If you see op/pack, op/pat, op/regexp, or ext/Storable tests failing
+in a Linux/alpha or *BSD/Alpha, it's probably time to upgrade your gcc.
+gccs prior to 2.95.3 are definitely not good enough, and gcc 3.1 may
+be even better. (RedHat Linux/alpha with gcc 3.1 reported no problems,
+as did Linux 2.4.18 with gcc 2.95.4.) (In Tru64, it is preferable to
+use the bundled C compiler.)
+
+=head2 AmigaOS
+
+Perl 5.8.0 doesn't build in AmigaOS. It broke at some point during
+the ithreads work and we could not find Amiga experts to unbreak the
+problems. Perl 5.6.1 still works for AmigaOS (as does the the 5.7.2
+development release).
+
+=head2 BeOS
-One cannot call Perl using the C<volume:> syntax, that is, C<perl -v>
-works, but for example C<bin:perl -v> doesn't. The exact reason isn't
-known but the current suspect is the F<ixemul> library.
+The following tests fail on 5.8.0 Perl in BeOS Personal 5.03:
+
+ t/op/lfs............................FAILED at test 17
+ t/op/magic..........................FAILED at test 24
+ ext/POSIX/t/sigaction...............FAILED at test 13
+ ext/POSIX/t/waitpid.................FAILED at test 1
+
+See L<perlbeos> (README.beos) for more details.
+
+=head2 Cygwin "unable to remap"
+
+For example when building the Tk extension for Cygwin,
+you may get an error message saying "unable to remap".
+This is known problem with Cygwin, and a workaround is
+detailed in here: http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html
+
+=head2 ext/threads/t/libc
+
+If this test fails, it indicates that your libc (C library) is not
+threadsafe. This particular test stress tests the localtime() call to
+find out whether it is threadsafe. See L<perlthrtut> for more information.
=head2 FreeBSD Failing locale Test 117 For ISO8859-15 Locales
(Y with diaeresis) not behaving correctly when being matched
case-insensitively.
+=head2 IRIX fails ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t
+
+IRIX with MIPSpro 7.3.1.3m compiler may fail the said List::Util test
+by dumping core. This seems to be a compiler error since if compiled
+with gcc no core dump ensues, and no failures on the said test on any
+other platform.
+
=head2 Modifying $_ Inside for(..)
for (1..5) { $_++ }
=head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'
-Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead.
+Don't panic. Read the 'make test' section of INSTALL instead.
=head2 HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured
subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the
subtest 9 failed.
+=head2 Linux with glibc 2.2.5 fails t/op/int subtest #6 with -Duse64bitint
+
+This is a known bug in the glibc 2.2.5 with long long integers.
+( http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=65612 )
+
=head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48
No known fix.
+=head2 libwww-perl (LWP) fails base/date #51
+
+Use libwww-perl 5.65 or later.
+
=head2 Mac OS X
Please remember to set your environment variable LC_ALL to "C"
(setenv LC_ALL C) before running "make test" to avoid a lot of
warnings about the broken locales of Mac OS X.
-The following tests are known to fail:
+The following tests are known to fail in Mac OS X 10.1.5 because of
+buggy (old) implementations of Berkeley DB included in Mac OS X:
Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
now because the failure is Apple's fault, not Perl's (blocked signals
are lost).
-If you Configure with ithreads, ext/threads/t/libc.t will fail, again
-not Perl's fault-- the libc of Mac OS X is not threadsafe (in this
-particular test the localtime() call is found to be threadunsafe.)
+If you Configure with ithreads, ext/threads/t/libc.t will fail. Again,
+this is not Perl's fault-- the libc of Mac OS X is not threadsafe
+(in this particular test, the localtime() call is found to be
+threadunsafe.)
=head2 op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130
The op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 are known to fail on some platforms.
Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX.
-The test 91 is known to fail at QNX6 (nto), because C<sprintf '%e',0>
+Test 91 is known to fail on QNX6 (nto), because C<sprintf '%e',0>
incorrectly produces C<0.000000e+0> instead of C<0.000000e+00>.
-For the tests 129 and 130 the failing platforms do not comply with
-the ANSI C Standard, line 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to
+For tests 129 and 130, the failing platforms do not comply with
+the ANSI C Standard: lines 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989, to
be exact. (They produce something other than "1" and "-1" when
-formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using the printf format "%.0f", most often
+formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using the printf format "%.0f"; most often,
they produce "0" and "-0".)
=head2 Solaris 2.5
experience failures (the test core dumping) in lib/locale.t.
The suggested cure is to upgrade your Solaris.
+=head2 SUPER-UX (NEC SX)
+
+The following tests are known to fail on SUPER-UX:
+
+ op/64bitint...........................FAILED tests 29-30, 32-33, 35-36
+ op/arith..............................FAILED tests 128-130
+ op/pack...............................FAILED tests 25-5625
+ op/pow................................
+ op/taint..............................# msgsnd failed
+ ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_poll............FAILED tests 3-4
+ ../ext/IPC/SysV/ipcsysv...............FAILED tests 2, 5-6
+ ../ext/IPC/SysV/t/msg.................FAILED tests 2, 4-6
+ ../ext/Socket/socketpair..............FAILED tests 12
+ ../lib/IPC/SysV.......................FAILED tests 2, 5-6
+ ../lib/warnings.......................FAILED tests 115-116, 118-119
+
+The op/pack failure ("Cannot compress negative numbers at op/pack.t line 126")
+is serious but as of yet unsolved. It points at some problems with the
+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 Term::ReadKey not working on Win32
+
+Use Term::ReadKey 2.20 or later.
+
=head2 Failure of Thread (5.005-style) tests
B<Note that support for 5.005-style threading is deprecated,
-experimental and practically unsupported. In 5.10 it is expected
+experimental and practically unsupported. In 5.10, it is expected
to be removed.>
The following tests are known to fail due to fundamental problems in
the 5.005 threading implementation. These are not new failures--Perl
5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have these tests.
+ ../ext/B/t/xref.t 255 65280 14 12 85.71% 3-14
../ext/List/Util/t/first.t 255 65280 7 4 57.14% 2 5-7
../lib/English.t 2 512 54 2 3.70% 2-3
+ ../lib/ExtUtils/t/basic.t 1 256 17 1 5.88% 14
+ ../lib/FileCache.t 5 1 20.00% 5
../lib/Filter/Simple/t/data.t 6 3 50.00% 1-3
../lib/Filter/Simple/t/filter_onl 9 3 33.33% 1-2 5
+ ../lib/Tie/File/t/31_autodefer.t 255 65280 65 32 49.23% 34-65
../lib/autouse.t 10 1 10.00% 4
op/flip.t 15 1 6.67% 15
-These failures are unlikely to get fixed as the 5.005-style
-threads are considered fundamentally broken.
+These failures are unlikely to get fixed as 5.005-style threads
+are considered fundamentally broken. (Basically what happens is that
+competing threads can corrupt shared global state.)
+
+=head2 Timing problems
+
+The following tests may fail intermittently because of timing
+problems, for example if the system is heavily loaded.
+
+ t/op/alarm.t
+ ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t
+ lib/Benchmark.t
+ lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t
+ lib/Memoize/t/speed.t
+
+In case of failure please try running them manually, for example
+
+ ./perl -Ilib ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t
=head2 UNICOS
- Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ../ext/Socket/socketpair.t 1 256 45 1 2.22% 12
- ../lib/Math/Trig.t 26 1 3.85% 25
- ../lib/warnings.t 460 1 0.22% 425
- io/fs.t 36 1 2.78% 31
- op/numconvert.t 1440 13 0.90% 208 509-510
- 657-658 665-666 829-830 989-990 1149-1150
+ ../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
=item *
-During Configure the test
+During Configure, the test
Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define...
CC-65 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3
A semicolon is expected at this point.
-This is caused by a bug in awk utility of UNICOS/mk. You can ignore
+This is caused by a bug in the awk utility of UNICOS/mk. You can ignore
the error, but it does cause a slight problem: you cannot fully
benefit from the h2ph utility (see L<h2ph>) that can be used to
convert C headers to Perl libraries, mainly used to be able to access
from Perl the constants defined using C preprocessor, cpp. Because of
-the above error parts of the converted headers will be invisible.
+the above error, parts of the converted headers will be invisible.
Luckily, these days the need for h2ph is rare.
=item *
-If building Perl with the interpreter threads (ithreads), the
+If building Perl with interpreter threads (ithreads), the
getgrent(), getgrnam(), and getgrgid() functions cannot return the
list of the group members due to a bug in the multithreaded support of
-UNICOS/mk. What this means that in list context the functions will
+UNICOS/mk. What this means is that in list context the functions will
return only three values, not four.
=back
=head2 UTS
-There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts>.
+There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts> (README.uts).
+
+=head2 VOS (Stratus)
+
+When Perl is built using the native build process on VOS Release
+14.5.0 and GNU C++/GNU Tools 2.0.1, all attempted tests either
+pass or result in TODO (ignored) failures.
=head2 VMS
=head2 Win32
-In multi-CPU boxes there are some problems with the I/O buffering:
+In multi-CPU boxes, there are some problems with the I/O buffering:
some output may appear twice.
=head2 XML::Parser not working
=head2 z/OS (OS/390)
z/OS has rather many test failures but the situation is actually
-better than it was in 5.6.0, it's just that so many new modules and
+better than it was in 5.6.0; it's just that so many new modules and
tests have been added.
Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ../ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.t 339 8 2.36% 311 314 325 327
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ ../ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.t 357 8 2.24% 311 314 325 327
331 333 337 339
../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 5 4 80.00% 2-5
- ../ext/Storable/t/utf8hash.t 10 2560 148 10 6.76% 1 5 72 76 143-148
- ../lib/utf8.t 94 13 13.83% 27 30-31 43 46 73
- 76 79 82 85 88 91
- 94
+ ../ext/Storable/t/downgrade.t 12 3072 169 12 7.10% 14-15 46-47 78-79
+ 110-111 150 161
../lib/ExtUtils/t/Constant.t 121 30976 48 48 100.00% 1-48
../lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t 9 9 100.00% 1-9
- op/pat.t 900 9 1.00% 242-243 665 776
- 785 832-834 845
+ op/pat.t 910 7 0.77% 665 776 785 832-
+ 834 845
op/sprintf.t 224 3 1.34% 98 100 136
op/tr.t 97 5 5.15% 63 71-74
- run/fresh_perl.t 94 3 3.19% 92-94
uni/fold.t 780 6 0.77% 61 169 196 661
710-711
+The failures in dumper.t and downgrade.t are problems in the tests,
+those in io_unix and sprintf are problems in the USS (UDP sockets
+and printf formats). The pat, tr, and fold failures are genuine Perl
+problems caused by EBCDIC (and in the pat and fold cases, combining
+that with Unicode). The Constant and Embed are probably problems
+in the tests (since they test Perl's ability to build extensions,
+and that seems to be working reasonably well.)
+
=head2 Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken
local %tied_array;
doesn't work as one would expect: the old value is restored
-incorrectly.
+incorrectly. This will be changed in a future release, but we don't
+know yet what the new semantics will exactly be. In any case, the
+change will break existing code that relies on the current
+(ill-defined) semantics, so just avoid doing this in general.
-=head2 Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden
+=head2 Self-tying Problems
Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and
hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting
-frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is
-for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt).
+frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often), it is
+forbidden for now (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt).
+
+A change to self-tying of globs has caused them to be recursively
+referenced (see: L<perlobj/"Two-Phased Garbage Collection">). You
+will now need an explicit untie to destroy a self-tied glob. This
+behaviour may be fixed at a later date.
+
+Self-tying of scalars and IO thingies works.
=head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles
Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with
`largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets
default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile
-at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good
-solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate
-non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config
-hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are
-having problems can try configuring themselves without the
-largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the
-solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether
-one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at
-all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is
-platform-dependent.
+at all, or they may compile and work incorrectly. Currently, there
+is no good solution for the problem, but Configure now provides
+appropriate non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs
+in the %Config hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the
+extensions that are having problems can try configuring themselves
+without the largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution,
+and the solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is
+whether one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea to) link
+together at all binaries with different ideas about file offsets;
+all this is platform-dependent.
=head2 Unicode Support on EBCDIC Still Spotty
Though mostly working, Unicode support still has problem spots on
EBCDIC platforms. One such known spot are the C<\p{}> and C<\P{}>
regular expression constructs for code points less than 256: the
-pP are testing for Unicode code points, not knowing about EBCDIC.
+C<pP> are testing for Unicode code points, not knowing about EBCDIC.
-=head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental
+=head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Very Experimental
The compiler suite is slowly getting better but it continues to be
highly experimental. Use in production environments is discouraged.
core module. It is still a useful module, though, and is available
from the CPAN.
+Perl 5.8 unfortunately does not build anymore on AmigaOS; this broke
+accidentally at some point. Since there are not that many Amiga
+developers available, we could not get this fixed and tested in time
+for 5.8.0. Perl 5.6.1 still works for AmigaOS (as does the the 5.7.2
+development release).
+
=head1 Reporting Bugs
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
-bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ There may also be
+bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ . There may also be
information at http://www.perl.com/ , the Perl Home Page.
If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff