that describe the individual changes that have happened since the last
public release are available at this location:
+ http://public.activestate.com/gsar/APC/
ftp://ftp.linux.activestate.com/pub/staff/gsar/APC/
+If you're looking for a particular change, or a change that affected
+a particular set of files, you may find the B<Perl Repository Browser>
+useful:
+
+ http://public.activestate.com/cgi-bin/perlbrowse
+
+You may also want to subscribe to the perl5-changes mailing list to
+receive a copy of each patch that gets submitted to the maintenance
+and development "branches" of the perl repository. See
+http://lists.perl.org/ for subscription information.
+
If you are a member of the perl5-porters mailing list, it is a good
thing to keep in touch with the most recent changes. If not only to
verify if what you would have posted as a bug report isn't already
Since you don't have to apply the patches yourself, you are sure all
files in the source tree are in the right state.
-=item It's more recent
-
-According to Gurusamy Sarathy:
-
- "... The rsync mirror is automatic and syncs with the repository
- every five minutes.
-
- "Updating the patch area still requires manual intervention
- (with all the goofiness that implies, which you've noted) and
- is typically on a daily cycle. Making this process automatic
- is on my tuit list, but don't ask me when."
-
=item It's more reliable
-Well, since the patches are updated by hand, I don't have to say any
-more ... (see Sarathy's remark).
+While both the rsync-able source and patch areas are automatically
+updated every few minutes, keep in mind that applying patches may
+sometimes mean careful hand-holding, especially if your version of
+the C<patch> program does not understand how to deal with new files,
+files with 8-bit characters, or files without trailing newlines.
=back
http://bugs.perl.org/perlbug.cgi?req=spec
-
-B<The interfaces:>
-
-
=item 1 http://bugs.perl.org
Login via the web, (remove B<admin/> if only browsing), where interested Cc's, tests, patches and change-ids, etc. may be assigned.
the searchable archives.
The CPAN testers ( http://testers.cpan.org/ ) are a group of
-volunteers who test CPAN modules on a variety of platforms. Perl Labs
-( http://labs.perl.org/ ) automatically tests Perl source releases on
-platforms and gives feedback to the CPAN testers mailing list. Both
-efforts welcome volunteers.
+volunteers who test CPAN modules on a variety of platforms. Perl
+Smokers ( http://archives.develooper.com/daily-build@perl.org/ )
+automatically tests Perl source releases on platforms with various
+configurations. Both efforts welcome volunteers.
It's a good idea to read and lurk for a while before chipping in.
That way you'll get to see the dynamic of the conversations, learn the
which would instrument Perl in memory, run Perl on test.pl,
then finally report any memory problems.
-=head2 Compaq's/Digital's Third Degree
+B<NOTE>: as of Perl 5.8.0, the ext/Encode/t/Unicode.t takes
+extraordinarily long (hours?) to complete under Purify. It has been
+theorized that it would eventually finish, but nobody has so far been
+patient enough :-) (This same extreme slowdown has been seen also with
+the Third Degree tool, so the said test must be doing something that
+is quite unfriendly for memory debuggers.) It is suggested that you
+simply kill away that testing process.
+
+=head2 Compaq's/Digital's/HP's Third Degree
Third Degree is a tool for memory leak detection and memory access checks.
It is one of the many tools in the ATOM toolkit. The toolkit is only
documentation is available in the Compaq "Tru64 UNIX Programmer's
Guide", chapter "Debugging Programs with Third Degree".
-The "test.third" leaves a lot of files named F<perl.3log.*> in the t/
+The "test.third" leaves a lot of files named F<foo_bar.3log> in the t/
subdirectory. There is a problem with these files: Third Degree is so
effective that it finds problems also in the system libraries.
-Therefore there are certain types of errors that you should ignore in
-your debugging. Errors with stack traces matching
-
- __actual_atof|__catgets|_doprnt|__exc_|__exec|_findio|__localtime|setlocale|__sia_|__strxfrm
-
-(all in libc.so) are known to be non-serious. You can also
-ignore the combinations
-
- Perl_gv_fetchfile() calling strcpy()
- S_doopen_pmc() calling strcmp()
-
-causing "rih" (reading invalid heap) errors.
+Therefore you should used the Porting/thirdclean script to cleanup
+the F<*.3log> files.
There are also leaks that for given certain definition of a leak,
aren't. See L</PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL> for more information.
Note: you can define up to 20 conversion shortcuts in the gdb
section.
+=item *
+
+If you see in a debugger a memory area mysteriously full of 0xabababab,
+you may be seeing the effect of the Poison() macro, see L<perlclib>.
+
=back
=head2 CONCLUSION