=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).
-If you are upgrading from Perl 5.005_03, you might also want
-to read L<perl56delta>.
+Changes that were integrated into the 5.6.1 release 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>.
=head1 Highlights In 5.8.0
=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
(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
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 *
+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 *
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 *
=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 *
The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded
to Unicode 3.2.0. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ .
+[561+] (5.6.1 has UCD 3.0.1.)
=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 *
+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
+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. [561+]
=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 *
+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().
+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 *
=item *
-prototype(\&) is now available.
+The (\&) prototype now works properly. [561]
=item *
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 *
=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>.
+=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;
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>.
+The output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>. [561+]
=item *
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
=item *
-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>.
+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>.
+[561+]
=item *
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<Pod::Text::Overstrike>, by Joe Smith, has been added.
It converts POD data to formatted overstrike text.
-See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike>.
+See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike>. [561+]
=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.
The following independently supported modules have been updated to the
newest versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, File::Temp,
Getopt::Long, Math::BigFloat, Math::BigInt, the podlators bundle
-(Pod::Man, Pod::Text), Pod::LaTeX, Pod::Parser, Storable,
+(Pod::Man, Pod::Text), Pod::LaTeX [561+], Pod::Parser, Storable,
Term::ANSIColor, Test, Text-Tabs+Wrap.
=item *
=item *
-B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced by Robin Houston. It now
-can deparse almost all of the standard test suite (so that the tests
+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 has now better interface documentation, and the @CARP_NOT
+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 *
+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.
=item *
-Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten by Nicholas Clark
+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 *
+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 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.
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.>
+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 *
perlclib documents the internal replacements for standard C library
functions. (Interesting only for extension writers and Perl core
-hackers.)
+hackers.) [561+]
=item *
-perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial.
+perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial. [561+]
=item *
-perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms.
+perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC
+platforms. [561+]
=item *
=item *
-perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module.
+perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module. [561+]
=item *
=item *
-perlretut is a regular expression tutorial.
+perlretut is a regular expression tutorial. [561+]
=item *
perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide.
-Yes, much quicker than perlretut.
+Yes, much quicker than perlretut. [561]
=item *
=item *
perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl
-distribution.
+distribution. [561+]
=back
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
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 *
=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 *
make all test
and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
+[561]
=item *
=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 *
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+
+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 *
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>.
+available. See L<perlvos>. [561+]
=item *
-The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported.
+The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. [561]
=item *
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
Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been
hunted down. Most importantly, anonymous subs used to leak quite
-a bit.
+a bit. [561]
=over 4
=item *
-caller() could cause core dumps in certain situations. Carp was sometimes
-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.
+caller() could cause core dumps in certain situations. Carp was
+sometimes 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 *
=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.
-
-=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 *
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 *
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 *
=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'>: that is, as three
-characters, not four.
+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 *
=item *
-Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work.
+Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work. [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, $2, ...) are now
more consistently unset if the match fails, instead of leaving false
-data lying around in them.
+data lying around in them. [561]
=item *
readline() on files opened in "slurp" mode could return an extra
"" (blank line) at the end in certain situations. This has been
-corrected.
+corrected. [561]
=item *
Autovivification of symbolic references of special variables described
in L<perlvar> (as in C<${$num}>) was accidentally disabled. This works
-again now.
+again now. [561]
=item *
=item *
-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.
=item *
Perl 5.6.0 parsed m/\x{ab}/ incorrectly, leading to spurious warnings.
-This has been corrected.
+This has been corrected. [561]
=item *
=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 *
EPOC
-EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc.
+EPOC now better supported. See README.epoc. [561]
=item *
=item *
-Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL).
+Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL). [561]
=item *
=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 *
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 *
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.
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 system.
POSIX-style signals are now emulated much better on VMS versions prior
to 7.0.
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.
+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
+There is a new C<kill> implementation based on C<sys$sigprc> that allows
older VMS systems (pre-7.0) to use C<kill> to send signals rather than
simply force exit. This implementation also allows later systems to
call C<kill> from within a signal handler.
=item *
-accept() no longer leaks memory.
+Signal handling now works better than it used to. It is now implemented
+using a Windows message loop, and is therefore less prone to random
+crashes.
=item *
-Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl.
-However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those
-generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++).
+fork() emulation is now more robust, but still continues to have a few
+esoteric bugs and caveats. See L<perlfork> for details. [561+]
+
+=item *
+
+A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+The following modules now work on Windows:
+
+ ExtUtils::Embed [561]
+ IO::Pipe
+ IO::Poll
+ Net::Ping
+
+=item *
+
+IO::File::new_tmpfile() is no longer limited to 32767 invocations
+per-process.
=item *
=item *
-Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
+Compiling perl using the 64-bit Platform SDK tools is now supported.
=item *
-New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses.
+The Win32::SetChildShowWindow() builtin can be used to control the
+visibility of windows created by child processes. See L<Win32> for
+details.
=item *
-Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child
-processes.
+Non-blocking waits for child processes (or pseudo-processes) are
+supported via C<waitpid($pid, &POSIX::WNOHANG)>.
+
+=item *
+
+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 *
-$ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C.
+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 *
-fork() emulation has been improved in various ways, but still continues
-to be experimental. See L<perlfork> for known bugs and caveats.
+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 *
-A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN.
+Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
+[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.
+Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child
+processes. [561]
=item *
-HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html
+New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. [561]
=item *
-The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features
-enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary distribution).
+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 *
-Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry.
+The makefiles now default to the features enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl
+(a popular Win32 binary distribution). [561]
=item *
-Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one.
+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.
+Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. [561]
+
+=item *
+
+ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses $ENV{LIB} to search for libraries. [561]
=item *
Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run
-concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.)
+concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.) [561]
=item *
=item *
-Better UNC path handling under ithreads.
+Better UNC path handling under ithreads. [561]
=item *
wait(), waitpid(), and backticks now return the correct exit status
-under Windows 9x.
-
-=item *
-
-Win64 compilation is now supported.
+under Windows 9x. [561]
=item *
-winsock handle leak fixed.
+A socket handle leak in accept() has been fixed. [561]
=back
The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings
drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package,
-for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>.
+for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>.
=item *
=item *
Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your
-Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace
+Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT [561] and -DR options to trace
tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables,
respectively.
=item *
+Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code,
+condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks
+line number, C<$.> 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.
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.)
+(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
=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 5.8.0 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
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
-=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.
-
=over 4
=item *
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
There should be no reported test failures with a default configuration,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
../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
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 5.8 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).
+
+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
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff