=item *
-The following builtin functions are now overrideable: chop(), chomp(),
+The following builtin functions are now overridable: chop(), chomp(),
each(), keys(), pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift().
=item *
to Unicode 3.1. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/,
and http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr27/
-For developers interested in enhanching Perl's Unicode capabilities:
+For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities:
almost all the UCD files are included with the Perl distribution in
the lib/unicode subdirectory. The most notable omission, for space
considerations, is the Unihan database.
=item *
-B::Concise is a new compiler backend for walking the Perl syntax tree,
-printing concise info about ops. The output is highly customisable,
-so customisable that B::Terse has been re-implemented in terms of
-B::Concise.
+B::Concise, from 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> for more information.
=item *
Class::ISA for reporting the search path for a class's ISA tree,
from Sean Burke, has been added.
+See L<Class::ISA> for more information.
+
=item *
Cwd has now a split personality: if possible, an extension is used,
Digest, a frontend module for calculating digests (checksums),
from Gisle Aas, has been added.
+See L<Digest> for more information.
+
=item *
Digest::MD5 for calculating MD5 digests (checksums), from Gisle Aas,
NOTE: the MD5 backward compatibility module is purposefully not
included since its use is discouraged.
+See L<Digest::MD5> for more information.
+
=item *
-Encode provides a mechanism to translate between different character
-encodings. Support for Unicode, ISO-8859-*, ASCII, CP*, KOI8-R, and
-three variants of EBCDIC are compiled in to the module. Several other
-encodings (like Japanese, Chinese, and MacIntosh encodings) are
-included and will be loaded at runtime.
+Encode, from Nick Ing-Simmons, provides a mechanism to translate
+between different character encodings. Support for Unicode,
+ISO-8859-*, ASCII, CP*, KOI8-R, and three variants of EBCDIC are
+compiled in to the module. Several other encodings (like Japanese,
+Chinese, and MacIntosh encodings) are included and will be loaded at
+runtime.
Any encoding supported by Encode module is also available to the
":encoding()" layer if PerlIO is used.
+See L<Encode> for more information.
+
=item *
Filter::Simple is an easy-to-use frontend to Filter::Util::Call,
print "red\n"; # this code is not filtered, will print "red\n"
+See L<Filter::Simple> for more information.
+
=item *
Filter::Util::Call, from 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> for more information.
=item *
"jp" for Japanese.
use Locale::Country;
-
+
$country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan'
$code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no'
+See L<Locale::Constants>, L<Locale::Country>, L<Locale::Currency>,
+and L<Locale::Language> for more information.
+
=item *
MIME::Base64, from Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data in base64.
print $encoded, "\n"; # "QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ=="
+See L<MIME::Base64> for more information.
+
=item *
MIME::QuotedPrint, from Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data in
use MIME::QuotedPrint;
open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path)
+See L<MIME::QuotedPrint> for more information.
+
=item *
-PerlIO::Scalar provides the implementation of IO to "in memory" Perl
-scalars as discussed above. It also serves as an example of
-a loadable layer. Other future possibilities include PerlIO::Array
-and PerlIO::Code.
+PerlIO::Scalar, from Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation of
+IO to "in memory" Perl scalars as discussed above. It also serves as
+an example of a loadable layer. Other future possibilities include
+PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See L<PerlIO::Scalar> for more
+information.
=item *
-PerlIO::Via acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps PerlIO layer
-functionality provided by a class (typically implemented in
-perl code).
+PerlIO::Via, from Nick Ing-Simmons, acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps
+PerlIO layer functionality provided by a class (typically implemented
+in perl code).
use MIME::QuotedPrint;
open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path)
This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh>
-to Quoted-Printable.
+to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::Via> for more information.
=item *
Pod::Text::Overstrike, from Joe Smith, has been added.
It converts POD data to formatted overstrike text.
+See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike> for more information.
=item *
else { print "previous case not true" }
}
+See L<Switch> for more information.
+
=item *
Text::Balanced from Damian Conway has been added, for
extracting delimited text sequences from strings.
use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited';
-
+
($a, $b) = extract_delimited("'never say never', he never said", "'", '');
C<$a> will be "'never say never'", C<$b> will be ', he never said'.
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().
+gen_extract_tagged(). See L<Text::Balanced> for more information.
=item *
Tie::RefHash::Nestable, from Edward Avis, allows storing hash references
-(unlike the standard Tie::Refhash)
+(unlike the standard Tie::Refhash) The module is contained within
+Tie::RefHash.
=item *
=item *
B::Deparse should be now more robust. It still far from providing a full
-round trip for any random piece of Perl code, though, and is unde active
+round trip for any random piece of Perl code, though, and is under active
development: expect more robustness in 5.7.2.
=item *
=item *
-Math::BigFloat has undergone much fixing.
+Math::BigFloat has undergone much fixing, and in addition the fmod()
+function now supports modulus operations.
(The fixed Math::BigFloat module is also available in CPAN for those
who can't upgrade their Perl: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/J/JP/JPEACOCK/)
=item *
-NCR MP-RAS
+NCR MP-RAS is now supported.
=item *
-NonStop-UX
+NonStop-UX is now supported.
=item *
-Amdahl UTS
+Amdahl UTS is now supported.
=item *
=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-Numerous memory leaks have been hunted down. Most importantly anonymous
-subs used to leak quite a bit.
+Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory leaks have been hunted down.
+Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite a bit.
=over 4
=item *
+chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in reverse
+order. This has been reversed to be in the right order.
+
+=item *
+
The order of DESTROYS has been made more predictable.
=item *
=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.
+
+=item *
+
All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional.
=item *
Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O.
+=item *
+
+Windows
+
+=over 8
+
+=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++).
+
+=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.
+
+=item *
+
+Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
+
+=item *
+
+The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features
+enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular binary distribution).
+
+=back
+
=back
=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
=item *
Perl now uses system malloc instead of Perl malloc in all 64-bit
-platforms. This change breaks backward compatibility but Perl's
-malloc has problems with large address spaces and also the speed of
-vendors' malloc is generally better in large address space machines
-(Perl's malloc is mostly tuned for space).
+platforms, and even in some not-always-64-bit platforms like AIX,
+IRIX, and Solaris. This change breaks backward compatibility but
+Perl's malloc has problems with large address spaces and also the
+speed of vendors' malloc is generally better in large address space
+machines (Perl's malloc is mostly tuned for space).
=back
=head1 Known Problems
+Notice that this list doesn't contain problems that were present in
+5.7.0 and still are there, see L<perl570delta> for those.
+
=head2 lib/b test 19
The test fails in various platforms (PA64 and IA64 are known), but the