use English;
allows you to refer to special variables (like C<$/>) with names (like
-C<$RS>), as though they were in B<awk>; see L<perlvar> for details.
+$RS), as though they were in B<awk>; see L<perlvar> for details.
=item *
=item *
-Variables begin with "$" or "@" in Perl.
+Variables begin with "$", "@" or "%" in Perl.
=item *
The C<break> and C<continue> keywords from C become in
Perl C<last> and C<next>, respectively.
-Unlike in C, these do I<NOT> work within a C<do { } while> construct.
+Unlike in C, these do I<not> work within a C<do { } while> construct.
=item *
=item *
-Variables begin with "$" or "@" in Perl.
+Variables begin with "$", "@" or "%" in Perl.
=item *
=item *
-Remember not to use "C<=>" when you need "C<=~>";
+Remember not to use C<=> when you need C<=~>;
these two constructs are quite different:
$x = /foo/;
# perl4 prints: x=10
# perl5 prints: Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF
+You can avoid this problem, and remain compatible with perl4, if you
+always explicitly include the package name:
+
+ $x = 10 ;
+ print "x=${main'x}\n" ;
+
Also see precedence traps, for parsing C<$:>.
=item * BugFix
The second and third arguments of C<splice()> are now evaluated in scalar
context (as the Camel says) rather than list context.
- sub sub1{return(0,2) } # return a 2-elem array
- sub sub2{ return(1,2,3)} # return a 3-elem array
+ sub sub1{return(0,2) } # return a 2-element list
+ sub sub2{ return(1,2,3)} # return a 3-element list
@a1 = ("a","b","c","d","e");
@a2 = splice(@a1,&sub1,&sub2);
print join(' ',@a2),"\n";
# perl4 prints: second new
# perl5 prints: 3
-=item * Discontinuance
-
-In Perl 4 (and versions of Perl 5 before 5.004), C<'\r'> characters in
-Perl code were silently allowed, although they could cause (mysterious!)
-failures in certain constructs, particularly here documents. Now,
-C<'\r'> characters cause an immediate fatal error. (Note: In this
-example, the notation B<\015> represents the incorrect line
-ending. Depending upon your text viewer, it will look different.)
-
- print "foo";\015
- print "bar";
-
- # perl4 prints: foobar
- # perl5.003 prints: foobar
- # perl5.004 dies: Illegal character \015 (carriage return)
-
-See L<perldiag> for full details.
-
=item * Deprecation
Some error messages will be different.
# perl4 prints: is zero
# perl5 warns: "Useless use of a constant in void context" if using -w
+=item * Parsing
+
+String interpolation of the C<$#array> construct differs when braces
+are to used around the name.
+
+ @ = (1..3);
+ print "${#a}";
+
+ # perl4 prints: 2
+ # perl5 fails with syntax error
+
+ @ = (1..3);
+ print "$#{a}";
+
+ # perl4 prints: {a}
+ # perl5 prints: 2
+
=back
=head2 Numerical Traps
Also see L<"General Regular Expression Traps using s///, etc.">
for another example of this new feature...
+=item * Bitwise string ops
+
+When bitwise operators which can operate upon either numbers or
+strings (C<& | ^ ~>) are given only strings as arguments, perl4 would
+treat the operands as bitstrings so long as the program contained a call
+to the C<vec()> function. perl5 treats the string operands as bitstrings.
+(See L<perlop/Bitwise String Operators> for more details.)
+
+ $fred = "10";
+ $barney = "12";
+ $betty = $fred & $barney;
+ print "$betty\n";
+ # Uncomment the next line to change perl4's behavior
+ # ($dummy) = vec("dummy", 0, 0);
+
+ # Perl4 prints:
+ 8
+
+ # Perl5 prints:
+ 10
+
+ # If vec() is used anywhere in the program, both print:
+ 10
+
=back
=head2 General data type traps
# perl4 prints:
# perl5 dies: hash %h defined
+Perl will now generate a warning when it sees defined(@a) and
+defined(%h).
+
=item * (Globs)
glob assignment from variable to variable will fail if the assigned
# perl4 prints: This is Perl 4
# perl5 prints:
- # Another example
-
- *fred = *barney; # fred is aliased to barney
- @barney = (1, 2, 4);
- # @fred;
- print "@fred"; # should print "1, 2, 4"
+=item * (Globs)
- # perl4 prints: 1 2 4
- # perl5 prints: In string, @fred now must be written as \@fred
+Assigning C<undef> to a glob has no effect in Perl 5. In Perl 4
+it undefines the associated scalar (but may have other side effects
+including SEGVs).
=item * (Scalar String)
Perl4-to-Perl5 traps involving precedence order.
+Perl 4 has almost the same precedence rules as Perl 5 for the operators
+that they both have. Perl 4 however, seems to have had some
+inconsistencies that made the behavior differ from what was documented.
+
=over 5
=item * Precedence
-LHS vs. RHS when both sides are getting an op.
+LHS vs. RHS of any assignment operator. LHS is evaluated first
+in perl4, second in perl5; this can affect the relationship
+between side-effects in sub-expressions.
@arr = ( 'left', 'right' );
$a{shift @arr} = shift @arr;
=item * Precedence
-concatenation precedence over filetest operator?
+perl4 had buggy precedence for the file test operators vis-a-vis
+the assignment operators. Thus, although the precedence table
+for perl4 leads one to believe C<-e $foo .= "q"> should parse as
+C<((-e $foo) .= "q")>, it actually parses as C<(-e ($foo .= "q"))>.
+In perl5, the precedence is as documented.
-e $foo .= "q"
=item * Precedence
-Assignment to value takes precedence over assignment to key in
-perl5 when using the shift operator on both sides.
+In perl4, keys(), each() and values() were special high-precedence operators
+that operated on a single hash, but in perl5, they are regular named unary
+operators. As documented, named unary operators have lower precedence
+than the arithmetic and concatenation operators C<+ - .>, but the perl4
+variants of these operators actually bind tighter than C<+ - .>.
+Thus, for:
- @arr = ( 'left', 'right' );
- $a{shift @arr} = shift @arr;
- print join( ' ', keys %a );
+ %foo = 1..10;
+ print keys %foo - 1
- # perl4 prints: left
- # perl5 prints: right
+ # perl4 prints: 4
+ # perl5 prints: Type of arg 1 to keys must be hash (not subtraction)
+
+The perl4 behavior was probably more useful, if less consistent.
=back
=item * Regular Expression
C<s'$lhs'$rhs'> now does no interpolation on either side. It used to
-interpolate C<$lhs> but not C<$rhs>. (And still does not match a literal
+interpolate $lhs but not $rhs. (And still does not match a literal
'$' in string)
$a=1;$b=2;
}
build_match() will always return a sub which matches the contents of
-C<$left> and C<$right> as they were the I<first> time that build_match()
+$left and $right as they were the I<first> time that build_match()
was called, not as they are in the current call.
This is probably a bug, and may change in future versions of Perl.
# perl5 prints: perl5
-=item * Regular Expression
-
-Under perl4 and upto version 5.003, a failed C<m//g> match used to
-reset the internal iterator, so that subsequent C<m//g> match attempts
-began from the beginning of the string. In perl version 5.004 and later,
-failed C<m//g> matches do not reset the iterator position (which can be
-found using the C<pos()> function--see L<perlfunc/pos>).
-
- $test = "foop";
- for (1..3) {
- print $1 while ($test =~ /(o)/g);
- # pos $test = 0; # to get old behavior
- }
-
- # perl4 prints: oooooo
- # perl5.004 prints: oo
-
-You may always reset the iterator yourself as shown in the commented line
-to get the old behavior.
-
=back
=head2 Subroutine, Signal, Sorting Traps
=item * Interpolation
The construct "this is $$x" used to interpolate the pid at that
-point, but now apparently tries to dereference C<$x>. C<$$> by itself still
+point, but now apparently tries to dereference $x. C<$$> by itself still
works fine, however.
print "this is $$x\n";
=over 5
-=item * Unclassified
-
-C<require>/C<do> trap using returned value
+=item * C<require>/C<do> trap using returned value
If the file doit.pl has:
Same behavior if you replace C<do> with C<require>.
+=item * C<split> on empty string with LIMIT specified
+
+ $string = '';
+ @list = split(/foo/, $string, 2)
+
+Perl4 returns a one element list containing the empty string but Perl5
+returns an empty list.
+
=back
As always, if any of these are ever officially declared as bugs,
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff