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]>.
-Changes that also appear in 5.6.1 but have been improved since are marked
-C<[561+]>.
+Many of these changes have been further developed since 5.6.1 was released,
+those are marked C<[561+]>.
You can see the list of changes in the 5.6.1 release (both from the
5.005_03 release and the 5.6.0 release) by reading L<perl561delta>.
=item *
-New Thread Implementation
+New IO Implementation
=item *
-Many New Modules
+New Thread Implementation
=item *
=item *
+Many New Modules
+
+=item *
+
More Extensive Regression Testing
=back
=item *
+In future releases, non-PerlIO aware XS modules may become completely
+unsupported. Since PerlIO is a drop-in replacement for stdio at the
+source code level, this shouldn't be that drastic a change.
+
+=item *
+
+Previous versions of perl and some readings of some sections of Camel III
+implied that the C<:raw> "discipline" was the inverse of C<:crlf>.
+Turning off "clrfness" is no longer enough to make a stream truly
+binary. So the PerlIO C<:raw> layer (or "discipline", to use the
+Camel book's older terminology) is now formally defined as being
+equivalent to binmode(FH) - which is in turn defined as doing whatever
+is necessary to pass each byte as-is without any translation.
+In particular binmode(FH) - and hence C<:raw> - will now turn off both CRLF
+and UTF-8 translation and remove other layers (e.g. :encoding()) which
+would modify byte stream.
+
+=item *
+
The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird
use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0
and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be
ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash
use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain
available. The I<restricted hashes> interface is expected to
-be the replacement interface (see L<Hash::Util>).
+be the replacement interface (see L<Hash::Util>). If your existing
+programs depends on the underlying implementation, consider using
+L<Class::PseudoHash> from CPAN.
=item *
=item *
+The C<exec LIST> and C<system LIST> operations will produce fatal
+errors on tainted data in some 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">.
=item *
+If your platform supports fork(), you can use the list form of C<open>
+for pipes. For example:
+
+ open KID_PS, "-|", "ps", "aux" or die $!;
+
+forks the ps(1) command (without spawning a shell, as there are more
+than three arguments to open()), and reads its standard output via the
+C<KID_PS> filehandle. See L<perlipc>.
+
+=item *
+
File handles can be marked as accepting Perl's internal encoding of Unicode
(UTF-8 or UTF-EBCDIC depending on platform) by a pseudo layer ":utf8" :
for you since it's not UTF-8 what you will be getting but instead
UTF-EBCDIC. See L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>, and
http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ for more information.
-In future releases this naming may change.
+In future releases this naming may change. See L<perluniintro>
+for more information about UTF-8.
+
+=item *
+
+If your environment variables (LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG, LANGUAGE) look
+like you want to use UTF-8 (any of the the variables match C</utf-?8/i>),
+your STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR handles and the default open layer
+(see L<open>) are marked as UTF-8. (This feature, like other new
+features that combine Unicode and I/O, work only if you are using
+PerlIO, but that's the default.)
+
+Note that after this Perl really does assume that everything is UTF-8:
+for example if some input handle is not, Perl will probably very soon
+complain about the input data like this "Malformed UTF-8 ..." since
+any old eight-bit data is not legal UTF-8.
+
+Note for code authors: if you want to enable your users to use UTF-8
+as their default encoding but in your code still have eight-bit I/O streams
+(such as images or zip files), you need to explicitly open() or binmode()
+with C<:bytes> (see L<perlfunc/open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>), or you
+can just use C<binmode(FH)> (nice for pre-5.8.0 backward compatibility).
=item *
=item *
+C<do> followed by a bareword now ensures that this bareword isn't
+a keyword (to avoid a bug where C<do q(foo.pl)> tried to call a
+subroutine called C<q>). This means that for example instead of
+C<do format()> you must write C<do &format()>.
+
+=item *
+
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
=item *
+C<our> can now have an experimental optional attribute C<unique> that
+affects how global variables are shared among multiple interpreters,
+see L<perlfunc/our>.
+
+=item *
+
The following builtin functions are now overridable: each(), keys(),
pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift(). [561]
In other taint news, the C<exec LIST> and C<system LIST> have now been
considered too risky (think C<exec @ARGV>: it can start any program
-with any arguments), and now the said forms cause a warning.
-You should carefully launder the arguments to guarantee their
-validity. In future releases of Perl the forms will become fatal
-errors so consider starting laundering now.
+with any arguments), and now the said forms cause a warning under
+lexical warnings. You should carefully launder the arguments to
+guarantee their validity. In future releases of Perl the forms will
+become fatal errors so consider starting laundering now.
=item *
Use of C</g> with C<split> elicits C<Use of /g modifier is meaningless
in split>.
+=item *
+
+Support for the C<CLONE> special subroutine had been added.
+With ithreads, when a new thread is created, all Perl data is cloned,
+however non-Perl data cannot be cloned automatically. In C<CLONE> you
+can do whatever you need to do, like for example handle the cloning of
+non-Perl data, if necessary. C<CLONE> will be executed once for every
+package that has it defined or inherited. It will be called in the
+context of the new thread, so all modifications are made in the new area.
+
+See L<perlmod>
+
=back
=head1 Modules and Pragmata
=item *
-C<Attribute::Handlers> allows a class to define attribute handlers.
+C<Attribute::Handlers>, originally by Damian Conway and now maintained
+by Arthur Bergman, allows a class to define attribute handlers.
package MyPack;
use Attribute::Handlers;
NOTE: the C<MD5> backward compatibility module is deliberately not
included since its further use is discouraged.
+See also L<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
+
=item *
C<Encode>, originally by Nick Ing-Simmons and now maintained by Dan
print $encoded, "\n"; # "Smiley in Unicode: =263A"
-MIME::QuotedPrint has been enhanced to provide the basic methods
-necessary to use it with PerlIO::Via as in :
-
- use MIME::QuotedPrint;
- open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path);
-
-See L<MIME::QuotedPrint>.
+See also L<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
=item *
=item *
-C<open> is a new pragma for setting the default I/O disciplines
+C<open> is a new pragma for setting the default I/O layers
for open().
=item *
-C<PerlIO::Scalar>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation
+C<PerlIO::scalar>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation
of IO to "in memory" Perl scalars as discussed above. It also serves
as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future possibilities
-include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See L<PerlIO::Scalar>.
+include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See L<PerlIO::scalar>.
=item *
-C<PerlIO::Via>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps
+C<PerlIO::via>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps
PerlIO layer functionality provided by a class (typically implemented
-in perl code).
+in Perl code).
- use MIME::QuotedPrint;
- open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path);
+=item *
+
+C<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>, by Elizabeth Mattijsen, is an example
+of a C<PerlIO::via> class:
-This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh>
-to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::Via>.
+ use PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint;
+ open($fh,">:via(QuotedPrint)",$path);
+
+This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh> to
+Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::via> and L<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
=item *
C<Storable> gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the
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
+of Perl data structures, with it you can also clone deep, hierarchical
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
=item *
+C<XS::APItest>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises XS
+APIs. Currently only C<printf()> is tested: how to output various
+basic data types from XS.
+
+=item *
+
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.
=item *
+ExtUtils::MakeMaker has been significantly cleaned up and fixed.
+The enhanced version has also been backported to earlier releases
+of Perl and submitted to CPAN so that the earlier releases can
+enjoy the fixes.
+
+=item *
+
+The arguments of WriteMakefile() in Makefile.PL are now checked
+for sanity much more carefully than before. This may cause new
+warnings when modules are being installed. See L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
+for more details.
+
+=item *
+
ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses File::Spec internally, which hopefully
leads to better portability.
as perlI<platform>:
perlaix perlamiga perlapollo perlbeos perlbs2000
- perlce perlcygwin perldgux perldos perlepoc perlhpux
- perlhurd perlmachten perlmacos perlmint perlmpeix
+ perlce perlcygwin perldgux perldos perlepoc perlfreebsd perlhpux
+ perlhurd perlirix perlmachten perlmacos perlmint perlmpeix
perlnetware perlos2 perlos390 perlplan9 perlqnx perlsolaris
perltru64 perluts perlvmesa perlvms perlvos perlwin32
+These documents usually detail one or more of the following subjects:
+configuring, building, testing, installing, and sometimes also using
+Perl on the said platform.
+
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
=item *
-The DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near
-osvers 4.5.2.
+The DYNIX/ptx platform (also known as dynixptx) is supported at or
+near osvers 4.5.2.
=item *
=item *
-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, 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. [561]
=item *
-All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional.
-
-=item *
-
$AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses
in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe.
VMS
+See L</"Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS"> and L</"IEEE-format Floating Point
+Default on OpenVMS Alpha"> for important changes not otherwise listed here.
+
chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY
(see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc.
POSIX-style signals are now emulated much better on VMS versions prior
to 7.0.
-The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being
-statically built in.
-
The C<system> function and backticks operator have improved
functionality and better error handling. [561]
File access tests now use current process privileges rather than the
user's default privileges, which could sometimes result in a mismatch
-between reported access and actual access.
+between reported access and actual access. This improvement is only
+available on VMS v6.0 and later.
There is a new C<kill> implementation based on C<sys$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
=item *
+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, C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, and all debugger output
+now goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set. [561]
+
+=item *
+
The debugger (perl5db.pl) has been modified to present a more
consistent commands interface, via (CommandSet=580). perl5db.t was
also added to test the changes, and as a placeholder for further tests.
=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed [561]
(This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)
+(5.7.0 came out before 5.6.1: the development branch 5.7 released
+earlier than the maintenance branch 5.6)
A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component
of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor
=head1 New Tests
-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.
+Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> and
+F<ext> subsections. There are now about 69 000 individual tests
+(spread over about 700 test scripts), in the regression suite (5.6.1
+has about 11 700 tests, in 258 test scripts) The exact numbers depend
+on the platform and Perl configuration used. 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
t/op/lfs............................FAILED at test 17
t/op/magic..........................FAILED at test 24
+ ext/Fcntl/t/syslfs..................FAILED at test 17
+ ext/File/Glob/t/basic...............FAILED at test 3
ext/POSIX/t/sigaction...............FAILED at test 13
ext/POSIX/t/waitpid.................FAILED at test 1
This is known problem with Cygwin, and a workaround is
detailed in here: http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html
+=head2 Cygwin ndbm tests fail on FAT
+
+One can build but not install (or test the build of) the NDBM_File
+on FAT filesystems. Installation (or build) on NTFS works fine.
+
=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
+=head2 FreeBSD built with ithreads coredumps reading large directories
+
+This is a known bug in FreeBSD's readdir_r() (see L<perlfreebsd>
+(README.freebsd)), which hopefully will be fixed in FreeBSD 4.6.
-The ISO8859-15 locales may fail the locale test 117 in FreeBSD.
+=head2 FreeBSD Failing locale Test 117 For ISO 8859-15 Locales
+
+The ISO 8859-15 locales may fail the locale test 117 in FreeBSD.
This is caused by the characters \xFF (y with diaeresis) and \xBE
(Y with diaeresis) not behaving correctly when being matched
-case-insensitively.
+case-insensitively. Apparently this problem has been fixed in
+the latest FreeBSD releases.
+( http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=34308 )
=head2 IRIX fails ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t
(in this particular test, the localtime() call is found to be
threadunsafe.)
+=head2 OS/2 Test Failures
+
+The following tests are known to fail on OS/2 (for clarity
+only the failures are shown, not the full error messages):
+
+ t/io/utf8............................FAILED at test 19
+ t/op/grent...........................FAILED at test 2
+ t/op/pwent...........................FAILED at test 1
+ t/lib/os2_base.......................FAILED at test 13
+ t/lib/os2_process....................FAILED at test 10
+ t/lib/os2_process_kid................FAILED at test 10
+ t/lib/rx_cmprt.......................FAILED at test 16
+ ext/DB_File/t/db-btree...............FAILED at test 0
+ ext/DB_File/t/db-hash................FAILED at test 0
+ ext/DB_File/t/db-recno...............FAILED at test 0
+ lib/ExtUtils/t/basic.................FAILED at test 14
+ lib/ExtUtils/t/Constant..............FAILED at test 4
+ lib/Memoize/t/errors.................FAILED at test 4
+
=head2 op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130
The op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 are known to fail on some platforms.
experience failures (the test core dumping) in lib/locale.t.
The suggested cure is to upgrade your Solaris.
+=head2 Solaris x86 Fails Tests With -Duse64bitint
+
+The following tests are known to fail in Solaris x86 with Perl
+configured to use 64 bit integers:
+
+ ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.............FAILED at test 268
+ ext/Devel/Peek/Peek..................FAILED at test 7
+
=head2 SUPER-UX (NEC SX)
The following tests are known to fail on SUPER-UX:
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
+=head2 Unicode in package/class and subroutine names does not work
- ../lib/Math/Trig.t 26 1 3.85% 25
- ../lib/warnings.t 470 1 0.21% 429
+One can have Unicode in identifier names, but not in package/class or
+subroutine names. While some limited functionality towards this does
+exist as of Perl 5.8.0, that is more accidental than designed; use of
+Unicode for the said purposes is unsupported.
-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.
+One reason of this unfinishedness is its (currently) inherent
+unportability: since both package names and subroutine names may
+need to be mapped to file and directory names, the Unicode capability
+of the filesystem becomes important-- and there unfortunately aren't
+portable answers.
=head2 UNICOS/mk
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
../ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.t 357 8 2.24% 311 314 325 327
331 333 337 339
+ ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_pipe.t 10 2 20.00% 1 3
../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 5 4 80.00% 2-5
../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 910 7 0.77% 665 776 785 832-
- 834 845
+ ../lib/strict.t 97 67 69.07% 2-10 15-17 20-21
+ ...
+ ../lib/warnings.t 478 404 84.52% 1-11 13-20 22 24-
+ ...
+ op/anonsub.t 5 5 100.00% 1-5
+ op/closure.t 171 150 87.72% 22-171
+ op/fork.t 18 18 100.00% 1-18
+ op/goto.t 22 1 4.55% 3
+ op/magic.t 0 13 46 44 95.65% 3-46
+ op/pat.t 0 11 922 283 30.69% 640-922
+ op/runlevel.t 21 20 95.24% 1-14 16-21
+ op/split.t 46 1 2.17% 11
op/sprintf.t 224 3 1.34% 98 100 136
+ op/stat.t 73 2 2.74% 41-42
+ op/subst.t 122 2 1.64% 91-92
+ op/subst_wamp.t 122 2 1.64% 91-92
+ op/taint.t 203 4 1.97% 1 3 31 37
op/tr.t 97 5 5.15% 63 71-74
+ run/fresh_perl.t 97 1 1.03% 11
+ run/runenv.t 11 11 100.00% 1-11
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
+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.)
+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.) The rest of the failures
+are mostly problems in Perl trying to show a warning through STDERR
+but the test harness for some as of yet unknown reason failing to see
+the warning (especially the numerous warnings.t failures are of this
+kind).
=head2 Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken
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
for 5.8.0. Perl 5.6.1 still works for AmigaOS (as does the the 5.7.2
development release).
+The C<PerlIO::Scalar> and C<PerlIO::Via> (capitalised) were renamed as
+C<PerlIO::scalar> and C<PerlIO::via> (all lowercase) just before 5.8.0.
+The main rationale was to have all core IO layers to have all
+lowercase names. The "plugins" are named as usual, for example
+C<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
+
=head1 Reporting Bugs
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff