1 | =head1 NAME
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2 |
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3 | perl58delta - what is new for perl v5.8.0
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4 |
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5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION
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6 |
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7 | This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release and
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8 | the 5.8.0 release.
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9 |
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10 | Many of the bug fixes in 5.8.0 were already seen in the 5.6.1
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11 | maintenance release since the two releases were kept closely
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12 | coordinated (while 5.8.0 was still called 5.7.something).
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13 |
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14 | Changes that were integrated into the 5.6.1 release are marked C<[561]>.
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15 | Many of these changes have been further developed since 5.6.1 was released,
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16 | those are marked C<[561+]>.
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17 |
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18 | You can see the list of changes in the 5.6.1 release (both from the
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19 | 5.005_03 release and the 5.6.0 release) by reading L<perl561delta>.
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20 |
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21 | =head1 Highlights In 5.8.0
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22 |
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23 | =over 4
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24 |
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25 | =item *
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26 |
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27 | Better Unicode support
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28 |
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29 | =item *
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30 |
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31 | New IO Implementation
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32 |
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33 | =item *
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34 |
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35 | New Thread Implementation
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36 |
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37 | =item *
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38 |
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39 | Better Numeric Accuracy
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40 |
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41 | =item *
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42 |
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43 | Safe Signals
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44 |
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45 | =item *
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46 |
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47 | Many New Modules
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48 |
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49 | =item *
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50 |
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51 | More Extensive Regression Testing
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52 |
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53 | =back
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54 |
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55 | =head1 Incompatible Changes
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56 |
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57 | =head2 Binary Incompatibility
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58 |
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59 | B<Perl 5.8 is not binary compatible with earlier releases of Perl.>
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60 |
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61 | B<You have to recompile your XS modules.>
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62 |
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63 | (Pure Perl modules should continue to work.)
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64 |
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65 | The major reason for the discontinuity is the new IO architecture
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66 | called PerlIO. PerlIO is the default configuration because without
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67 | it many new features of Perl 5.8 cannot be used. In other words:
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68 | you just have to recompile your modules containing XS code, sorry
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69 | about that.
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70 |
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71 | In future releases of Perl, non-PerlIO aware XS modules may become
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72 | completely unsupported. This shouldn't be too difficult for module
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73 | authors, however: PerlIO has been designed as a drop-in replacement
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74 | (at the source code level) for the stdio interface.
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75 |
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76 | Depending on your platform, there are also other reasons why
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77 | we decided to break binary compatibility, please read on.
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78 |
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79 | =head2 64-bit platforms and malloc
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80 |
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81 | If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no longer being
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82 | used because it does not work well with 8-byte pointers. Also,
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83 | usually the system mallocs on such platforms are much better optimized
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84 | for such large memory models than the Perl malloc. Some memory-hungry
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85 | Perl applications like the PDL don't work well with Perl's malloc.
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86 | Finally, other applications than Perl (such as mod_perl) tend to prefer
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87 | the system malloc. Such platforms include Alpha and 64-bit HPPA,
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88 | MIPS, PPC, and Sparc.
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89 |
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90 | =head2 AIX Dynaloading
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91 |
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92 | The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native
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93 | dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This
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94 | change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled
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95 | modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other
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96 | applications like mod_perl which are using the AIX native interface.
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97 |
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98 | =head2 Attributes for C<my> variables now handled at run-time
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99 |
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100 | The C<my EXPR : ATTRS> syntax now applies variable attributes at
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101 | run-time. (Subroutine and C<our> variables still get attributes applied
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102 | at compile-time.) See L<attributes> for additional details. In particular,
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103 | however, this allows variable attributes to be useful for C<tie> interfaces,
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104 | which was a deficiency of earlier releases. Note that the new semantics
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105 | doesn't work with the Attribute::Handlers module (as of version 0.76).
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106 |
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107 | =head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS
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108 |
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109 | The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being
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110 | statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient
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111 | TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test
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112 | Perl in such configurations.
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113 |
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114 | =head2 IEEE-format Floating Point Default on OpenVMS Alpha
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115 |
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116 | Perl now uses IEEE format (T_FLOAT) as the default internal floating
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117 | point format on OpenVMS Alpha, potentially breaking binary compatibility
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118 | with external libraries or existing data. G_FLOAT is still available as
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119 | a configuration option. The default on VAX (D_FLOAT) has not changed.
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120 |
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121 | =head2 New Unicode Semantics (no more C<use utf8>, almost)
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122 |
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123 | Previously in Perl 5.6 to use Unicode one would say "use utf8" and
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124 | then the operations (like string concatenation) were Unicode-aware
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125 | in that lexical scope.
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126 |
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127 | This was found to be an inconvenient interface, and in Perl 5.8 the
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128 | Unicode model has completely changed: now the "Unicodeness" is bound
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129 | to the data itself, and for most of the time "use utf8" is not needed
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130 | at all. The only remaining use of "use utf8" is when the Perl script
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131 | itself has been written in the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. (UTF-8 has
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132 | not been made the default since there are many Perl scripts out there
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133 | that are using various national eight-bit character sets, which would
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134 | be illegal in UTF-8.)
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135 |
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136 | See L<perluniintro> for the explanation of the current model,
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137 | and L<utf8> for the current use of the utf8 pragma.
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138 |
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139 | =head2 New Unicode Properties
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140 |
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141 | Unicode I<scripts> are now supported. Scripts are similar to (and superior
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142 | to) Unicode I<blocks>. The difference between scripts and blocks is that
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143 | scripts are the glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while
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144 | the blocks are more artificial groupings of (mostly) 256 characters based
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145 | on the Unicode numbering.
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146 |
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147 | In general, scripts are more inclusive, but not universally so. For
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148 | example, while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin characters and
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149 | their various diacritic-adorned versions, it does not include the various
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150 | punctuation or digits (since they are not solely C<Latin>).
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151 |
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152 | A number of other properties are now supported, including C<\p{L&}>,
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153 | C<\p{Any}> C<\p{Assigned}>, C<\p{Unassigned}>, C<\p{Blank}> [561] and
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154 | C<\p{SpacePerl}> [561] (along with their C<\P{...}> versions, of course).
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155 | See L<perlunicode> for details, and more additions.
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156 |
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157 | The C<In> or C<Is> prefix to names used with the C<\p{...}> and C<\P{...}>
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158 | are now almost always optional. The only exception is that a C<In> prefix
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159 | is required to signify a Unicode block when a block name conflicts with a
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160 | script name. For example, C<\p{Tibetan}> refers to the script, while
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161 | C<\p{InTibetan}> refers to the block. When there is no name conflict, you
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162 | can omit the C<In> from the block name (e.g. C<\p{BraillePatterns}>), but
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163 | to be safe, it's probably best to always use the C<In>).
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164 |
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165 | =head2 REF(...) Instead Of SCALAR(...)
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166 |
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167 | A reference to a reference now stringifies as "REF(0x81485ec)" instead
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168 | of "SCALAR(0x81485ec)" in order to be more consistent with the return
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169 | value of ref().
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170 |
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171 | =head2 pack/unpack D/F recycled
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172 |
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173 | The undocumented pack/unpack template letters D/F have been recycled
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174 | for better use: now they stand for long double (if supported by the
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175 | platform) and NV (Perl internal floating point type). (They used
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176 | to be aliases for d/f, but you never knew that.)
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177 |
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178 | =head2 glob() now returns filenames in alphabetical order
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179 |
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180 | The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted
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181 | alphabetically to be csh-compliant (which is what happened before
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182 | in most UNIX platforms). (bsd_glob() does still sort platform
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183 | natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.) [561]
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184 |
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185 | =head2 Deprecations
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186 |
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187 | =over 4
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188 |
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189 | =item *
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190 |
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191 | The semantics of bless(REF, REF) were unclear and until someone proves
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192 | it to make some sense, it is forbidden.
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193 |
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194 | =item *
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195 |
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196 | The obsolete chat2 library that should never have been allowed
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197 | to escape the laboratory has been decommissioned.
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198 |
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199 | =item *
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200 |
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201 | Using chdir("") or chdir(undef) instead of explicit chdir() is
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202 | doubtful. A failure (think chdir(some_function()) can lead into
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203 | unintended chdir() to the home directory, therefore this behaviour
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204 | is deprecated.
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205 |
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206 | =item *
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207 |
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208 | The builtin dump() function has probably outlived most of its
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209 | usefulness. The core-dumping functionality will remain in future
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210 | available as an explicit call to C<CORE::dump()>, but in future
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211 | releases the behaviour of an unqualified C<dump()> call may change.
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212 |
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213 | =item *
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214 |
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215 | The very dusty examples in the eg/ directory have been removed.
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216 | Suggestions for new shiny examples welcome but the main issue is that
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217 | the examples need to be documented, tested and (most importantly)
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218 | maintained.
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219 |
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220 | =item *
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221 |
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222 | The (bogus) escape sequences \8 and \9 now give an optional warning
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223 | ("Unrecognized escape passed through"). There is no need to \-escape
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224 | any C<\w> character.
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225 |
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226 | =item *
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227 |
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228 | The *glob{FILEHANDLE} is deprecated, use *glob{IO} instead.
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229 |
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230 | =item *
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231 |
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232 | The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument) has been
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233 | deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its
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234 | implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to
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235 | disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead.
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236 |
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237 | =item *
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238 |
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239 | The unimplemented POSIX regex features [[.cc.]] and [[=c=]] are still
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240 | recognised but now cause fatal errors. The previous behaviour of
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241 | ignoring them by default and warning if requested was unacceptable
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242 | since it, in a way, falsely promised that the features could be used.
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243 |
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244 | =item *
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245 |
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246 | In future releases, non-PerlIO aware XS modules may become completely
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247 | unsupported. Since PerlIO is a drop-in replacement for stdio at the
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248 | source code level, this shouldn't be that drastic a change.
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249 |
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250 | =item *
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251 |
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252 | Previous versions of perl and some readings of some sections of Camel
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253 | III implied that the C<:raw> "discipline" was the inverse of C<:crlf>.
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254 | Turning off "clrfness" is no longer enough to make a stream truly
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255 | binary. So the PerlIO C<:raw> layer (or "discipline", to use the Camel
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256 | book's older terminology) is now formally defined as being equivalent
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257 | to binmode(FH) - which is in turn defined as doing whatever is
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258 | necessary to pass each byte as-is without any translation. In
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259 | particular binmode(FH) - and hence C<:raw> - will now turn off both
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260 | CRLF and UTF-8 translation and remove other layers (e.g. :encoding())
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261 | which would modify byte stream.
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262 |
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263 | =item *
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264 |
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265 | The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird
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266 | use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0
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267 | and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be
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268 | implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather
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269 | ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash
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270 | use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain
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271 | available. The I<restricted hashes> interface is expected to
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272 | be the replacement interface (see L<Hash::Util>). If your existing
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273 | programs depends on the underlying implementation, consider using
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274 | L<Class::PseudoHash> from CPAN.
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275 |
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276 | =item *
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277 |
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278 | The syntaxes C<< @a->[...] >> and C<< %h->{...} >> have now been deprecated.
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279 |
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280 | =item *
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281 |
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282 | After years of trying, suidperl is considered to be too complex to
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283 | ever be considered truly secure. The suidperl functionality is likely
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284 | to be removed in a future release.
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285 |
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286 | =item *
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287 |
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288 | The 5.005 threads model (module C<Thread>) is deprecated and expected
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289 | to be removed in Perl 5.10. Multithreaded code should be migrated to
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290 | the new ithreads model (see L<threads>, L<threads::shared> and
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291 | L<perlthrtut>).
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292 |
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293 | =item *
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294 |
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295 | The long deprecated uppercase aliases for the string comparison
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296 | operators (EQ, NE, LT, LE, GE, GT) have now been removed.
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297 |
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298 | =item *
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299 |
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300 | The tr///C and tr///U features have been removed and will not return;
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301 | the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar
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302 | functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...). [561]
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303 |
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304 | =item *
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305 |
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306 | Earlier Perls treated "sub foo (@bar)" as equivalent to "sub foo (@)".
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307 | The prototypes are now checked better at compile-time for invalid
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308 | syntax. An optional warning is generated ("Illegal character in
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309 | prototype...") but this may be upgraded to a fatal error in a future
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310 | release.
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311 |
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312 | =item *
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313 |
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314 | The C<exec LIST> and C<system LIST> operations now produce warnings on
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315 | tainted data and in some future release they will produce fatal errors.
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316 |
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317 | =item *
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318 |
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319 | The existing behaviour when localising tied arrays and hashes is wrong,
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320 | and will be changed in a future release, so do not rely on the existing
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321 | behaviour. See L<"Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken">.
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322 |
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323 | =back
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324 |
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325 | =head1 Core Enhancements
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326 |
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327 | =head2 Unicode Overhaul
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328 |
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329 | Unicode in general should be now much more usable than in Perl 5.6.0
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330 | (or even in 5.6.1). Unicode can be used in hash keys, Unicode in
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331 | regular expressions should work now, Unicode in tr/// should work now,
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332 | Unicode in I/O should work now. See L<perluniintro> for introduction
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333 | and L<perlunicode> for details.
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334 |
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335 | =over 4
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336 |
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337 | =item *
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338 |
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339 | The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded
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340 | to Unicode 3.2.0. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ .
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341 | [561+] (5.6.1 has UCD 3.0.1.)
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342 |
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343 | =item *
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344 |
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345 | For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities:
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346 | almost all the UCD files are included with the Perl distribution in
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347 | the F<lib/unicore> subdirectory. The most notable omission, for space
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348 | considerations, is the Unihan database.
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349 |
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350 | =item *
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351 |
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352 | The properties \p{Blank} and \p{SpacePerl} have been added. "Blank" is like
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353 | C isblank(), that is, it contains only "horizontal whitespace" (the space
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354 | character is, the newline isn't), and the "SpacePerl" is the Unicode
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355 | equivalent of C<\s> (\p{Space} isn't, since that includes the vertical
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356 | tabulator character, whereas C<\s> doesn't.)
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357 |
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358 | See "New Unicode Properties" earlier in this document for additional
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359 | information on changes with Unicode properties.
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360 |
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361 | =back
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362 |
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363 | =head2 PerlIO is Now The Default
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364 |
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365 | =over 4
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366 |
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367 | =item *
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368 |
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369 | IO is now by default done via PerlIO rather than system's "stdio".
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370 | PerlIO allows "layers" to be "pushed" onto a file handle to alter the
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371 | handle's behaviour. Layers can be specified at open time via 3-arg
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372 | form of open:
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373 |
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374 | open($fh,'>:crlf :utf8', $path) || ...
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375 |
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376 | or on already opened handles via extended C<binmode>:
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377 |
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378 | binmode($fh,':encoding(iso-8859-7)');
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379 |
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380 | The built-in layers are: unix (low level read/write), stdio (as in
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381 | previous Perls), perlio (re-implementation of stdio buffering in a
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382 | portable manner), crlf (does CRLF <=> "\n" translation as on Win32,
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383 | but available on any platform). A mmap layer may be available if
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384 | platform supports it (mostly UNIXes).
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385 |
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386 | Layers to be applied by default may be specified via the 'open' pragma.
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387 |
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388 | See L</"Installation and Configuration Improvements"> for the effects
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389 | of PerlIO on your architecture name.
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390 |
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391 | =item *
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392 |
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393 | If your platform supports fork(), you can use the list form of C<open>
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394 | for pipes. For example:
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395 |
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396 | open KID_PS, "-|", "ps", "aux" or die $!;
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397 |
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398 | forks the ps(1) command (without spawning a shell, as there are more
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399 | than three arguments to open()), and reads its standard output via the
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400 | C<KID_PS> filehandle. See L<perlipc>.
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401 |
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402 | =item *
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403 |
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404 | File handles can be marked as accepting Perl's internal encoding of Unicode
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405 | (UTF-8 or UTF-EBCDIC depending on platform) by a pseudo layer ":utf8" :
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406 |
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407 | open($fh,">:utf8","Uni.txt");
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408 |
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409 | Note for EBCDIC users: the pseudo layer ":utf8" is erroneously named
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410 | for you since it's not UTF-8 what you will be getting but instead
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411 | UTF-EBCDIC. See L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>, and
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412 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ for more information.
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413 | In future releases this naming may change. See L<perluniintro>
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414 | for more information about UTF-8.
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415 |
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416 | =item *
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417 |
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418 | If your environment variables (LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG) look like you
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419 | want to use UTF-8 (any of the variables match C</utf-?8/i>), your
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420 | STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR handles and the default open layer (see L<open>)
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421 | are marked as UTF-8. (This feature, like other new features that
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422 | combine Unicode and I/O, work only if you are using PerlIO, but that's
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423 | the default.)
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424 |
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425 | Note that after this Perl really does assume that everything is UTF-8:
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426 | for example if some input handle is not, Perl will probably very soon
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427 | complain about the input data like this "Malformed UTF-8 ..." since
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428 | any old eight-bit data is not legal UTF-8.
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429 |
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430 | Note for code authors: if you want to enable your users to use UTF-8
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431 | as their default encoding but in your code still have eight-bit I/O streams
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432 | (such as images or zip files), you need to explicitly open() or binmode()
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433 | with C<:bytes> (see L<perlfunc/open> and L<perlfunc/binmode>), or you
|
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434 | can just use C<binmode(FH)> (nice for pre-5.8.0 backward compatibility).
|
---|
435 |
|
---|
436 | =item *
|
---|
437 |
|
---|
438 | File handles can translate character encodings from/to Perl's internal
|
---|
439 | Unicode form on read/write via the ":encoding()" layer.
|
---|
440 |
|
---|
441 | =item *
|
---|
442 |
|
---|
443 | File handles can be opened to "in memory" files held in Perl scalars via:
|
---|
444 |
|
---|
445 | open($fh,'>', \$variable) || ...
|
---|
446 |
|
---|
447 | =item *
|
---|
448 |
|
---|
449 | Anonymous temporary files are available without need to
|
---|
450 | 'use FileHandle' or other module via
|
---|
451 |
|
---|
452 | open($fh,"+>", undef) || ...
|
---|
453 |
|
---|
454 | That is a literal undef, not an undefined value.
|
---|
455 |
|
---|
456 | =back
|
---|
457 |
|
---|
458 | =head2 ithreads
|
---|
459 |
|
---|
460 | The new interpreter threads ("ithreads" for short) implementation of
|
---|
461 | multithreading, by Arthur Bergman, replaces the old "5.005 threads"
|
---|
462 | implementation. In the ithreads model any data sharing between
|
---|
463 | threads must be explicit, as opposed to the model where data sharing
|
---|
464 | was implicit. See L<threads> and L<threads::shared>, and
|
---|
465 | L<perlthrtut>.
|
---|
466 |
|
---|
467 | As a part of the ithreads implementation Perl will also use
|
---|
468 | any necessary and detectable reentrant libc interfaces.
|
---|
469 |
|
---|
470 | =head2 Restricted Hashes
|
---|
471 |
|
---|
472 | A restricted hash is restricted to a certain set of keys, no keys
|
---|
473 | outside the set can be added. Also individual keys can be restricted
|
---|
474 | so that the key cannot be deleted and the value cannot be changed.
|
---|
475 | No new syntax is involved: the Hash::Util module is the interface.
|
---|
476 |
|
---|
477 | =head2 Safe Signals
|
---|
478 |
|
---|
479 | Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments
|
---|
480 | could corrupt Perl's internal state. Now Perl postpones handling of
|
---|
481 | signals until it's safe (between opcodes).
|
---|
482 |
|
---|
483 | This change may have surprising side effects because signals no longer
|
---|
484 | interrupt Perl instantly. Perl will now first finish whatever it was
|
---|
485 | doing, like finishing an internal operation (like sort()) or an
|
---|
486 | external operation (like an I/O operation), and only then look at any
|
---|
487 | arrived signals (and before starting the next operation). No more corrupt
|
---|
488 | internal state since the current operation is always finished first,
|
---|
489 | but the signal may take more time to get heard. Note that breaking
|
---|
490 | out from potentially blocking operations should still work, though.
|
---|
491 |
|
---|
492 | =head2 Understanding of Numbers
|
---|
493 |
|
---|
494 | In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's
|
---|
495 | understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in
|
---|
496 | many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()>
|
---|
497 | and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their
|
---|
498 | deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers.
|
---|
499 |
|
---|
500 | Perl now tries internally to use integer values in numeric conversions
|
---|
501 | and basic arithmetics (+ - * /) if the arguments are integers, and
|
---|
502 | tries also to keep the results stored internally as integers.
|
---|
503 | This change leads to often slightly faster and always less lossy
|
---|
504 | arithmetics. (Previously Perl always preferred floating point numbers
|
---|
505 | in its math.)
|
---|
506 |
|
---|
507 | =head2 Arrays now always interpolate into double-quoted strings [561]
|
---|
508 |
|
---|
509 | In double-quoted strings, arrays now interpolate, no matter what. The
|
---|
510 | behavior in earlier versions of perl 5 was that arrays would interpolate
|
---|
511 | into strings if the array had been mentioned before the string was
|
---|
512 | compiled, and otherwise Perl would raise a fatal compile-time error.
|
---|
513 | In versions 5.000 through 5.003, the error was
|
---|
514 |
|
---|
515 | Literal @example now requires backslash
|
---|
516 |
|
---|
517 | In versions 5.004_01 through 5.6.0, the error was
|
---|
518 |
|
---|
519 | In string, @example now must be written as \@example
|
---|
520 |
|
---|
521 | The idea here was to get people into the habit of writing
|
---|
522 | C<"fred\@example.com"> when they wanted a literal C<@> sign, just as
|
---|
523 | they have always written C<"Give me back my \$5"> when they wanted a
|
---|
524 | literal C<$> sign.
|
---|
525 |
|
---|
526 | Starting with 5.6.1, when Perl now sees an C<@> sign in a
|
---|
527 | double-quoted string, it I<always> attempts to interpolate an array,
|
---|
528 | regardless of whether or not the array has been used or declared
|
---|
529 | already. The fatal error has been downgraded to an optional warning:
|
---|
530 |
|
---|
531 | Possible unintended interpolation of @example in string
|
---|
532 |
|
---|
533 | This warns you that C<"[email protected]"> is going to turn into
|
---|
534 | C<fred.com> if you don't backslash the C<@>.
|
---|
535 | See http://www.plover.com/~mjd/perl/at-error.html for more details
|
---|
536 | about the history here.
|
---|
537 |
|
---|
538 | =head2 Miscellaneous Changes
|
---|
539 |
|
---|
540 | =over 4
|
---|
541 |
|
---|
542 | =item *
|
---|
543 |
|
---|
544 | AUTOLOAD is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute
|
---|
545 | to AUTOLOAD subroutines and you can assign to the AUTOLOAD return value.
|
---|
546 |
|
---|
547 | =item *
|
---|
548 |
|
---|
549 | The $Config{byteorder} (and corresponding BYTEORDER in config.h) was
|
---|
550 | previously wrong in platforms if sizeof(long) was 4, but sizeof(IV)
|
---|
551 | was 8. The byteorder was only sizeof(long) bytes long (1234 or 4321),
|
---|
552 | but now it is correctly sizeof(IV) bytes long, (12345678 or 87654321).
|
---|
553 | (This problem didn't affect Windows platforms.)
|
---|
554 |
|
---|
555 | Also, $Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically--this is more
|
---|
556 | robust with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries
|
---|
557 | for more than one binary platform, and when cross-compiling.
|
---|
558 |
|
---|
559 | =item *
|
---|
560 |
|
---|
561 | C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass
|
---|
562 | in multiple arguments.)
|
---|
563 |
|
---|
564 | =item *
|
---|
565 |
|
---|
566 | C<do> followed by a bareword now ensures that this bareword isn't
|
---|
567 | a keyword (to avoid a bug where C<do q(foo.pl)> tried to call a
|
---|
568 | subroutine called C<q>). This means that for example instead of
|
---|
569 | C<do format()> you must write C<do &format()>.
|
---|
570 |
|
---|
571 | =item *
|
---|
572 |
|
---|
573 | The builtin dump() now gives an optional warning
|
---|
574 | C<dump() better written as CORE::dump()>,
|
---|
575 | meaning that by default C<dump(...)> is resolved as the builtin
|
---|
576 | dump() which dumps core and aborts, not as (possibly) user-defined
|
---|
577 | C<sub dump>. To call the latter, qualify the call as C<&dump(...)>.
|
---|
578 | (The whole dump() feature is to considered deprecated, and possibly
|
---|
579 | removed/changed in future releases.)
|
---|
580 |
|
---|
581 | =item *
|
---|
582 |
|
---|
583 | chomp() and chop() are now overridable. Note, however, that their
|
---|
584 | prototype (as given by C<prototype("CORE::chomp")> is undefined,
|
---|
585 | because it cannot be expressed and therefore one cannot really write
|
---|
586 | replacements to override these builtins.
|
---|
587 |
|
---|
588 | =item *
|
---|
589 |
|
---|
590 | END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block.
|
---|
591 | Internally, the execution of END blocks is now controlled by
|
---|
592 | PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new
|
---|
593 | behaviour for Perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See
|
---|
594 | L<perlembed>.
|
---|
595 |
|
---|
596 | =item *
|
---|
597 |
|
---|
598 | Formats now support zero-padded decimal fields.
|
---|
599 |
|
---|
600 | =item *
|
---|
601 |
|
---|
602 | Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that
|
---|
603 | depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new
|
---|
604 | algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order.
|
---|
605 | More details are in L</"Performance Enhancements">.
|
---|
606 |
|
---|
607 | =item *
|
---|
608 |
|
---|
609 | lstat(FILEHANDLE) now gives a warning because the operation makes no sense.
|
---|
610 | In future releases this may become a fatal error.
|
---|
611 |
|
---|
612 | =item *
|
---|
613 |
|
---|
614 | Spurious syntax errors generated in certain situations, when glob()
|
---|
615 | caused File::Glob to be loaded for the first time, have been fixed. [561]
|
---|
616 |
|
---|
617 | =item *
|
---|
618 |
|
---|
619 | Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context. However,
|
---|
620 | the lvalue subroutine feature still remains experimental. [561+]
|
---|
621 |
|
---|
622 | =item *
|
---|
623 |
|
---|
624 | A lost warning "Can't declare ... dereference in my" has been
|
---|
625 | restored (Perl had it earlier but it became lost in later releases.)
|
---|
626 |
|
---|
627 | =item *
|
---|
628 |
|
---|
629 | A new special regular expression variable has been introduced:
|
---|
630 | C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch).
|
---|
631 |
|
---|
632 | =item *
|
---|
633 |
|
---|
634 | C<no Module;> does not produce an error even if Module does not have an
|
---|
635 | unimport() method. This parallels the behavior of C<use> vis-a-vis
|
---|
636 | C<import>. [561]
|
---|
637 |
|
---|
638 | =item *
|
---|
639 |
|
---|
640 | The numerical comparison operators return C<undef> if either operand
|
---|
641 | is a NaN. Previously the behaviour was unspecified.
|
---|
642 |
|
---|
643 | =item *
|
---|
644 |
|
---|
645 | C<our> can now have an experimental optional attribute C<unique> that
|
---|
646 | affects how global variables are shared among multiple interpreters,
|
---|
647 | see L<perlfunc/our>.
|
---|
648 |
|
---|
649 | =item *
|
---|
650 |
|
---|
651 | The following builtin functions are now overridable: each(), keys(),
|
---|
652 | pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift(). [561]
|
---|
653 |
|
---|
654 | =item *
|
---|
655 |
|
---|
656 | C<pack() / unpack()> can now group template letters with C<()> and then
|
---|
657 | apply repetition/count modifiers on the groups.
|
---|
658 |
|
---|
659 | =item *
|
---|
660 |
|
---|
661 | C<pack() / unpack()> can now process the Perl internal numeric types:
|
---|
662 | IVs, UVs, NVs-- and also long doubles, if supported by the platform.
|
---|
663 | The template letters are C<j>, C<J>, C<F>, and C<D>.
|
---|
664 |
|
---|
665 | =item *
|
---|
666 |
|
---|
667 | C<pack('U0a*', ...)> can now be used to force a string to UTF-8.
|
---|
668 |
|
---|
669 | =item *
|
---|
670 |
|
---|
671 | my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works. [561]
|
---|
672 |
|
---|
673 | =item *
|
---|
674 |
|
---|
675 | POSIX::sleep() now returns the number of I<unslept> seconds
|
---|
676 | (as the POSIX standard says), as opposed to CORE::sleep() which
|
---|
677 | returns the number of slept seconds.
|
---|
678 |
|
---|
679 | =item *
|
---|
680 |
|
---|
681 | printf() and sprintf() now support parameter reordering using the
|
---|
682 | C<%\d+\$> and C<*\d+\$> syntaxes. For example
|
---|
683 |
|
---|
684 | printf "%2\$s %1\$s\n", "foo", "bar";
|
---|
685 |
|
---|
686 | will print "bar foo\n". This feature helps in writing
|
---|
687 | internationalised software, and in general when the order
|
---|
688 | of the parameters can vary.
|
---|
689 |
|
---|
690 | =item *
|
---|
691 |
|
---|
692 | The (\&) prototype now works properly. [561]
|
---|
693 |
|
---|
694 | =item *
|
---|
695 |
|
---|
696 | prototype(\[$@%&]) is now available to implicitly create references
|
---|
697 | (useful for example if you want to emulate the tie() interface).
|
---|
698 |
|
---|
699 | =item *
|
---|
700 |
|
---|
701 | A new command-line option, C<-t> is available. It is the
|
---|
702 | little brother of C<-T>: instead of dying on taint violations,
|
---|
703 | lexical warnings are given. B<This is only meant as a temporary
|
---|
704 | debugging aid while securing the code of old legacy applications.
|
---|
705 | This is not a substitute for -T.>
|
---|
706 |
|
---|
707 | =item *
|
---|
708 |
|
---|
709 | In other taint news, the C<exec LIST> and C<system LIST> have now been
|
---|
710 | considered too risky (think C<exec @ARGV>: it can start any program
|
---|
711 | with any arguments), and now the said forms cause a warning under
|
---|
712 | lexical warnings. You should carefully launder the arguments to
|
---|
713 | guarantee their validity. In future releases of Perl the forms will
|
---|
714 | become fatal errors so consider starting laundering now.
|
---|
715 |
|
---|
716 | =item *
|
---|
717 |
|
---|
718 | Tied hash interfaces are now required to have the EXISTS and DELETE
|
---|
719 | methods (either own or inherited).
|
---|
720 |
|
---|
721 | =item *
|
---|
722 |
|
---|
723 | If tr/// is just counting characters, it doesn't attempt to
|
---|
724 | modify its target.
|
---|
725 |
|
---|
726 | =item *
|
---|
727 |
|
---|
728 | untie() will now call an UNTIE() hook if it exists. See L<perltie>
|
---|
729 | for details. [561]
|
---|
730 |
|
---|
731 | =item *
|
---|
732 |
|
---|
733 | L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the
|
---|
734 | file timestamps to the current time.
|
---|
735 |
|
---|
736 | =item *
|
---|
737 |
|
---|
738 | The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants
|
---|
739 | have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore
|
---|
740 | simply B<between digits>.
|
---|
741 |
|
---|
742 | =item *
|
---|
743 |
|
---|
744 | Rather than relying on C's argv[0] (which may not contain a full pathname)
|
---|
745 | where possible $^X is now set by asking the operating system.
|
---|
746 | (eg by reading F</proc/self/exe> on Linux, F</proc/curproc/file> on FreeBSD)
|
---|
747 |
|
---|
748 | =item *
|
---|
749 |
|
---|
750 | A new variable, C<${^TAINT}>, indicates whether taint mode is enabled.
|
---|
751 |
|
---|
752 | =item *
|
---|
753 |
|
---|
754 | You can now override the readline() builtin, and this overrides also
|
---|
755 | the <FILEHANDLE> angle bracket operator.
|
---|
756 |
|
---|
757 | =item *
|
---|
758 |
|
---|
759 | The command-line options -s and -F are now recognized on the shebang
|
---|
760 | (#!) line.
|
---|
761 |
|
---|
762 | =item *
|
---|
763 |
|
---|
764 | Use of the C</c> match modifier without an accompanying C</g> modifier
|
---|
765 | elicits a new warning: C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless without /g>.
|
---|
766 |
|
---|
767 | Use of C</c> in substitutions, even with C</g>, elicits
|
---|
768 | C<Use of /c modifier is meaningless in s///>.
|
---|
769 |
|
---|
770 | Use of C</g> with C<split> elicits C<Use of /g modifier is meaningless
|
---|
771 | in split>.
|
---|
772 |
|
---|
773 | =item *
|
---|
774 |
|
---|
775 | Support for the C<CLONE> special subroutine had been added.
|
---|
776 | With ithreads, when a new thread is created, all Perl data is cloned,
|
---|
777 | however non-Perl data cannot be cloned automatically. In C<CLONE> you
|
---|
778 | can do whatever you need to do, like for example handle the cloning of
|
---|
779 | non-Perl data, if necessary. C<CLONE> will be executed once for every
|
---|
780 | package that has it defined or inherited. It will be called in the
|
---|
781 | context of the new thread, so all modifications are made in the new area.
|
---|
782 |
|
---|
783 | See L<perlmod>
|
---|
784 |
|
---|
785 | =back
|
---|
786 |
|
---|
787 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata
|
---|
788 |
|
---|
789 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
|
---|
790 |
|
---|
791 | =over 4
|
---|
792 |
|
---|
793 | =item *
|
---|
794 |
|
---|
795 | C<Attribute::Handlers>, originally by Damian Conway and now maintained
|
---|
796 | by Arthur Bergman, allows a class to define attribute handlers.
|
---|
797 |
|
---|
798 | package MyPack;
|
---|
799 | use Attribute::Handlers;
|
---|
800 | sub Wolf :ATTR(SCALAR) { print "howl!\n" }
|
---|
801 |
|
---|
802 | # later, in some package using or inheriting from MyPack...
|
---|
803 |
|
---|
804 | my MyPack $Fluffy : Wolf; # the attribute handler Wolf will be called
|
---|
805 |
|
---|
806 | Both variables and routines can have attribute handlers. Handlers can
|
---|
807 | be specific to type (SCALAR, ARRAY, HASH, or CODE), or specific to the
|
---|
808 | exact compilation phase (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, or END).
|
---|
809 | See L<Attribute::Handlers>.
|
---|
810 |
|
---|
811 | =item *
|
---|
812 |
|
---|
813 | C<B::Concise>, by Stephen McCamant, is a new compiler backend for
|
---|
814 | walking the Perl syntax tree, printing concise info about ops.
|
---|
815 | The output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>. [561+]
|
---|
816 |
|
---|
817 | =item *
|
---|
818 |
|
---|
819 | The new bignum, bigint, and bigrat pragmas, by Tels, implement
|
---|
820 | transparent bignum support (using the Math::BigInt, Math::BigFloat,
|
---|
821 | and Math::BigRat backends).
|
---|
822 |
|
---|
823 | =item *
|
---|
824 |
|
---|
825 | C<Class::ISA>, by Sean Burke, is a module for reporting the search
|
---|
826 | path for a class's ISA tree. See L<Class::ISA>.
|
---|
827 |
|
---|
828 | =item *
|
---|
829 |
|
---|
830 | C<Cwd> now has a split personality: if possible, an XS extension is
|
---|
831 | used, (this will hopefully be faster, more secure, and more robust)
|
---|
832 | but if not possible, the familiar Perl implementation is used.
|
---|
833 |
|
---|
834 | =item *
|
---|
835 |
|
---|
836 | C<Devel::PPPort>, originally by Kenneth Albanowski and now
|
---|
837 | maintained by Paul Marquess, has been added. It is primarily used
|
---|
838 | by C<h2xs> to enhance portability of XS modules between different
|
---|
839 | versions of Perl. See L<Devel::PPPort>.
|
---|
840 |
|
---|
841 | =item *
|
---|
842 |
|
---|
843 | C<Digest>, frontend module for calculating digests (checksums), from
|
---|
844 | Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest>.
|
---|
845 |
|
---|
846 | =item *
|
---|
847 |
|
---|
848 | C<Digest::MD5> for calculating MD5 digests (checksums) as defined in
|
---|
849 | RFC 1321, from Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest::MD5>.
|
---|
850 |
|
---|
851 | use Digest::MD5 'md5_hex';
|
---|
852 |
|
---|
853 | $digest = md5_hex("Thirsty Camel");
|
---|
854 |
|
---|
855 | print $digest, "\n"; # 01d19d9d2045e005c3f1b80e8b164de1
|
---|
856 |
|
---|
857 | NOTE: the C<MD5> backward compatibility module is deliberately not
|
---|
858 | included since its further use is discouraged.
|
---|
859 |
|
---|
860 | See also L<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
|
---|
861 |
|
---|
862 | =item *
|
---|
863 |
|
---|
864 | C<Encode>, originally by Nick Ing-Simmons and now maintained by Dan
|
---|
865 | Kogai, provides a mechanism to translate between different character
|
---|
866 | encodings. Support for Unicode, ISO-8859-1, and ASCII are compiled in
|
---|
867 | to the module. Several other encodings (like the rest of the
|
---|
868 | ISO-8859, CP*/Win*, Mac, KOI8-R, three variants EBCDIC, Chinese,
|
---|
869 | Japanese, and Korean encodings) are included and can be loaded at
|
---|
870 | runtime. (For space considerations, the largest Chinese encodings
|
---|
871 | have been separated into their own CPAN module, Encode::HanExtra,
|
---|
872 | which Encode will use if available). See L<Encode>.
|
---|
873 |
|
---|
874 | Any encoding supported by Encode module is also available to the
|
---|
875 | ":encoding()" layer if PerlIO is used.
|
---|
876 |
|
---|
877 | =item *
|
---|
878 |
|
---|
879 | C<Hash::Util> is the interface to the new I<restricted hashes>
|
---|
880 | feature. (Implemented by Jeffrey Friedl, Nick Ing-Simmons, and
|
---|
881 | Michael Schwern.) See L<Hash::Util>.
|
---|
882 |
|
---|
883 | =item *
|
---|
884 |
|
---|
885 | C<I18N::Langinfo> can be used to query locale information.
|
---|
886 | See L<I18N::Langinfo>.
|
---|
887 |
|
---|
888 | =item *
|
---|
889 |
|
---|
890 | C<I18N::LangTags>, by Sean Burke, has functions for dealing with
|
---|
891 | RFC3066-style language tags. See L<I18N::LangTags>.
|
---|
892 |
|
---|
893 | =item *
|
---|
894 |
|
---|
895 | C<ExtUtils::Constant>, by Nicholas Clark, is a new tool for extension
|
---|
896 | writers for generating XS code to import C header constants.
|
---|
897 | See L<ExtUtils::Constant>.
|
---|
898 |
|
---|
899 | =item *
|
---|
900 |
|
---|
901 | C<Filter::Simple>, by Damian Conway, is an easy-to-use frontend to
|
---|
902 | Filter::Util::Call. See L<Filter::Simple>.
|
---|
903 |
|
---|
904 | # in MyFilter.pm:
|
---|
905 |
|
---|
906 | package MyFilter;
|
---|
907 |
|
---|
908 | use Filter::Simple sub {
|
---|
909 | while (my ($from, $to) = splice @_, 0, 2) {
|
---|
910 | s/$from/$to/g;
|
---|
911 | }
|
---|
912 | };
|
---|
913 |
|
---|
914 | 1;
|
---|
915 |
|
---|
916 | # in user's code:
|
---|
917 |
|
---|
918 | use MyFilter qr/red/ => 'green';
|
---|
919 |
|
---|
920 | print "red\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "green\n"
|
---|
921 | print "bored\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "bogreen\n"
|
---|
922 |
|
---|
923 | no MyFilter;
|
---|
924 |
|
---|
925 | print "red\n"; # this code is not filtered, will print "red\n"
|
---|
926 |
|
---|
927 | =item *
|
---|
928 |
|
---|
929 | C<File::Temp>, by Tim Jenness, allows one to create temporary files
|
---|
930 | and directories in an easy, portable, and secure way. See L<File::Temp>.
|
---|
931 | [561+]
|
---|
932 |
|
---|
933 | =item *
|
---|
934 |
|
---|
935 | C<Filter::Util::Call>, by Paul Marquess, provides you with the
|
---|
936 | framework to write I<source filters> in Perl. For most uses, the
|
---|
937 | frontend Filter::Simple is to be preferred. See L<Filter::Util::Call>.
|
---|
938 |
|
---|
939 | =item *
|
---|
940 |
|
---|
941 | C<if>, by Ilya Zakharevich, is a new pragma for conditional inclusion
|
---|
942 | of modules.
|
---|
943 |
|
---|
944 | =item *
|
---|
945 |
|
---|
946 | L<libnet>, by Graham Barr, is a collection of perl5 modules related
|
---|
947 | to network programming. See L<Net::FTP>, L<Net::NNTP>, L<Net::Ping>
|
---|
948 | (not part of libnet, but related), L<Net::POP3>, L<Net::SMTP>,
|
---|
949 | and L<Net::Time>.
|
---|
950 |
|
---|
951 | Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured; use F<libnetcfg>
|
---|
952 | to configure it.
|
---|
953 |
|
---|
954 | =item *
|
---|
955 |
|
---|
956 | C<List::Util>, by Graham Barr, is a selection of general-utility
|
---|
957 | list subroutines, such as sum(), min(), first(), and shuffle().
|
---|
958 | See L<List::Util>.
|
---|
959 |
|
---|
960 | =item *
|
---|
961 |
|
---|
962 | C<Locale::Constants>, C<Locale::Country>, C<Locale::Currency>
|
---|
963 | C<Locale::Language>, and L<Locale::Script>, by Neil Bowers, have
|
---|
964 | been added. They provide the codes for various locale standards, such
|
---|
965 | as "fr" for France, "usd" for US Dollar, and "ja" for Japanese.
|
---|
966 |
|
---|
967 | use Locale::Country;
|
---|
968 |
|
---|
969 | $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan'
|
---|
970 | $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no'
|
---|
971 |
|
---|
972 | See L<Locale::Constants>, L<Locale::Country>, L<Locale::Currency>,
|
---|
973 | and L<Locale::Language>.
|
---|
974 |
|
---|
975 | =item *
|
---|
976 |
|
---|
977 | C<Locale::Maketext>, by Sean Burke, is a localization framework. See
|
---|
978 | L<Locale::Maketext>, and L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13>. The latter is an
|
---|
979 | article about software localization, originally published in The Perl
|
---|
980 | Journal #13, and republished here with kind permission.
|
---|
981 |
|
---|
982 | =item *
|
---|
983 |
|
---|
984 | C<Math::BigRat> for big rational numbers, to accompany Math::BigInt and
|
---|
985 | Math::BigFloat, from Tels. See L<Math::BigRat>.
|
---|
986 |
|
---|
987 | =item *
|
---|
988 |
|
---|
989 | C<Memoize> can make your functions faster by trading space for time,
|
---|
990 | from Mark-Jason Dominus. See L<Memoize>.
|
---|
991 |
|
---|
992 | =item *
|
---|
993 |
|
---|
994 | C<MIME::Base64>, by Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data in base64,
|
---|
995 | as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
|
---|
996 | Extensions)>.
|
---|
997 |
|
---|
998 | use MIME::Base64;
|
---|
999 |
|
---|
1000 | $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame');
|
---|
1001 | $decoded = decode_base64($encoded);
|
---|
1002 |
|
---|
1003 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ=="
|
---|
1004 |
|
---|
1005 | See L<MIME::Base64>.
|
---|
1006 |
|
---|
1007 | =item *
|
---|
1008 |
|
---|
1009 | C<MIME::QuotedPrint>, by Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data
|
---|
1010 | in quoted-printable encoding, as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME
|
---|
1011 | (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)>.
|
---|
1012 |
|
---|
1013 | use MIME::QuotedPrint;
|
---|
1014 |
|
---|
1015 | $encoded = encode_qp("\xDE\xAD\xBE\xEF");
|
---|
1016 | $decoded = decode_qp($encoded);
|
---|
1017 |
|
---|
1018 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "=DE=AD=BE=EF\n"
|
---|
1019 | print $decoded, "\n"; # "\xDE\xAD\xBE\xEF\n"
|
---|
1020 |
|
---|
1021 | See also L<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
|
---|
1022 |
|
---|
1023 | =item *
|
---|
1024 |
|
---|
1025 | C<NEXT>, by Damian Conway, is a pseudo-class for method redispatch.
|
---|
1026 | See L<NEXT>.
|
---|
1027 |
|
---|
1028 | =item *
|
---|
1029 |
|
---|
1030 | C<open> is a new pragma for setting the default I/O layers
|
---|
1031 | for open().
|
---|
1032 |
|
---|
1033 | =item *
|
---|
1034 |
|
---|
1035 | C<PerlIO::scalar>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation
|
---|
1036 | of IO to "in memory" Perl scalars as discussed above. It also serves
|
---|
1037 | as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future possibilities
|
---|
1038 | include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See L<PerlIO::scalar>.
|
---|
1039 |
|
---|
1040 | =item *
|
---|
1041 |
|
---|
1042 | C<PerlIO::via>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps
|
---|
1043 | PerlIO layer functionality provided by a class (typically implemented
|
---|
1044 | in Perl code).
|
---|
1045 |
|
---|
1046 | =item *
|
---|
1047 |
|
---|
1048 | C<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>, by Elizabeth Mattijsen, is an example
|
---|
1049 | of a C<PerlIO::via> class:
|
---|
1050 |
|
---|
1051 | use PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint;
|
---|
1052 | open($fh,">:via(QuotedPrint)",$path);
|
---|
1053 |
|
---|
1054 | This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh> to
|
---|
1055 | Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::via> and L<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
|
---|
1056 |
|
---|
1057 | =item *
|
---|
1058 |
|
---|
1059 | C<Pod::ParseLink>, by Russ Allbery, has been added,
|
---|
1060 | to parse LZ<><> links in pods as described in the new
|
---|
1061 | perlpodspec.
|
---|
1062 |
|
---|
1063 | =item *
|
---|
1064 |
|
---|
1065 | C<Pod::Text::Overstrike>, by Joe Smith, has been added.
|
---|
1066 | It converts POD data to formatted overstrike text.
|
---|
1067 | See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike>. [561+]
|
---|
1068 |
|
---|
1069 | =item *
|
---|
1070 |
|
---|
1071 | C<Scalar::Util> is a selection of general-utility scalar subroutines,
|
---|
1072 | such as blessed(), reftype(), and tainted(). See L<Scalar::Util>.
|
---|
1073 |
|
---|
1074 | =item *
|
---|
1075 |
|
---|
1076 | C<sort> is a new pragma for controlling the behaviour of sort().
|
---|
1077 |
|
---|
1078 | =item *
|
---|
1079 |
|
---|
1080 | C<Storable> gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the
|
---|
1081 | storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and
|
---|
1082 | compact binary format. Because in effect Storable does serialisation
|
---|
1083 | of Perl data structures, with it you can also clone deep, hierarchical
|
---|
1084 | datastructures. Storable was originally created by Raphael Manfredi,
|
---|
1085 | but it is now maintained by Abhijit Menon-Sen. Storable has been
|
---|
1086 | enhanced to understand the two new hash features, Unicode keys and
|
---|
1087 | restricted hashes. See L<Storable>.
|
---|
1088 |
|
---|
1089 | =item *
|
---|
1090 |
|
---|
1091 | C<Switch>, by Damian Conway, has been added. Just by saying
|
---|
1092 |
|
---|
1093 | use Switch;
|
---|
1094 |
|
---|
1095 | you have C<switch> and C<case> available in Perl.
|
---|
1096 |
|
---|
1097 | use Switch;
|
---|
1098 |
|
---|
1099 | switch ($val) {
|
---|
1100 |
|
---|
1101 | case 1 { print "number 1" }
|
---|
1102 | case "a" { print "string a" }
|
---|
1103 | case [1..10,42] { print "number in list" }
|
---|
1104 | case (@array) { print "number in list" }
|
---|
1105 | case /\w+/ { print "pattern" }
|
---|
1106 | case qr/\w+/ { print "pattern" }
|
---|
1107 | case (%hash) { print "entry in hash" }
|
---|
1108 | case (\%hash) { print "entry in hash" }
|
---|
1109 | case (\&sub) { print "arg to subroutine" }
|
---|
1110 | else { print "previous case not true" }
|
---|
1111 | }
|
---|
1112 |
|
---|
1113 | See L<Switch>.
|
---|
1114 |
|
---|
1115 | =item *
|
---|
1116 |
|
---|
1117 | C<Test::More>, by Michael Schwern, is yet another framework for writing
|
---|
1118 | test scripts, more extensive than Test::Simple. See L<Test::More>.
|
---|
1119 |
|
---|
1120 | =item *
|
---|
1121 |
|
---|
1122 | C<Test::Simple>, by Michael Schwern, has basic utilities for writing
|
---|
1123 | tests. See L<Test::Simple>.
|
---|
1124 |
|
---|
1125 | =item *
|
---|
1126 |
|
---|
1127 | C<Text::Balanced>, by Damian Conway, has been added, for extracting
|
---|
1128 | delimited text sequences from strings.
|
---|
1129 |
|
---|
1130 | use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited';
|
---|
1131 |
|
---|
1132 | ($a, $b) = extract_delimited("'never say never', he never said", "'", '');
|
---|
1133 |
|
---|
1134 | $a will be "'never say never'", $b will be ', he never said'.
|
---|
1135 |
|
---|
1136 | In addition to extract_delimited(), there are also extract_bracketed(),
|
---|
1137 | extract_quotelike(), extract_codeblock(), extract_variable(),
|
---|
1138 | extract_tagged(), extract_multiple(), gen_delimited_pat(), and
|
---|
1139 | gen_extract_tagged(). With these, you can implement rather advanced
|
---|
1140 | parsing algorithms. See L<Text::Balanced>.
|
---|
1141 |
|
---|
1142 | =item *
|
---|
1143 |
|
---|
1144 | C<threads>, by Arthur Bergman, is an interface to interpreter threads.
|
---|
1145 | Interpreter threads (ithreads) is the new thread model introduced in
|
---|
1146 | Perl 5.6 but only available as an internal interface for extension
|
---|
1147 | writers (and for Win32 Perl for C<fork()> emulation). See L<threads>,
|
---|
1148 | L<threads::shared>, and L<perlthrtut>.
|
---|
1149 |
|
---|
1150 | =item *
|
---|
1151 |
|
---|
1152 | C<threads::shared>, by Arthur Bergman, allows data sharing for
|
---|
1153 | interpreter threads. See L<threads::shared>.
|
---|
1154 |
|
---|
1155 | =item *
|
---|
1156 |
|
---|
1157 | C<Tie::File>, by Mark-Jason Dominus, associates a Perl array with the
|
---|
1158 | lines of a file. See L<Tie::File>.
|
---|
1159 |
|
---|
1160 | =item *
|
---|
1161 |
|
---|
1162 | C<Tie::Memoize>, by Ilya Zakharevich, provides on-demand loaded hashes.
|
---|
1163 | See L<Tie::Memoize>.
|
---|
1164 |
|
---|
1165 | =item *
|
---|
1166 |
|
---|
1167 | C<Tie::RefHash::Nestable>, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash
|
---|
1168 | references (unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained
|
---|
1169 | within Tie::RefHash. See L<Tie::RefHash>.
|
---|
1170 |
|
---|
1171 | =item *
|
---|
1172 |
|
---|
1173 | C<Time::HiRes>, by Douglas E. Wegscheid, provides high resolution
|
---|
1174 | timing (ualarm, usleep, and gettimeofday). See L<Time::HiRes>.
|
---|
1175 |
|
---|
1176 | =item *
|
---|
1177 |
|
---|
1178 | C<Unicode::UCD> offers a querying interface to the Unicode Character
|
---|
1179 | Database. See L<Unicode::UCD>.
|
---|
1180 |
|
---|
1181 | =item *
|
---|
1182 |
|
---|
1183 | C<Unicode::Collate>, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki, implements the UCA
|
---|
1184 | (Unicode Collation Algorithm) for sorting Unicode strings.
|
---|
1185 | See L<Unicode::Collate>.
|
---|
1186 |
|
---|
1187 | =item *
|
---|
1188 |
|
---|
1189 | C<Unicode::Normalize>, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki, implements the various
|
---|
1190 | Unicode normalization forms. See L<Unicode::Normalize>.
|
---|
1191 |
|
---|
1192 | =item *
|
---|
1193 |
|
---|
1194 | C<XS::APItest>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises XS
|
---|
1195 | APIs. Currently only C<printf()> is tested: how to output various
|
---|
1196 | basic data types from XS.
|
---|
1197 |
|
---|
1198 | =item *
|
---|
1199 |
|
---|
1200 | C<XS::Typemap>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises
|
---|
1201 | XS typemaps. Nothing gets installed, but the code is worth studying
|
---|
1202 | for extension writers.
|
---|
1203 |
|
---|
1204 | =back
|
---|
1205 |
|
---|
1206 | =head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata
|
---|
1207 |
|
---|
1208 | =over 4
|
---|
1209 |
|
---|
1210 | =item *
|
---|
1211 |
|
---|
1212 | The following independently supported modules have been updated to the
|
---|
1213 | newest versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, File::Temp,
|
---|
1214 | Getopt::Long, Math::BigFloat, Math::BigInt, the podlators bundle
|
---|
1215 | (Pod::Man, Pod::Text), Pod::LaTeX [561+], Pod::Parser, Storable,
|
---|
1216 | Term::ANSIColor, Test, Text-Tabs+Wrap.
|
---|
1217 |
|
---|
1218 | =item *
|
---|
1219 |
|
---|
1220 | attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments.
|
---|
1221 |
|
---|
1222 | =item *
|
---|
1223 |
|
---|
1224 | AutoLoader can now be disabled with C<no AutoLoader;>.
|
---|
1225 |
|
---|
1226 | =item *
|
---|
1227 |
|
---|
1228 | B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced by Robin Houston. It can
|
---|
1229 | now deparse almost all of the standard test suite (so that the tests
|
---|
1230 | still succeed). There is a make target "test.deparse" for trying this
|
---|
1231 | out.
|
---|
1232 |
|
---|
1233 | =item *
|
---|
1234 |
|
---|
1235 | Carp now has better interface documentation, and the @CARP_NOT
|
---|
1236 | interface has been added to get optional control over where errors
|
---|
1237 | are reported independently of @ISA, by Ben Tilly.
|
---|
1238 |
|
---|
1239 | =item *
|
---|
1240 |
|
---|
1241 | Class::Struct can now define the classes in compile time.
|
---|
1242 |
|
---|
1243 | =item *
|
---|
1244 |
|
---|
1245 | Class::Struct now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor
|
---|
1246 | is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument.
|
---|
1247 |
|
---|
1248 | =item *
|
---|
1249 |
|
---|
1250 | The return value of Cwd::fastcwd() is now tainted.
|
---|
1251 |
|
---|
1252 | =item *
|
---|
1253 |
|
---|
1254 | Data::Dumper now has an option to sort hashes.
|
---|
1255 |
|
---|
1256 | =item *
|
---|
1257 |
|
---|
1258 | Data::Dumper now has an option to dump code references
|
---|
1259 | using B::Deparse.
|
---|
1260 |
|
---|
1261 | =item *
|
---|
1262 |
|
---|
1263 | DB_File now supports newer Berkeley DB versions, among
|
---|
1264 | other improvements.
|
---|
1265 |
|
---|
1266 | =item *
|
---|
1267 |
|
---|
1268 | Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics
|
---|
1269 | (this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have
|
---|
1270 | compiled with debugging).
|
---|
1271 |
|
---|
1272 | =item *
|
---|
1273 |
|
---|
1274 | The English module can now be used without the infamous performance
|
---|
1275 | hit by saying
|
---|
1276 |
|
---|
1277 | use English '-no_match_vars';
|
---|
1278 |
|
---|
1279 | (Assuming, of course, that you don't need the troublesome variables
|
---|
1280 | C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and
|
---|
1281 | C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>.
|
---|
1282 |
|
---|
1283 | =item *
|
---|
1284 |
|
---|
1285 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker has been significantly cleaned up and fixed.
|
---|
1286 | The enhanced version has also been backported to earlier releases
|
---|
1287 | of Perl and submitted to CPAN so that the earlier releases can
|
---|
1288 | enjoy the fixes.
|
---|
1289 |
|
---|
1290 | =item *
|
---|
1291 |
|
---|
1292 | The arguments of WriteMakefile() in Makefile.PL are now checked
|
---|
1293 | for sanity much more carefully than before. This may cause new
|
---|
1294 | warnings when modules are being installed. See L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
|
---|
1295 | for more details.
|
---|
1296 |
|
---|
1297 | =item *
|
---|
1298 |
|
---|
1299 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses File::Spec internally, which hopefully
|
---|
1300 | leads to better portability.
|
---|
1301 |
|
---|
1302 | =item *
|
---|
1303 |
|
---|
1304 | Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten by Nicholas Clark
|
---|
1305 | to use the new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>).
|
---|
1306 | This means that they will be more robust and hopefully faster.
|
---|
1307 |
|
---|
1308 | =item *
|
---|
1309 |
|
---|
1310 | File::Find now chdir()s correctly when chasing symbolic links. [561]
|
---|
1311 |
|
---|
1312 | =item *
|
---|
1313 |
|
---|
1314 | File::Find now has pre- and post-processing callbacks. It also
|
---|
1315 | correctly changes directories when chasing symbolic links. Callbacks
|
---|
1316 | (naughtily) exiting with "next;" instead of "return;" now work.
|
---|
1317 |
|
---|
1318 | =item *
|
---|
1319 |
|
---|
1320 | File::Find is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made
|
---|
1321 | more portable.
|
---|
1322 |
|
---|
1323 | =item *
|
---|
1324 |
|
---|
1325 | The warnings issued by File::Find now belong to their own category.
|
---|
1326 | You can enable/disable them with C<use/no warnings 'File::Find';>.
|
---|
1327 |
|
---|
1328 | =item *
|
---|
1329 |
|
---|
1330 | File::Glob::glob() has been renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob()
|
---|
1331 | because the name clashes with the builtin glob(). The older
|
---|
1332 | name is still available for compatibility, but is deprecated. [561]
|
---|
1333 |
|
---|
1334 | =item *
|
---|
1335 |
|
---|
1336 | File::Glob now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the size of
|
---|
1337 | the returned list of filenames.
|
---|
1338 |
|
---|
1339 | =item *
|
---|
1340 |
|
---|
1341 | IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors.
|
---|
1342 |
|
---|
1343 | =item *
|
---|
1344 |
|
---|
1345 | IO::Socket now has an atmark() method, which returns true if the socket
|
---|
1346 | is positioned at the out-of-band mark. The method is also exportable
|
---|
1347 | as a sockatmark() function.
|
---|
1348 |
|
---|
1349 | =item *
|
---|
1350 |
|
---|
1351 | IO::Socket::INET failed to open the specified port if the service name
|
---|
1352 | was not known. It now correctly uses the supplied port number as is. [561]
|
---|
1353 |
|
---|
1354 | =item *
|
---|
1355 |
|
---|
1356 | IO::Socket::INET has support for the ReusePort option (if your
|
---|
1357 | platform supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr.
|
---|
1358 | For clarity, you may want to prefer ReuseAddr.
|
---|
1359 |
|
---|
1360 | =item *
|
---|
1361 |
|
---|
1362 | IO::Socket::INET now supports a value of zero for C<LocalPort>
|
---|
1363 | (usually meaning that the operating system will make one up.)
|
---|
1364 |
|
---|
1365 | =item *
|
---|
1366 |
|
---|
1367 | 'use lib' now works identically to @INC. Removing directories
|
---|
1368 | with 'no lib' now works.
|
---|
1369 |
|
---|
1370 | =item *
|
---|
1371 |
|
---|
1372 | Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt have undergone a full rewrite by Tels.
|
---|
1373 | They are now magnitudes faster, and they support various bignum
|
---|
1374 | libraries such as GMP and PARI as their backends.
|
---|
1375 |
|
---|
1376 | =item *
|
---|
1377 |
|
---|
1378 | Math::Complex handles inf, NaN etc., better.
|
---|
1379 |
|
---|
1380 | =item *
|
---|
1381 |
|
---|
1382 | Net::Ping has been considerably enhanced by Rob Brown: multihoming is
|
---|
1383 | now supported, Win32 functionality is better, there is now time
|
---|
1384 | measuring functionality (optionally high-resolution using
|
---|
1385 | Time::HiRes), and there is now "external" protocol which uses
|
---|
1386 | Net::Ping::External module which runs your external ping utility and
|
---|
1387 | parses the output. A version of Net::Ping::External is available in
|
---|
1388 | CPAN.
|
---|
1389 |
|
---|
1390 | Note that some of the Net::Ping tests are disabled when running
|
---|
1391 | under the Perl distribution since one cannot assume one or more
|
---|
1392 | of the following: enabled echo port at localhost, full Internet
|
---|
1393 | connectivity, or sympathetic firewalls. You can set the environment
|
---|
1394 | variable PERL_TEST_Net_Ping to "1" (one) before running the Perl test
|
---|
1395 | suite to enable all the Net::Ping tests.
|
---|
1396 |
|
---|
1397 | =item *
|
---|
1398 |
|
---|
1399 | POSIX::sigaction() is now much more flexible and robust.
|
---|
1400 | You can now install coderef handlers, 'DEFAULT', and 'IGNORE'
|
---|
1401 | handlers, installing new handlers was not atomic.
|
---|
1402 |
|
---|
1403 | =item *
|
---|
1404 |
|
---|
1405 | In Safe, C<%INC> is now localised in a Safe compartment so that
|
---|
1406 | use/require work.
|
---|
1407 |
|
---|
1408 | =item *
|
---|
1409 |
|
---|
1410 | In SDBM_File on dosish platforms, some keys went missing because of
|
---|
1411 | lack of support for files with "holes". A workaround for the problem
|
---|
1412 | has been added.
|
---|
1413 |
|
---|
1414 | =item *
|
---|
1415 |
|
---|
1416 | In Search::Dict one can now have a pre-processing hook for the
|
---|
1417 | lines being searched.
|
---|
1418 |
|
---|
1419 | =item *
|
---|
1420 |
|
---|
1421 | The Shell module now has an OO interface.
|
---|
1422 |
|
---|
1423 | =item *
|
---|
1424 |
|
---|
1425 | In Sys::Syslog there is now a failover mechanism that will go
|
---|
1426 | through alternative connection mechanisms until the message
|
---|
1427 | is successfully logged.
|
---|
1428 |
|
---|
1429 | =item *
|
---|
1430 |
|
---|
1431 | The Test module has been significantly enhanced.
|
---|
1432 |
|
---|
1433 | =item *
|
---|
1434 |
|
---|
1435 | Time::Local::timelocal() does not handle fractional seconds anymore.
|
---|
1436 | The rationale is that neither does localtime(), and timelocal() and
|
---|
1437 | localtime() are supposed to be inverses of each other.
|
---|
1438 |
|
---|
1439 | =item *
|
---|
1440 |
|
---|
1441 | The vars pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables.
|
---|
1442 | (Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.)
|
---|
1443 |
|
---|
1444 | =item *
|
---|
1445 |
|
---|
1446 | The C<utf8::> name space (as in the pragma) provides various
|
---|
1447 | Perl-callable functions to provide low level access to Perl's
|
---|
1448 | internal Unicode representation. At the moment only length()
|
---|
1449 | has been implemented.
|
---|
1450 |
|
---|
1451 | =back
|
---|
1452 |
|
---|
1453 | =head1 Utility Changes
|
---|
1454 |
|
---|
1455 | =over 4
|
---|
1456 |
|
---|
1457 | =item *
|
---|
1458 |
|
---|
1459 | Emacs perl mode (emacs/cperl-mode.el) has been updated to version
|
---|
1460 | 4.31.
|
---|
1461 |
|
---|
1462 | =item *
|
---|
1463 |
|
---|
1464 | F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster.
|
---|
1465 |
|
---|
1466 | =item *
|
---|
1467 |
|
---|
1468 | C<enc2xs> is a tool for people adding their own encodings to the
|
---|
1469 | Encode module.
|
---|
1470 |
|
---|
1471 | =item *
|
---|
1472 |
|
---|
1473 | C<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs.
|
---|
1474 |
|
---|
1475 | =item *
|
---|
1476 |
|
---|
1477 | C<h2xs> now produces a template README.
|
---|
1478 |
|
---|
1479 | =item *
|
---|
1480 |
|
---|
1481 | C<h2xs> now uses C<Devel::PPPort> for better portability between
|
---|
1482 | different versions of Perl.
|
---|
1483 |
|
---|
1484 | =item *
|
---|
1485 |
|
---|
1486 | C<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant|ExtUtils::Constant> module
|
---|
1487 | which will affect newly created extensions that define constants.
|
---|
1488 | Since the new code is more correct (if you have two constants where the
|
---|
1489 | first one is a prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never>
|
---|
1490 | got defined), less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant,
|
---|
1491 | as opposed to the old code that used floating point numbers even for
|
---|
1492 | integer constants), and slightly faster, you might want to consider
|
---|
1493 | regenerating your extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating
|
---|
1494 | easy). L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs.
|
---|
1495 |
|
---|
1496 | =item *
|
---|
1497 |
|
---|
1498 | C<libnetcfg> has been added to configure libnet.
|
---|
1499 |
|
---|
1500 | =item *
|
---|
1501 |
|
---|
1502 | C<perlbug> is now much more robust. It also sends the bug report to
|
---|
1503 | perl.org, not perl.com.
|
---|
1504 |
|
---|
1505 | =item *
|
---|
1506 |
|
---|
1507 | C<perlcc> has been rewritten and its user interface (that is,
|
---|
1508 | command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc.
|
---|
1509 | (The perlbc tools has been removed. Use C<perlcc -B> instead.)
|
---|
1510 | B<Note that perlcc is still considered very experimental and
|
---|
1511 | unsupported.> [561]
|
---|
1512 |
|
---|
1513 | =item *
|
---|
1514 |
|
---|
1515 | C<perlivp> is a new Installation Verification Procedure utility
|
---|
1516 | for running any time after installing Perl.
|
---|
1517 |
|
---|
1518 | =item *
|
---|
1519 |
|
---|
1520 | C<piconv> is an implementation of the character conversion utility
|
---|
1521 | C<iconv>, demonstrating the new Encode module.
|
---|
1522 |
|
---|
1523 | =item *
|
---|
1524 |
|
---|
1525 | C<pod2html> now allows specifying a cache directory.
|
---|
1526 |
|
---|
1527 | =item *
|
---|
1528 |
|
---|
1529 | C<pod2html> now produces XHTML 1.0.
|
---|
1530 |
|
---|
1531 | =item *
|
---|
1532 |
|
---|
1533 | C<pod2html> now understands POD written using different line endings
|
---|
1534 | (PC-like CRLF versus UNIX-like LF versus MacClassic-like CR).
|
---|
1535 |
|
---|
1536 | =item *
|
---|
1537 |
|
---|
1538 | C<s2p> has been completely rewritten in Perl. (It is in fact a full
|
---|
1539 | implementation of sed in Perl: you can use the sed functionality by
|
---|
1540 | using the C<psed> utility.)
|
---|
1541 |
|
---|
1542 | =item *
|
---|
1543 |
|
---|
1544 | C<xsubpp> now understands POD documentation embedded in the *.xs
|
---|
1545 | files. [561]
|
---|
1546 |
|
---|
1547 | =item *
|
---|
1548 |
|
---|
1549 | C<xsubpp> now supports the OUT keyword.
|
---|
1550 |
|
---|
1551 | =back
|
---|
1552 |
|
---|
1553 | =head1 New Documentation
|
---|
1554 |
|
---|
1555 | =over 4
|
---|
1556 |
|
---|
1557 | =item *
|
---|
1558 |
|
---|
1559 | perl56delta details the changes between the 5.005 release and the
|
---|
1560 | 5.6.0 release.
|
---|
1561 |
|
---|
1562 | =item *
|
---|
1563 |
|
---|
1564 | perlclib documents the internal replacements for standard C library
|
---|
1565 | functions. (Interesting only for extension writers and Perl core
|
---|
1566 | hackers.) [561+]
|
---|
1567 |
|
---|
1568 | =item *
|
---|
1569 |
|
---|
1570 | perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial. [561+]
|
---|
1571 |
|
---|
1572 | =item *
|
---|
1573 |
|
---|
1574 | perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC
|
---|
1575 | platforms. [561+]
|
---|
1576 |
|
---|
1577 | =item *
|
---|
1578 |
|
---|
1579 | perlintro is a gentle introduction to Perl.
|
---|
1580 |
|
---|
1581 | =item *
|
---|
1582 |
|
---|
1583 | perliol documents the internals of PerlIO with layers.
|
---|
1584 |
|
---|
1585 | =item *
|
---|
1586 |
|
---|
1587 | perlmodstyle is a style guide for writing modules.
|
---|
1588 |
|
---|
1589 | =item *
|
---|
1590 |
|
---|
1591 | perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module. [561+]
|
---|
1592 |
|
---|
1593 | =item *
|
---|
1594 |
|
---|
1595 | perlpacktut is a pack() tutorial.
|
---|
1596 |
|
---|
1597 | =item *
|
---|
1598 |
|
---|
1599 | perlpod has been rewritten to be clearer and to record the best
|
---|
1600 | practices gathered over the years.
|
---|
1601 |
|
---|
1602 | =item *
|
---|
1603 |
|
---|
1604 | perlpodspec is a more formal specification of the pod format,
|
---|
1605 | mainly of interest for writers of pod applications, not to
|
---|
1606 | people writing in pod.
|
---|
1607 |
|
---|
1608 | =item *
|
---|
1609 |
|
---|
1610 | perlretut is a regular expression tutorial. [561+]
|
---|
1611 |
|
---|
1612 | =item *
|
---|
1613 |
|
---|
1614 | perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide.
|
---|
1615 | Yes, much quicker than perlretut. [561]
|
---|
1616 |
|
---|
1617 | =item *
|
---|
1618 |
|
---|
1619 | perltodo has been updated.
|
---|
1620 |
|
---|
1621 | =item *
|
---|
1622 |
|
---|
1623 | perltootc has been renamed as perltooc (to not to conflict
|
---|
1624 | with perltoot in filesystems restricted to "8.3" names).
|
---|
1625 |
|
---|
1626 | =item *
|
---|
1627 |
|
---|
1628 | perluniintro is an introduction to using Unicode in Perl.
|
---|
1629 | (perlunicode is more of a detailed reference and background
|
---|
1630 | information)
|
---|
1631 |
|
---|
1632 | =item *
|
---|
1633 |
|
---|
1634 | perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl
|
---|
1635 | distribution. [561+]
|
---|
1636 |
|
---|
1637 | =back
|
---|
1638 |
|
---|
1639 | The following platform-specific documents are available before
|
---|
1640 | the installation as README.I<platform>, and after the installation
|
---|
1641 | as perlI<platform>:
|
---|
1642 |
|
---|
1643 | perlaix perlamiga perlapollo perlbeos perlbs2000
|
---|
1644 | perlce perlcygwin perldgux perldos perlepoc perlfreebsd perlhpux
|
---|
1645 | perlhurd perlirix perlmachten perlmacos perlmint perlmpeix
|
---|
1646 | perlnetware perlos2 perlos390 perlplan9 perlqnx perlsolaris
|
---|
1647 | perltru64 perluts perlvmesa perlvms perlvos perlwin32
|
---|
1648 |
|
---|
1649 | These documents usually detail one or more of the following subjects:
|
---|
1650 | configuring, building, testing, installing, and sometimes also using
|
---|
1651 | Perl on the said platform.
|
---|
1652 |
|
---|
1653 | Eastern Asian Perl users are now welcomed in their own languages:
|
---|
1654 | README.jp (Japanese), README.ko (Korean), README.cn (simplified
|
---|
1655 | Chinese) and README.tw (traditional Chinese), which are written in
|
---|
1656 | normal pod but encoded in EUC-JP, EUC-KR, EUC-CN and Big5. These
|
---|
1657 | will get installed as
|
---|
1658 |
|
---|
1659 | perljp perlko perlcn perltw
|
---|
1660 |
|
---|
1661 | =over 4
|
---|
1662 |
|
---|
1663 | =item *
|
---|
1664 |
|
---|
1665 | The documentation for the POSIX-BC platform is called "BS2000", to avoid
|
---|
1666 | confusion with the Perl POSIX module.
|
---|
1667 |
|
---|
1668 | =item *
|
---|
1669 |
|
---|
1670 | The documentation for the WinCE platform is called perlce (README.ce
|
---|
1671 | in the source code kit), to avoid confusion with the perlwin32
|
---|
1672 | documentation on 8.3-restricted filesystems.
|
---|
1673 |
|
---|
1674 | =back
|
---|
1675 |
|
---|
1676 | =head1 Performance Enhancements
|
---|
1677 |
|
---|
1678 | =over 4
|
---|
1679 |
|
---|
1680 | =item *
|
---|
1681 |
|
---|
1682 | map() could get pathologically slow when the result list it generates
|
---|
1683 | is larger than the source list. The performance has been improved for
|
---|
1684 | common scenarios. [561]
|
---|
1685 |
|
---|
1686 | =item *
|
---|
1687 |
|
---|
1688 | sort() is also fully reentrant, in the sense that the sort function
|
---|
1689 | can itself call sort(). This did not work reliably in previous
|
---|
1690 | releases. [561]
|
---|
1691 |
|
---|
1692 | =item *
|
---|
1693 |
|
---|
1694 | sort() has been changed to use primarily mergesort internally as
|
---|
1695 | opposed to the earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may
|
---|
1696 | result in slightly slower sorting times, but in general the speedup
|
---|
1697 | should be at least 20%. Additional bonuses are that the worst case
|
---|
1698 | behaviour of sort() is now better (in computer science terms it now
|
---|
1699 | runs in time O(N log N), as opposed to quicksort's Theta(N**2)
|
---|
1700 | worst-case run time behaviour), and that sort() is now stable
|
---|
1701 | (meaning that elements with identical keys will stay ordered as they
|
---|
1702 | were before the sort). See the C<sort> pragma for information.
|
---|
1703 |
|
---|
1704 | The story in more detail: suppose you want to serve yourself a little
|
---|
1705 | slice of Pi.
|
---|
1706 |
|
---|
1707 | @digits = ( 3,1,4,1,5,9 );
|
---|
1708 |
|
---|
1709 | A numerical sort of the digits will yield (1,1,3,4,5,9), as expected.
|
---|
1710 | Which C<1> comes first is hard to know, since one C<1> looks pretty
|
---|
1711 | much like any other. You can regard this as totally trivial,
|
---|
1712 | or somewhat profound. However, if you just want to sort the even
|
---|
1713 | digits ahead of the odd ones, then what will
|
---|
1714 |
|
---|
1715 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } @digits;
|
---|
1716 |
|
---|
1717 | yield? The only even digit, C<4>, will come first. But how about
|
---|
1718 | the odd numbers, which all compare equal? With the quicksort algorithm
|
---|
1719 | used to implement Perl 5.6 and earlier, the order of ties is left up
|
---|
1720 | to the sort. So, as you add more and more digits of Pi, the order
|
---|
1721 | in which the sorted even and odd digits appear will change.
|
---|
1722 | and, for sufficiently large slices of Pi, the quicksort algorithm
|
---|
1723 | in Perl 5.8 won't return the same results even if reinvoked with the
|
---|
1724 | same input. The justification for this rests with quicksort's
|
---|
1725 | worst case behavior. If you run
|
---|
1726 |
|
---|
1727 | sort { $a <=> $b } ( 1 .. $N , 1 .. $N );
|
---|
1728 |
|
---|
1729 | (something you might approximate if you wanted to merge two sorted
|
---|
1730 | arrays using sort), doubling $N doesn't just double the quicksort time,
|
---|
1731 | it I<quadruples> it. Quicksort has a worst case run time that can
|
---|
1732 | grow like N**2, so-called I<quadratic> behaviour, and it can happen
|
---|
1733 | on patterns that may well arise in normal use. You won't notice this
|
---|
1734 | for small arrays, but you I<will> notice it with larger arrays,
|
---|
1735 | and you may not live long enough for the sort to complete on arrays
|
---|
1736 | of a million elements. So the 5.8 quicksort scrambles large arrays
|
---|
1737 | before sorting them, as a statistical defence against quadratic behaviour.
|
---|
1738 | But that means if you sort the same large array twice, ties may be
|
---|
1739 | broken in different ways.
|
---|
1740 |
|
---|
1741 | Because of the unpredictability of tie-breaking order, and the quadratic
|
---|
1742 | worst-case behaviour, quicksort was I<almost> replaced completely with
|
---|
1743 | a stable mergesort. I<Stable> means that ties are broken to preserve
|
---|
1744 | the original order of appearance in the input array. So
|
---|
1745 |
|
---|
1746 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } (3,1,4,1,5,9);
|
---|
1747 |
|
---|
1748 | will yield (4,3,1,1,5,9), guaranteed. The even and odd numbers
|
---|
1749 | appear in the output in the same order they appeared in the input.
|
---|
1750 | Mergesort has worst case O(N log N) behaviour, the best value
|
---|
1751 | attainable. And, ironically, this mergesort does particularly
|
---|
1752 | well where quicksort goes quadratic: mergesort sorts (1..$N, 1..$N)
|
---|
1753 | in O(N) time. But quicksort was rescued at the last moment because
|
---|
1754 | it is faster than mergesort on certain inputs and platforms.
|
---|
1755 | For example, if you really I<don't> care about the order of even
|
---|
1756 | and odd digits, quicksort will run in O(N) time; it's very good
|
---|
1757 | at sorting many repetitions of a small number of distinct elements.
|
---|
1758 | The quicksort divide and conquer strategy works well on platforms
|
---|
1759 | with relatively small, very fast, caches. Eventually, the problem gets
|
---|
1760 | whittled down to one that fits in the cache, from which point it
|
---|
1761 | benefits from the increased memory speed.
|
---|
1762 |
|
---|
1763 | Quicksort was rescued by implementing a sort pragma to control aspects
|
---|
1764 | of the sort. The B<stable> subpragma forces stable behaviour,
|
---|
1765 | regardless of algorithm. The B<_quicksort> and B<_mergesort>
|
---|
1766 | subpragmas are heavy-handed ways to select the underlying implementation.
|
---|
1767 | The leading C<_> is a reminder that these subpragmas may not survive
|
---|
1768 | beyond 5.8. More appropriate mechanisms for selecting the implementation
|
---|
1769 | exist, but they wouldn't have arrived in time to save quicksort.
|
---|
1770 |
|
---|
1771 | =item *
|
---|
1772 |
|
---|
1773 | Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm
|
---|
1774 | ( http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html ). This algorithm is
|
---|
1775 | reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than
|
---|
1776 | the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by
|
---|
1777 | Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of
|
---|
1778 | all 3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the
|
---|
1779 | DIEHARD random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this
|
---|
1780 | change has not affected the overall speed of Perl.
|
---|
1781 |
|
---|
1782 | =item *
|
---|
1783 |
|
---|
1784 | unshift() should now be noticeably faster.
|
---|
1785 |
|
---|
1786 | =back
|
---|
1787 |
|
---|
1788 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
|
---|
1789 |
|
---|
1790 | =head2 Generic Improvements
|
---|
1791 |
|
---|
1792 | =over 4
|
---|
1793 |
|
---|
1794 | =item *
|
---|
1795 |
|
---|
1796 | INSTALL now explains how you can configure Perl to use 64-bit
|
---|
1797 | integers even on non-64-bit platforms.
|
---|
1798 |
|
---|
1799 | =item *
|
---|
1800 |
|
---|
1801 | Policy.sh policy change: if you are reusing a Policy.sh file
|
---|
1802 | (see INSTALL) and you use Configure -Dprefix=/foo/bar and in the old
|
---|
1803 | Policy $prefix eq $siteprefix and $prefix eq $vendorprefix, all of
|
---|
1804 | them will now be changed to the new prefix, /foo/bar. (Previously
|
---|
1805 | only $prefix changed.) If you do not like this new behaviour,
|
---|
1806 | specify prefix, siteprefix, and vendorprefix explicitly.
|
---|
1807 |
|
---|
1808 | =item *
|
---|
1809 |
|
---|
1810 | A new optional location for Perl libraries, otherlibdirs, is available.
|
---|
1811 | It can be used for example for vendor add-ons without disturbing Perl's
|
---|
1812 | own library directories.
|
---|
1813 |
|
---|
1814 | =item *
|
---|
1815 |
|
---|
1816 | In many platforms, the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to
|
---|
1817 | build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems
|
---|
1818 | to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler
|
---|
1819 | 'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead.
|
---|
1820 |
|
---|
1821 | =item *
|
---|
1822 |
|
---|
1823 | gcc needs to closely track the operating system release to avoid
|
---|
1824 | build problems. If Configure finds that gcc was built for a different
|
---|
1825 | operating system release than is running, it now gives a clearly visible
|
---|
1826 | warning that there may be trouble ahead.
|
---|
1827 |
|
---|
1828 | =item *
|
---|
1829 |
|
---|
1830 | Since Perl 5.8 is not binary-compatible with previous releases
|
---|
1831 | of Perl, Configure no longer suggests including the 5.005
|
---|
1832 | modules in @INC.
|
---|
1833 |
|
---|
1834 | =item *
|
---|
1835 |
|
---|
1836 | Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively. [561]
|
---|
1837 |
|
---|
1838 | =item *
|
---|
1839 |
|
---|
1840 | Configure support for pdp11-style memory models has been removed due
|
---|
1841 | to obsolescence. [561]
|
---|
1842 |
|
---|
1843 | =item *
|
---|
1844 |
|
---|
1845 | configure.gnu now works with options with whitespace in them.
|
---|
1846 |
|
---|
1847 | =item *
|
---|
1848 |
|
---|
1849 | installperl now outputs everything to STDERR.
|
---|
1850 |
|
---|
1851 | =item *
|
---|
1852 |
|
---|
1853 | Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, "-perlio" doesn't
|
---|
1854 | get appended to the $Config{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore.
|
---|
1855 | Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command
|
---|
1856 | line option -Uuseperlio), you will get "-stdio" appended.
|
---|
1857 |
|
---|
1858 | =item *
|
---|
1859 |
|
---|
1860 | Another change related to the architecture name is that "-64all"
|
---|
1861 | (-Duse64bitall, or "maximally 64-bit") is appended only if your
|
---|
1862 | pointers are 64 bits wide. (To be exact, the use64bitall is ignored.)
|
---|
1863 |
|
---|
1864 | =item *
|
---|
1865 |
|
---|
1866 | In AFS installations, one can configure the root of the AFS to be
|
---|
1867 | somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure
|
---|
1868 | parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>.
|
---|
1869 |
|
---|
1870 | =item *
|
---|
1871 |
|
---|
1872 | APPLLIB_EXP, a lesser-known configuration-time definition, has been
|
---|
1873 | documented. It can be used to prepend site-specific directories
|
---|
1874 | to Perl's default search path (@INC); see INSTALL for information.
|
---|
1875 |
|
---|
1876 | =item *
|
---|
1877 |
|
---|
1878 | The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the
|
---|
1879 | DB_File extension) was built is now available as
|
---|
1880 | C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}>
|
---|
1881 | from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG
|
---|
1882 | DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C.
|
---|
1883 |
|
---|
1884 | =item *
|
---|
1885 |
|
---|
1886 | Building Berkeley DB3 for compatibility modes for DB, NDBM, and ODBM
|
---|
1887 | has been documented in INSTALL.
|
---|
1888 |
|
---|
1889 | =item *
|
---|
1890 |
|
---|
1891 | If you have CPAN access (either network or a local copy such as a
|
---|
1892 | CD-ROM) you can during specify extra modules to Configure to build and
|
---|
1893 | install with Perl using the -Dextras=... option. See INSTALL for
|
---|
1894 | more details.
|
---|
1895 |
|
---|
1896 | =item *
|
---|
1897 |
|
---|
1898 | In addition to config.over, a new override file, config.arch, is
|
---|
1899 | available. This file is supposed to be used by hints file writers
|
---|
1900 | for architecture-wide changes (as opposed to config.over which is
|
---|
1901 | for site-wide changes).
|
---|
1902 |
|
---|
1903 | =item *
|
---|
1904 |
|
---|
1905 | If your file system supports symbolic links, you can build Perl outside
|
---|
1906 | of the source directory by
|
---|
1907 |
|
---|
1908 | mkdir perl/build/directory
|
---|
1909 | cd perl/build/directory
|
---|
1910 | sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
|
---|
1911 |
|
---|
1912 | This will create in perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
|
---|
1913 | pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
|
---|
1914 | unaffected. After Configure has finished, you can just say
|
---|
1915 |
|
---|
1916 | make all test
|
---|
1917 |
|
---|
1918 | and Perl will be built and tested, all in perl/build/directory.
|
---|
1919 | [561]
|
---|
1920 |
|
---|
1921 | =item *
|
---|
1922 |
|
---|
1923 | For Perl developers, several new make targets for profiling
|
---|
1924 | and debugging have been added; see L<perlhack>.
|
---|
1925 |
|
---|
1926 | =over 8
|
---|
1927 |
|
---|
1928 | =item *
|
---|
1929 |
|
---|
1930 | Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in
|
---|
1931 | L<perlhack>. There is a make target called "perl.gprof" for
|
---|
1932 | generating a gprofiled Perl executable.
|
---|
1933 |
|
---|
1934 | =item *
|
---|
1935 |
|
---|
1936 | If you have GCC 3, there is a make target called "perl.gcov" for
|
---|
1937 | creating a gcoved Perl executable for coverage analysis. See
|
---|
1938 | L<perlhack>.
|
---|
1939 |
|
---|
1940 | =item *
|
---|
1941 |
|
---|
1942 | If you are on IRIX or Tru64 platforms, new profiling/debugging options
|
---|
1943 | have been added; see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and
|
---|
1944 | Third Degree.
|
---|
1945 |
|
---|
1946 | =back
|
---|
1947 |
|
---|
1948 | =item *
|
---|
1949 |
|
---|
1950 | Guidelines of how to construct minimal Perl installations have
|
---|
1951 | been added to INSTALL.
|
---|
1952 |
|
---|
1953 | =item *
|
---|
1954 |
|
---|
1955 | The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads
|
---|
1956 | (C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the
|
---|
1957 | Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>).
|
---|
1958 |
|
---|
1959 | B<Note that the 5.005 threads are unsupported and deprecated: if you
|
---|
1960 | have code written for the old threads you should migrate it to the
|
---|
1961 | new ithreads model.>
|
---|
1962 |
|
---|
1963 | =item *
|
---|
1964 |
|
---|
1965 | The Gconvert macro ($Config{d_Gconvert}) used by perl for stringifying
|
---|
1966 | floating-point numbers is now more picky about using sprintf %.*g
|
---|
1967 | rules for the conversion. Some platforms that used to use gcvt may
|
---|
1968 | now resort to the slower sprintf.
|
---|
1969 |
|
---|
1970 | =item *
|
---|
1971 |
|
---|
1972 | The obsolete method of making a special (e.g., debugging) flavor
|
---|
1973 | of perl by saying
|
---|
1974 |
|
---|
1975 | make LIBPERL=libperld.a
|
---|
1976 |
|
---|
1977 | has been removed. Use -DDEBUGGING instead.
|
---|
1978 |
|
---|
1979 | =back
|
---|
1980 |
|
---|
1981 | =head2 New Or Improved Platforms
|
---|
1982 |
|
---|
1983 | For the list of platforms known to support Perl,
|
---|
1984 | see L<perlport/"Supported Platforms">.
|
---|
1985 |
|
---|
1986 | =over 4
|
---|
1987 |
|
---|
1988 | =item *
|
---|
1989 |
|
---|
1990 | AIX dynamic loading should be now better supported.
|
---|
1991 |
|
---|
1992 | =item *
|
---|
1993 |
|
---|
1994 | AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the
|
---|
1995 | long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>.
|
---|
1996 |
|
---|
1997 | =item *
|
---|
1998 |
|
---|
1999 | AtheOS ( http://www.atheos.cx/ ) is a new platform.
|
---|
2000 |
|
---|
2001 | =item *
|
---|
2002 |
|
---|
2003 | BeOS has been reclaimed.
|
---|
2004 |
|
---|
2005 | =item *
|
---|
2006 |
|
---|
2007 | The DG/UX platform now supports 5.005-style threads.
|
---|
2008 | See L<perldgux>.
|
---|
2009 |
|
---|
2010 | =item *
|
---|
2011 |
|
---|
2012 | The DYNIX/ptx platform (also known as dynixptx) is supported at or
|
---|
2013 | near osvers 4.5.2.
|
---|
2014 |
|
---|
2015 | =item *
|
---|
2016 |
|
---|
2017 | EBCDIC platforms (z/OS (also known as OS/390), POSIX-BC, and VM/ESA)
|
---|
2018 | have been regained. Many test suite tests still fail and the
|
---|
2019 | co-existence of Unicode and EBCDIC isn't quite settled, but the
|
---|
2020 | situation is much better than with Perl 5.6. See L<perlos390>,
|
---|
2021 | L<perlbs2000> (for POSIX-BC), and L<perlvmesa> for more information.
|
---|
2022 |
|
---|
2023 | =item *
|
---|
2024 |
|
---|
2025 | Building perl with -Duseithreads or -Duse5005threads now works under
|
---|
2026 | HP-UX 10.20 (previously it only worked under 10.30 or later). You will
|
---|
2027 | need a thread library package installed. See README.hpux. [561]
|
---|
2028 |
|
---|
2029 | =item *
|
---|
2030 |
|
---|
2031 | Mac OS Classic is now supported in the mainstream source package
|
---|
2032 | (MacPerl has of course been available since perl 5.004 but now the
|
---|
2033 | source code bases of standard Perl and MacPerl have been synchronised)
|
---|
2034 | [561]
|
---|
2035 |
|
---|
2036 | =item *
|
---|
2037 |
|
---|
2038 | Mac OS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+
|
---|
2039 | filesystems. (The case-insensitivity used to confuse the Perl build
|
---|
2040 | process.)
|
---|
2041 |
|
---|
2042 | =item *
|
---|
2043 |
|
---|
2044 | NCR MP-RAS is now supported. [561]
|
---|
2045 |
|
---|
2046 | =item *
|
---|
2047 |
|
---|
2048 | All the NetBSD specific patches (except for the installation
|
---|
2049 | specific ones) have been merged back to the main distribution.
|
---|
2050 |
|
---|
2051 | =item *
|
---|
2052 |
|
---|
2053 | NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>.
|
---|
2054 |
|
---|
2055 | =item *
|
---|
2056 |
|
---|
2057 | NonStop-UX is now supported. [561]
|
---|
2058 |
|
---|
2059 | =item *
|
---|
2060 |
|
---|
2061 | NEC SUPER-UX is now supported.
|
---|
2062 |
|
---|
2063 | =item *
|
---|
2064 |
|
---|
2065 | All the OpenBSD specific patches (except for the installation
|
---|
2066 | specific ones) have been merged back to the main distribution.
|
---|
2067 |
|
---|
2068 | =item *
|
---|
2069 |
|
---|
2070 | Perl has been tested with the GNU pth userlevel thread package
|
---|
2071 | ( http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/pth.html ). All thread tests
|
---|
2072 | of Perl now work, but not without adding some yield()s to the tests,
|
---|
2073 | so while pth (and other userlevel thread implementations) can be
|
---|
2074 | considered to be "working" with Perl ithreads, keep in mind the
|
---|
2075 | possible non-preemptability of the underlying thread implementation.
|
---|
2076 |
|
---|
2077 | =item *
|
---|
2078 |
|
---|
2079 | Stratus VOS is now supported using Perl's native build method
|
---|
2080 | (Configure). This is the recommended method to build Perl on
|
---|
2081 | VOS. The older methods, which build miniperl, are still
|
---|
2082 | available. See L<perlvos>. [561+]
|
---|
2083 |
|
---|
2084 | =item *
|
---|
2085 |
|
---|
2086 | The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. [561]
|
---|
2087 |
|
---|
2088 | =item *
|
---|
2089 |
|
---|
2090 | WinCE is now supported. See L<perlce>.
|
---|
2091 |
|
---|
2092 | =item *
|
---|
2093 |
|
---|
2094 | z/OS (formerly known as OS/390, formerly known as MVS OE) now has
|
---|
2095 | support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default,
|
---|
2096 | however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure. [561]
|
---|
2097 |
|
---|
2098 | =back
|
---|
2099 |
|
---|
2100 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
|
---|
2101 |
|
---|
2102 | Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been
|
---|
2103 | hunted down. Most importantly, anonymous subs used to leak quite
|
---|
2104 | a bit. [561]
|
---|
2105 |
|
---|
2106 | =over 4
|
---|
2107 |
|
---|
2108 | =item *
|
---|
2109 |
|
---|
2110 | The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names.
|
---|
2111 |
|
---|
2112 | =item *
|
---|
2113 |
|
---|
2114 | caller() could cause core dumps in certain situations. Carp was
|
---|
2115 | sometimes affected by this problem. In particular, caller() now
|
---|
2116 | returns a subroutine name of C<(unknown)> for subroutines that have
|
---|
2117 | been removed from the symbol table.
|
---|
2118 |
|
---|
2119 | =item *
|
---|
2120 |
|
---|
2121 | chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in
|
---|
2122 | reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order. [561]
|
---|
2123 |
|
---|
2124 | =item *
|
---|
2125 |
|
---|
2126 | Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm)
|
---|
2127 | when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x,
|
---|
2128 | which needs them. [561]
|
---|
2129 |
|
---|
2130 | =item *
|
---|
2131 |
|
---|
2132 | The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as
|
---|
2133 | "0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35,
|
---|
2134 | in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This
|
---|
2135 | was caused by Perl's using the operating system libraries in a situation
|
---|
2136 | where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now
|
---|
2137 | Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts.
|
---|
2138 |
|
---|
2139 | =item *
|
---|
2140 |
|
---|
2141 | Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code,
|
---|
2142 | condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks
|
---|
2143 | line number, C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, and all debugger output
|
---|
2144 | now goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set. [561]
|
---|
2145 |
|
---|
2146 | =item *
|
---|
2147 |
|
---|
2148 | The debugger (perl5db.pl) has been modified to present a more
|
---|
2149 | consistent commands interface, via (CommandSet=580). perl5db.t was
|
---|
2150 | also added to test the changes, and as a placeholder for further tests.
|
---|
2151 |
|
---|
2152 | See L<perldebug>.
|
---|
2153 |
|
---|
2154 | =item *
|
---|
2155 |
|
---|
2156 | The debugger has a new C<dumpDepth> option to control the maximum
|
---|
2157 | depth to which nested structures are dumped. The C<x> command has
|
---|
2158 | been extended so that C<x N EXPR> dumps out the value of I<EXPR> to a
|
---|
2159 | depth of at most I<N> levels.
|
---|
2160 |
|
---|
2161 | =item *
|
---|
2162 |
|
---|
2163 | The debugger can now show lexical variables if you have the CPAN
|
---|
2164 | module PadWalker installed.
|
---|
2165 |
|
---|
2166 | =item *
|
---|
2167 |
|
---|
2168 | The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable.
|
---|
2169 |
|
---|
2170 | =item *
|
---|
2171 |
|
---|
2172 | Perl 5.6.0 could emit spurious warnings about redefinition of
|
---|
2173 | dl_error() when statically building extensions into perl.
|
---|
2174 | This has been corrected. [561]
|
---|
2175 |
|
---|
2176 | =item *
|
---|
2177 |
|
---|
2178 | L<dprofpp> -R didn't work.
|
---|
2179 |
|
---|
2180 | =item *
|
---|
2181 |
|
---|
2182 | C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works.
|
---|
2183 |
|
---|
2184 | =item *
|
---|
2185 |
|
---|
2186 | Infinity is now recognized as a number.
|
---|
2187 |
|
---|
2188 | =item *
|
---|
2189 |
|
---|
2190 | UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke
|
---|
2191 | the Tk extension with 5.6.0.) [561]
|
---|
2192 |
|
---|
2193 | =item *
|
---|
2194 |
|
---|
2195 | Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved
|
---|
2196 | correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they
|
---|
2197 | were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code.
|
---|
2198 |
|
---|
2199 | =item *
|
---|
2200 |
|
---|
2201 | Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that
|
---|
2202 | were declared before the lexicals.
|
---|
2203 |
|
---|
2204 | =item *
|
---|
2205 |
|
---|
2206 | Lexical warnings now propagating correctly between scopes
|
---|
2207 | and into C<eval "...">.
|
---|
2208 |
|
---|
2209 | =item *
|
---|
2210 |
|
---|
2211 | C<use warnings qw(FATAL all)> did not work as intended. This has been
|
---|
2212 | corrected. [561]
|
---|
2213 |
|
---|
2214 | =item *
|
---|
2215 |
|
---|
2216 | warnings::enabled() now reports the state of $^W correctly if the caller
|
---|
2217 | isn't using lexical warnings. [561]
|
---|
2218 |
|
---|
2219 | =item *
|
---|
2220 |
|
---|
2221 | Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works. [561]
|
---|
2222 |
|
---|
2223 | =item *
|
---|
2224 |
|
---|
2225 | Fixed numerous memory leaks, especially in eval "".
|
---|
2226 |
|
---|
2227 | =item *
|
---|
2228 |
|
---|
2229 | Localised tied variables no longer leak memory
|
---|
2230 |
|
---|
2231 | use Tie::Hash;
|
---|
2232 | tie my %tied_hash => 'Tie::StdHash';
|
---|
2233 |
|
---|
2234 | ...
|
---|
2235 |
|
---|
2236 | # Used to leak memory every time local() was called;
|
---|
2237 | # in a loop, this added up.
|
---|
2238 | local($tied_hash{Foo}) = 1;
|
---|
2239 |
|
---|
2240 | =item *
|
---|
2241 |
|
---|
2242 | Localised hash elements (and %ENV) are correctly unlocalised to not
|
---|
2243 | exist, if they didn't before they were localised.
|
---|
2244 |
|
---|
2245 |
|
---|
2246 | use Tie::Hash;
|
---|
2247 | tie my %tied_hash => 'Tie::StdHash';
|
---|
2248 |
|
---|
2249 | ...
|
---|
2250 |
|
---|
2251 | # Nothing has set the FOO element so far
|
---|
2252 |
|
---|
2253 | { local $tied_hash{FOO} = 'Bar' }
|
---|
2254 |
|
---|
2255 | # This used to print, but not now.
|
---|
2256 | print "exists!\n" if exists $tied_hash{FOO};
|
---|
2257 |
|
---|
2258 | As a side effect of this fix, tied hash interfaces B<must> define
|
---|
2259 | the EXISTS and DELETE methods.
|
---|
2260 |
|
---|
2261 | =item *
|
---|
2262 |
|
---|
2263 | mkdir() now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name,
|
---|
2264 | as mandated by POSIX.
|
---|
2265 |
|
---|
2266 | =item *
|
---|
2267 |
|
---|
2268 | Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds
|
---|
2269 | with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness
|
---|
2270 | and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have
|
---|
2271 | fixed the modfl() bug.
|
---|
2272 |
|
---|
2273 | =item *
|
---|
2274 |
|
---|
2275 | Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to
|
---|
2276 | return 27406, instead of 27047). [561]
|
---|
2277 |
|
---|
2278 | =item *
|
---|
2279 |
|
---|
2280 | Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be
|
---|
2281 | more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number. [561]
|
---|
2282 |
|
---|
2283 | =item *
|
---|
2284 |
|
---|
2285 | Numeric conversions did not recognize changes in the string value
|
---|
2286 | properly in certain circumstances. [561]
|
---|
2287 |
|
---|
2288 | =item *
|
---|
2289 |
|
---|
2290 | Attributes (such as :shared) didn't work with our().
|
---|
2291 |
|
---|
2292 | =item *
|
---|
2293 |
|
---|
2294 | our() variables will not cause bogus "Variable will not stay shared"
|
---|
2295 | warnings. [561]
|
---|
2296 |
|
---|
2297 | =item *
|
---|
2298 |
|
---|
2299 | "our" variables of the same name declared in two sibling blocks
|
---|
2300 | resulted in bogus warnings about "redeclaration" of the variables.
|
---|
2301 | The problem has been corrected. [561]
|
---|
2302 |
|
---|
2303 | =item *
|
---|
2304 |
|
---|
2305 | pack "Z" now correctly terminates the string with "\0".
|
---|
2306 |
|
---|
2307 | =item *
|
---|
2308 |
|
---|
2309 | Fix password routines which in some shadow password platforms
|
---|
2310 | (e.g. HP-UX) caused getpwent() to return every other entry.
|
---|
2311 |
|
---|
2312 | =item *
|
---|
2313 |
|
---|
2314 | The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments
|
---|
2315 | to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options. [561]
|
---|
2316 |
|
---|
2317 | =item *
|
---|
2318 |
|
---|
2319 | PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work.
|
---|
2320 |
|
---|
2321 | =item *
|
---|
2322 |
|
---|
2323 | printf() no longer resets the numeric locale to "C".
|
---|
2324 |
|
---|
2325 | =item *
|
---|
2326 |
|
---|
2327 | C<qw(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>: that is, as three
|
---|
2328 | characters, not four. [561]
|
---|
2329 |
|
---|
2330 | =item *
|
---|
2331 |
|
---|
2332 | pos() did not return the correct value within s///ge in earlier
|
---|
2333 | versions. This is now handled correctly. [561]
|
---|
2334 |
|
---|
2335 | =item *
|
---|
2336 |
|
---|
2337 | Printing quads (64-bit integers) with printf/sprintf now works
|
---|
2338 | without the q L ll prefixes (assuming you are on a quad-capable platform).
|
---|
2339 |
|
---|
2340 | =item *
|
---|
2341 |
|
---|
2342 | Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work. [561+]
|
---|
2343 |
|
---|
2344 | =item *
|
---|
2345 |
|
---|
2346 | Right-hand side magic (GMAGIC) could in many cases such as string
|
---|
2347 | concatenation be invoked too many times.
|
---|
2348 |
|
---|
2349 | =item *
|
---|
2350 |
|
---|
2351 | scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context.
|
---|
2352 |
|
---|
2353 | =item *
|
---|
2354 |
|
---|
2355 | SOCKS support is now much more robust.
|
---|
2356 |
|
---|
2357 | =item *
|
---|
2358 |
|
---|
2359 | sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context
|
---|
2360 | (they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself).
|
---|
2361 | The comparison block is now run in scalar context, and the arguments
|
---|
2362 | to be sorted are always provided list context. [561]
|
---|
2363 |
|
---|
2364 | =item *
|
---|
2365 |
|
---|
2366 | Changed the POSIX character class C<[[:space:]]> to include the (very
|
---|
2367 | rarely used) vertical tab character. Added a new POSIX-ish character
|
---|
2368 | class C<[[:blank:]]> which stands for horizontal whitespace
|
---|
2369 | (currently, the space and the tab).
|
---|
2370 |
|
---|
2371 | =item *
|
---|
2372 |
|
---|
2373 | The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does
|
---|
2374 | not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the
|
---|
2375 | behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation. [561]
|
---|
2376 |
|
---|
2377 | =item *
|
---|
2378 |
|
---|
2379 | Some cases of inconsistent taint propagation (such as within hash
|
---|
2380 | values) have been fixed.
|
---|
2381 |
|
---|
2382 | =item *
|
---|
2383 |
|
---|
2384 | The RE engine found in Perl 5.6.0 accidentally pessimised certain kinds
|
---|
2385 | of simple pattern matches. These are now handled better. [561]
|
---|
2386 |
|
---|
2387 | =item *
|
---|
2388 |
|
---|
2389 | Regular expression debug output (whether through C<use re 'debug'>
|
---|
2390 | or via C<-Dr>) now looks better. [561]
|
---|
2391 |
|
---|
2392 | =item *
|
---|
2393 |
|
---|
2394 | Multi-line matches like C<"a\nxb\n" =~ /(?!\A)x/m> were flawed. The
|
---|
2395 | bug has been fixed. [561]
|
---|
2396 |
|
---|
2397 | =item *
|
---|
2398 |
|
---|
2399 | Use of $& could trigger a core dump under some situations. This
|
---|
2400 | is now avoided. [561]
|
---|
2401 |
|
---|
2402 | =item *
|
---|
2403 |
|
---|
2404 | The regular expression captured submatches ($1, $2, ...) are now
|
---|
2405 | more consistently unset if the match fails, instead of leaving false
|
---|
2406 | data lying around in them. [561]
|
---|
2407 |
|
---|
2408 | =item *
|
---|
2409 |
|
---|
2410 | readline() on files opened in "slurp" mode could return an extra
|
---|
2411 | "" (blank line) at the end in certain situations. This has been
|
---|
2412 | corrected. [561]
|
---|
2413 |
|
---|
2414 | =item *
|
---|
2415 |
|
---|
2416 | Autovivification of symbolic references of special variables described
|
---|
2417 | in L<perlvar> (as in C<${$num}>) was accidentally disabled. This works
|
---|
2418 | again now. [561]
|
---|
2419 |
|
---|
2420 | =item *
|
---|
2421 |
|
---|
2422 | Sys::Syslog ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant.
|
---|
2423 |
|
---|
2424 | =item *
|
---|
2425 |
|
---|
2426 | $AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses
|
---|
2427 | in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe.
|
---|
2428 |
|
---|
2429 | =item *
|
---|
2430 |
|
---|
2431 | Tie::Array's SPLICE method was broken.
|
---|
2432 |
|
---|
2433 | =item *
|
---|
2434 |
|
---|
2435 | Allow a read-only string on the left-hand side of a non-modifying tr///.
|
---|
2436 |
|
---|
2437 | =item *
|
---|
2438 |
|
---|
2439 | If C<STDERR> is tied, warnings caused by C<warn> and C<die> now
|
---|
2440 | correctly pass to it.
|
---|
2441 |
|
---|
2442 | =item *
|
---|
2443 |
|
---|
2444 | Several Unicode fixes.
|
---|
2445 |
|
---|
2446 | =over 8
|
---|
2447 |
|
---|
2448 | =item *
|
---|
2449 |
|
---|
2450 | BOMs (byte order marks) at the beginning of Perl files
|
---|
2451 | (scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped.
|
---|
2452 | UTF-16 and UCS-2 encoded Perl files should now be read correctly.
|
---|
2453 |
|
---|
2454 | =item *
|
---|
2455 |
|
---|
2456 | The character tables have been updated to Unicode 3.2.0.
|
---|
2457 |
|
---|
2458 | =item *
|
---|
2459 |
|
---|
2460 | Comparing with utf8 data does not magically upgrade non-utf8 data
|
---|
2461 | into utf8. (This was a problem for example if you were mixing data
|
---|
2462 | from I/O and Unicode data: your output might have got magically encoded
|
---|
2463 | as UTF-8.)
|
---|
2464 |
|
---|
2465 | =item *
|
---|
2466 |
|
---|
2467 | Generating illegal Unicode code points such as U+FFFE, or the UTF-16
|
---|
2468 | surrogates, now also generates an optional warning.
|
---|
2469 |
|
---|
2470 | =item *
|
---|
2471 |
|
---|
2472 | C<IsAlnum>, C<IsAlpha>, and C<IsWord> now match titlecase.
|
---|
2473 |
|
---|
2474 | =item *
|
---|
2475 |
|
---|
2476 | Concatenation with the C<.> operator or via variable interpolation,
|
---|
2477 | C<eq>, C<substr>, C<reverse>, C<quotemeta>, the C<x> operator,
|
---|
2478 | substitution with C<s///>, single-quoted UTF-8, should now work.
|
---|
2479 |
|
---|
2480 | =item *
|
---|
2481 |
|
---|
2482 | The C<tr///> operator now works. Note that the C<tr///CU>
|
---|
2483 | functionality has been removed (but see pack('U0', ...)).
|
---|
2484 |
|
---|
2485 | =item *
|
---|
2486 |
|
---|
2487 | C<eval "v200"> now works.
|
---|
2488 |
|
---|
2489 | =item *
|
---|
2490 |
|
---|
2491 | Perl 5.6.0 parsed m/\x{ab}/ incorrectly, leading to spurious warnings.
|
---|
2492 | This has been corrected. [561]
|
---|
2493 |
|
---|
2494 | =item *
|
---|
2495 |
|
---|
2496 | Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes such as C<IsDigit>.
|
---|
2497 |
|
---|
2498 | =back
|
---|
2499 |
|
---|
2500 | =item *
|
---|
2501 |
|
---|
2502 | Large unsigned numbers (those above 2**31) could sometimes lose their
|
---|
2503 | unsignedness, causing bogus results in arithmetic operations. [561]
|
---|
2504 |
|
---|
2505 | =item *
|
---|
2506 |
|
---|
2507 | The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and
|
---|
2508 | Markov chain input and the few found crashes and lockups have been
|
---|
2509 | fixed.
|
---|
2510 |
|
---|
2511 | =back
|
---|
2512 |
|
---|
2513 | =head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
|
---|
2514 |
|
---|
2515 | =over 4
|
---|
2516 |
|
---|
2517 | =item *
|
---|
2518 |
|
---|
2519 | BSDI 4.*
|
---|
2520 |
|
---|
2521 | Perl now works on post-4.0 BSD/OSes.
|
---|
2522 |
|
---|
2523 | =item *
|
---|
2524 |
|
---|
2525 | All BSDs
|
---|
2526 |
|
---|
2527 | Setting C<$0> now works (as much as possible; see L<perlvar> for details).
|
---|
2528 |
|
---|
2529 | =item *
|
---|
2530 |
|
---|
2531 | Cygwin
|
---|
2532 |
|
---|
2533 | Numerous updates; currently synchronised with Cygwin 1.3.10.
|
---|
2534 |
|
---|
2535 | =item *
|
---|
2536 |
|
---|
2537 | Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O.
|
---|
2538 |
|
---|
2539 | =item *
|
---|
2540 |
|
---|
2541 | EPOC
|
---|
2542 |
|
---|
2543 | EPOC now better supported. See README.epoc. [561]
|
---|
2544 |
|
---|
2545 | =item *
|
---|
2546 |
|
---|
2547 | FreeBSD 3.*
|
---|
2548 |
|
---|
2549 | Perl now works on post-3.0 FreeBSDs.
|
---|
2550 |
|
---|
2551 | =item *
|
---|
2552 |
|
---|
2553 | HP-UX
|
---|
2554 |
|
---|
2555 | README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now works;
|
---|
2556 | now uses HP-UX malloc instead of Perl malloc.
|
---|
2557 |
|
---|
2558 | =item *
|
---|
2559 |
|
---|
2560 | IRIX
|
---|
2561 |
|
---|
2562 | Numerous compilation flag and hint enhancements; accidental mixing
|
---|
2563 | of 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (a doomed attempt) made much harder.
|
---|
2564 |
|
---|
2565 | =item *
|
---|
2566 |
|
---|
2567 | Linux
|
---|
2568 |
|
---|
2569 | =over 8
|
---|
2570 |
|
---|
2571 | =item *
|
---|
2572 |
|
---|
2573 | Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL). [561]
|
---|
2574 |
|
---|
2575 | =item *
|
---|
2576 |
|
---|
2577 | Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using
|
---|
2578 | accept(), recvfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and
|
---|
2579 | getsockname().
|
---|
2580 |
|
---|
2581 | =back
|
---|
2582 |
|
---|
2583 | =item *
|
---|
2584 |
|
---|
2585 | Mac OS Classic
|
---|
2586 |
|
---|
2587 | Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in Mac OS Classic should
|
---|
2588 | now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and the
|
---|
2589 | missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing list
|
---|
2590 | for details.
|
---|
2591 |
|
---|
2592 | =item *
|
---|
2593 |
|
---|
2594 | MPE/iX
|
---|
2595 |
|
---|
2596 | MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix. [561]
|
---|
2597 |
|
---|
2598 | =item *
|
---|
2599 |
|
---|
2600 | NetBSD/threads: try installing the GNU pth (should be in the
|
---|
2601 | packages collection, or http://www.gnu.org/software/pth/),
|
---|
2602 | and Configure with -Duseithreads.
|
---|
2603 |
|
---|
2604 | =item *
|
---|
2605 |
|
---|
2606 | NetBSD/sparc
|
---|
2607 |
|
---|
2608 | Perl now works on NetBSD/sparc.
|
---|
2609 |
|
---|
2610 | =item *
|
---|
2611 |
|
---|
2612 | OS/2
|
---|
2613 |
|
---|
2614 | Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL). [561]
|
---|
2615 |
|
---|
2616 | =item *
|
---|
2617 |
|
---|
2618 | Solaris
|
---|
2619 |
|
---|
2620 | 64-bitness using the Sun Workshop compiler now works.
|
---|
2621 |
|
---|
2622 | =item *
|
---|
2623 |
|
---|
2624 | Stratus VOS
|
---|
2625 |
|
---|
2626 | The native build method requires at least VOS Release 14.5.0
|
---|
2627 | and GNU C++/GNU Tools 2.0.1 or later. The Perl pack function
|
---|
2628 | now maps overflowed values to +infinity and underflowed values
|
---|
2629 | to -infinity.
|
---|
2630 |
|
---|
2631 | =item *
|
---|
2632 |
|
---|
2633 | Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1)
|
---|
2634 |
|
---|
2635 | The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}.
|
---|
2636 | Allow compiling with gcc (previously explicitly forbidden). Compiling
|
---|
2637 | with gcc still not recommended because buggy code results, even with
|
---|
2638 | gcc 2.95.2.
|
---|
2639 |
|
---|
2640 | =item *
|
---|
2641 |
|
---|
2642 | Unicos
|
---|
2643 |
|
---|
2644 | Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either
|
---|
2645 | during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime;
|
---|
2646 | now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using
|
---|
2647 | only 46 bit integers for speed.
|
---|
2648 |
|
---|
2649 | =item *
|
---|
2650 |
|
---|
2651 | VMS
|
---|
2652 |
|
---|
2653 | See L</"Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS"> and L</"IEEE-format Floating Point
|
---|
2654 | Default on OpenVMS Alpha"> for important changes not otherwise listed here.
|
---|
2655 |
|
---|
2656 | chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY
|
---|
2657 | (see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc.
|
---|
2658 |
|
---|
2659 | The tainting of C<%ENV> elements via C<keys> or C<values> was previously
|
---|
2660 | unimplemented. It now works as documented.
|
---|
2661 |
|
---|
2662 | The C<waitpid> emulation has been improved. The worst bug (now fixed)
|
---|
2663 | was that a pid of -1 would cause a wildcard search of all processes on
|
---|
2664 | the system.
|
---|
2665 |
|
---|
2666 | POSIX-style signals are now emulated much better on VMS versions prior
|
---|
2667 | to 7.0.
|
---|
2668 |
|
---|
2669 | The C<system> function and backticks operator have improved
|
---|
2670 | functionality and better error handling. [561]
|
---|
2671 |
|
---|
2672 | File access tests now use current process privileges rather than the
|
---|
2673 | user's default privileges, which could sometimes result in a mismatch
|
---|
2674 | between reported access and actual access. This improvement is only
|
---|
2675 | available on VMS v6.0 and later.
|
---|
2676 |
|
---|
2677 | There is a new C<kill> implementation based on C<sys$sigprc> that allows
|
---|
2678 | older VMS systems (pre-7.0) to use C<kill> to send signals rather than
|
---|
2679 | simply force exit. This implementation also allows later systems to
|
---|
2680 | call C<kill> from within a signal handler.
|
---|
2681 |
|
---|
2682 | Iterative logical name translations are now limited to 10 iterations in
|
---|
2683 | imitation of SHOW LOGICAL and other OpenVMS facilities.
|
---|
2684 |
|
---|
2685 | =item *
|
---|
2686 |
|
---|
2687 | Windows
|
---|
2688 |
|
---|
2689 | =over 8
|
---|
2690 |
|
---|
2691 | =item *
|
---|
2692 |
|
---|
2693 | Signal handling now works better than it used to. It is now implemented
|
---|
2694 | using a Windows message loop, and is therefore less prone to random
|
---|
2695 | crashes.
|
---|
2696 |
|
---|
2697 | =item *
|
---|
2698 |
|
---|
2699 | fork() emulation is now more robust, but still continues to have a few
|
---|
2700 | esoteric bugs and caveats. See L<perlfork> for details. [561+]
|
---|
2701 |
|
---|
2702 | =item *
|
---|
2703 |
|
---|
2704 | A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN. [561]
|
---|
2705 |
|
---|
2706 | =item *
|
---|
2707 |
|
---|
2708 | The following modules now work on Windows:
|
---|
2709 |
|
---|
2710 | ExtUtils::Embed [561]
|
---|
2711 | IO::Pipe
|
---|
2712 | IO::Poll
|
---|
2713 | Net::Ping
|
---|
2714 |
|
---|
2715 | =item *
|
---|
2716 |
|
---|
2717 | IO::File::new_tmpfile() is no longer limited to 32767 invocations
|
---|
2718 | per-process.
|
---|
2719 |
|
---|
2720 | =item *
|
---|
2721 |
|
---|
2722 | Better chdir() return value for a non-existent directory.
|
---|
2723 |
|
---|
2724 | =item *
|
---|
2725 |
|
---|
2726 | Compiling perl using the 64-bit Platform SDK tools is now supported.
|
---|
2727 |
|
---|
2728 | =item *
|
---|
2729 |
|
---|
2730 | The Win32::SetChildShowWindow() builtin can be used to control the
|
---|
2731 | visibility of windows created by child processes. See L<Win32> for
|
---|
2732 | details.
|
---|
2733 |
|
---|
2734 | =item *
|
---|
2735 |
|
---|
2736 | Non-blocking waits for child processes (or pseudo-processes) are
|
---|
2737 | supported via C<waitpid($pid, &POSIX::WNOHANG)>.
|
---|
2738 |
|
---|
2739 | =item *
|
---|
2740 |
|
---|
2741 | The behavior of system() with multiple arguments has been rationalized.
|
---|
2742 | Each unquoted argument will be automatically quoted to protect whitespace,
|
---|
2743 | and any existing whitespace in the arguments will be preserved. This
|
---|
2744 | improves the portability of system(@args) by avoiding the need for
|
---|
2745 | Windows C<cmd> shell specific quoting in perl programs.
|
---|
2746 |
|
---|
2747 | Note that this means that some scripts that may have relied on earlier
|
---|
2748 | buggy behavior may no longer work correctly. For example,
|
---|
2749 | C<system("nmake /nologo", @args)> will now attempt to run the file
|
---|
2750 | C<nmake /nologo> and will fail when such a file isn't found.
|
---|
2751 | On the other hand, perl will now execute code such as
|
---|
2752 | C<system("c:/Program Files/MyApp/foo.exe", @args)> correctly.
|
---|
2753 |
|
---|
2754 | =item *
|
---|
2755 |
|
---|
2756 | The perl header files no longer suppress common warnings from the
|
---|
2757 | Microsoft Visual C++ compiler. This means that additional warnings may
|
---|
2758 | now show up when compiling XS code.
|
---|
2759 |
|
---|
2760 | =item *
|
---|
2761 |
|
---|
2762 | Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl.
|
---|
2763 | However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those
|
---|
2764 | generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). [561]
|
---|
2765 |
|
---|
2766 | =item *
|
---|
2767 |
|
---|
2768 | Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
|
---|
2769 | [561]
|
---|
2770 |
|
---|
2771 | =item *
|
---|
2772 |
|
---|
2773 | Current directory entries in %ENV are now correctly propagated to child
|
---|
2774 | processes. [561]
|
---|
2775 |
|
---|
2776 | =item *
|
---|
2777 |
|
---|
2778 | New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. [561]
|
---|
2779 |
|
---|
2780 | =item *
|
---|
2781 |
|
---|
2782 | Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root.
|
---|
2783 | Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. [561]
|
---|
2784 |
|
---|
2785 | =item *
|
---|
2786 |
|
---|
2787 | The makefiles now default to the features enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl
|
---|
2788 | (a popular Win32 binary distribution). [561]
|
---|
2789 |
|
---|
2790 | =item *
|
---|
2791 |
|
---|
2792 | HTML files will now be installed in c:\perl\html instead of
|
---|
2793 | c:\perl\lib\pod\html
|
---|
2794 |
|
---|
2795 | =item *
|
---|
2796 |
|
---|
2797 | REG_EXPAND_SZ keys are now allowed in registry settings used by perl. [561]
|
---|
2798 |
|
---|
2799 | =item *
|
---|
2800 |
|
---|
2801 | Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. [561]
|
---|
2802 |
|
---|
2803 | =item *
|
---|
2804 |
|
---|
2805 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker now uses $ENV{LIB} to search for libraries. [561]
|
---|
2806 |
|
---|
2807 | =item *
|
---|
2808 |
|
---|
2809 | Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run
|
---|
2810 | concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.) [561]
|
---|
2811 |
|
---|
2812 | =item *
|
---|
2813 |
|
---|
2814 | C<< File::Spec->tmpdir() >> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp
|
---|
2815 | (works better when perl is running as service).
|
---|
2816 |
|
---|
2817 | =item *
|
---|
2818 |
|
---|
2819 | Better UNC path handling under ithreads. [561]
|
---|
2820 |
|
---|
2821 | =item *
|
---|
2822 |
|
---|
2823 | wait(), waitpid(), and backticks now return the correct exit status
|
---|
2824 | under Windows 9x. [561]
|
---|
2825 |
|
---|
2826 | =item *
|
---|
2827 |
|
---|
2828 | A socket handle leak in accept() has been fixed. [561]
|
---|
2829 |
|
---|
2830 | =back
|
---|
2831 |
|
---|
2832 | =back
|
---|
2833 |
|
---|
2834 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
|
---|
2835 |
|
---|
2836 | Please see L<perldiag> for more details.
|
---|
2837 |
|
---|
2838 | =over 4
|
---|
2839 |
|
---|
2840 | =item *
|
---|
2841 |
|
---|
2842 | Ambiguous range in the transliteration operator (like a-z-9) now
|
---|
2843 | gives a warning.
|
---|
2844 |
|
---|
2845 | =item *
|
---|
2846 |
|
---|
2847 | chdir("") and chdir(undef) now give a deprecation warning because they
|
---|
2848 | cause a possible unintentional chdir to the home directory.
|
---|
2849 | Say chdir() if you really mean that.
|
---|
2850 |
|
---|
2851 | =item *
|
---|
2852 |
|
---|
2853 | Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your
|
---|
2854 | Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT [561] and -DR options to trace
|
---|
2855 | tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables,
|
---|
2856 | respectively.
|
---|
2857 |
|
---|
2858 | =item *
|
---|
2859 |
|
---|
2860 | The lexical warnings category "deprecated" is no longer a sub-category
|
---|
2861 | of the "syntax" category. It is now a top-level category in its own
|
---|
2862 | right.
|
---|
2863 |
|
---|
2864 | =item *
|
---|
2865 |
|
---|
2866 | Unadorned dump() will now give a warning suggesting to
|
---|
2867 | use explicit CORE::dump() if that's what really is meant.
|
---|
2868 |
|
---|
2869 | =item *
|
---|
2870 |
|
---|
2871 | The "Unrecognized escape" warning has been extended to include C<\8>,
|
---|
2872 | C<\9>, and C<\_>. There is no need to escape any of the C<\w> characters.
|
---|
2873 |
|
---|
2874 | =item *
|
---|
2875 |
|
---|
2876 | All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully
|
---|
2877 | easier to understand both because the error message now comes before
|
---|
2878 | the failed regex and because the point of failure is now clearly
|
---|
2879 | marked by a C<E<lt>-- HERE> marker.
|
---|
2880 |
|
---|
2881 | =item *
|
---|
2882 |
|
---|
2883 | Various I/O (and socket) functions like binmode(), close(), and so
|
---|
2884 | forth now more consistently warn if they are used illogically either
|
---|
2885 | on a yet unopened or on an already closed filehandle (or socket).
|
---|
2886 |
|
---|
2887 | =item *
|
---|
2888 |
|
---|
2889 | Using lstat() on a filehandle now gives a warning. (It's a non-sensical
|
---|
2890 | thing to do.)
|
---|
2891 |
|
---|
2892 | =item *
|
---|
2893 |
|
---|
2894 | The C<-M> and C<-m> options now warn if you didn't supply the module name.
|
---|
2895 |
|
---|
2896 | =item *
|
---|
2897 |
|
---|
2898 | If you in C<use> specify a required minimum version, modules matching
|
---|
2899 | the name and but not defining a $VERSION will cause a fatal failure.
|
---|
2900 |
|
---|
2901 | =item *
|
---|
2902 |
|
---|
2903 | Using negative offset for vec() in lvalue context is now a warnable offense.
|
---|
2904 |
|
---|
2905 | =item *
|
---|
2906 |
|
---|
2907 | Odd number of arguments to overload::constant now elicits a warning.
|
---|
2908 |
|
---|
2909 | =item *
|
---|
2910 |
|
---|
2911 | Odd number of elements in anonymous hash now elicits a warning.
|
---|
2912 |
|
---|
2913 | =item *
|
---|
2914 |
|
---|
2915 | The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings
|
---|
2916 | drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package,
|
---|
2917 | for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>.
|
---|
2918 |
|
---|
2919 | =item *
|
---|
2920 |
|
---|
2921 | Subroutine prototypes are now checked more carefully, you may
|
---|
2922 | get warnings for example if you have used non-prototype characters.
|
---|
2923 |
|
---|
2924 | =item *
|
---|
2925 |
|
---|
2926 | If an attempt to use a (non-blessed) reference as an array index
|
---|
2927 | is made, a warning is given.
|
---|
2928 |
|
---|
2929 | =item *
|
---|
2930 |
|
---|
2931 | C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift)
|
---|
2932 | now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled
|
---|
2933 | code.
|
---|
2934 |
|
---|
2935 | =item *
|
---|
2936 |
|
---|
2937 | If you try to L<perlfunc/pack> a number less than 0 or larger than 255
|
---|
2938 | using the C<"C"> format you will get an optional warning. Similarly
|
---|
2939 | for the C<"c"> format and a number less than -128 or more than 127.
|
---|
2940 |
|
---|
2941 | =item *
|
---|
2942 |
|
---|
2943 | pack C<P> format now demands an explicit size.
|
---|
2944 |
|
---|
2945 | =item *
|
---|
2946 |
|
---|
2947 | unpack C<w> now warns of unterminated compressed integers.
|
---|
2948 |
|
---|
2949 | =item *
|
---|
2950 |
|
---|
2951 | Warnings relating to the use of PerlIO have been added.
|
---|
2952 |
|
---|
2953 | =item *
|
---|
2954 |
|
---|
2955 | Certain regex modifiers such as C<(?o)> make sense only if applied to
|
---|
2956 | the entire regex. You will get an optional warning if you try to do
|
---|
2957 | otherwise.
|
---|
2958 |
|
---|
2959 | =item *
|
---|
2960 |
|
---|
2961 | Variable length lookbehind has not yet been implemented, trying to
|
---|
2962 | use it will tell that.
|
---|
2963 |
|
---|
2964 | =item *
|
---|
2965 |
|
---|
2966 | Using arrays or hashes as references (e.g. C<< %foo->{bar} >>
|
---|
2967 | has been deprecated for a while. Now you will get an optional warning.
|
---|
2968 |
|
---|
2969 | =item *
|
---|
2970 |
|
---|
2971 | Warnings relating to the use of the new restricted hashes feature
|
---|
2972 | have been added.
|
---|
2973 |
|
---|
2974 | =item *
|
---|
2975 |
|
---|
2976 | Self-ties of arrays and hashes are not supported and fatal errors
|
---|
2977 | will happen even at an attempt to do so.
|
---|
2978 |
|
---|
2979 | =item *
|
---|
2980 |
|
---|
2981 | Using C<sort> in scalar context now issues an optional warning.
|
---|
2982 | This didn't do anything useful, as the sort was not performed.
|
---|
2983 |
|
---|
2984 | =item *
|
---|
2985 |
|
---|
2986 | Using the /g modifier in split() is meaningless and will cause a warning.
|
---|
2987 |
|
---|
2988 | =item *
|
---|
2989 |
|
---|
2990 | Using splice() past the end of an array now causes a warning.
|
---|
2991 |
|
---|
2992 | =item *
|
---|
2993 |
|
---|
2994 | Malformed Unicode encodings (UTF-8 and UTF-16) cause a lot of warnings,
|
---|
2995 | as does trying to use UTF-16 surrogates (which are unimplemented).
|
---|
2996 |
|
---|
2997 | =item *
|
---|
2998 |
|
---|
2999 | Trying to use Unicode characters on an I/O stream without marking the
|
---|
3000 | stream's encoding (using open() or binmode()) will cause "Wide character"
|
---|
3001 | warnings.
|
---|
3002 |
|
---|
3003 | =item *
|
---|
3004 |
|
---|
3005 | Use of v-strings in use/require causes a (backward) portability warning.
|
---|
3006 |
|
---|
3007 | =item *
|
---|
3008 |
|
---|
3009 | Warnings relating to the use interpreter threads and their shared data
|
---|
3010 | have been added.
|
---|
3011 |
|
---|
3012 | =back
|
---|
3013 |
|
---|
3014 | =head1 Changed Internals
|
---|
3015 |
|
---|
3016 | =over 4
|
---|
3017 |
|
---|
3018 | =item *
|
---|
3019 |
|
---|
3020 | PerlIO is now the default.
|
---|
3021 |
|
---|
3022 | =item *
|
---|
3023 |
|
---|
3024 | perlapi.pod (a companion to perlguts) now attempts to document the
|
---|
3025 | internal API.
|
---|
3026 |
|
---|
3027 | =item *
|
---|
3028 |
|
---|
3029 | You can now build a really minimal perl called microperl.
|
---|
3030 | Building microperl does not require even running Configure;
|
---|
3031 | C<make -f Makefile.micro> should be enough. Beware: microperl makes
|
---|
3032 | many assumptions, some of which may be too bold; the resulting
|
---|
3033 | executable may crash or otherwise misbehave in wondrous ways.
|
---|
3034 | For careful hackers only.
|
---|
3035 |
|
---|
3036 | =item *
|
---|
3037 |
|
---|
3038 | Added rsignal(), whichsig(), do_join(), op_clear, op_null,
|
---|
3039 | ptr_table_clear(), ptr_table_free(), sv_setref_uv(), and several UTF-8
|
---|
3040 | interfaces to the publicised API. For the full list of the available
|
---|
3041 | APIs see L<perlapi>.
|
---|
3042 |
|
---|
3043 | =item *
|
---|
3044 |
|
---|
3045 | Made possible to propagate customised exceptions via croak()ing.
|
---|
3046 |
|
---|
3047 | =item *
|
---|
3048 |
|
---|
3049 | Now xsubs can have attributes just like subs. (Well, at least the
|
---|
3050 | built-in attributes.)
|
---|
3051 |
|
---|
3052 | =item *
|
---|
3053 |
|
---|
3054 | dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's
|
---|
3055 | a no-op) and the latter replaced with dSP.
|
---|
3056 |
|
---|
3057 | =item *
|
---|
3058 |
|
---|
3059 | PERL_OBJECT has been completely removed.
|
---|
3060 |
|
---|
3061 | =item *
|
---|
3062 |
|
---|
3063 | The MAGIC constants (e.g. C<'P'>) have been macrofied
|
---|
3064 | (e.g. C<PERL_MAGIC_TIED>) for better source code readability
|
---|
3065 | and maintainability.
|
---|
3066 |
|
---|
3067 | =item *
|
---|
3068 |
|
---|
3069 | The regex compiler now maintains a structure that identifies nodes in
|
---|
3070 | the compiled bytecode with the corresponding syntactic features of the
|
---|
3071 | original regex expression. The information is attached to the new
|
---|
3072 | C<offsets> member of the C<struct regexp>. See L<perldebguts> for more
|
---|
3073 | complete information.
|
---|
3074 |
|
---|
3075 | =item *
|
---|
3076 |
|
---|
3077 | The C code has been made much more C<gcc -Wall> clean. Some warning
|
---|
3078 | messages still remain in some platforms, so if you are compiling with
|
---|
3079 | gcc you may see some warnings about dubious practices. The warnings
|
---|
3080 | are being worked on.
|
---|
3081 |
|
---|
3082 | =item *
|
---|
3083 |
|
---|
3084 | F<perly.c>, F<sv.c>, and F<sv.h> have now been extensively commented.
|
---|
3085 |
|
---|
3086 | =item *
|
---|
3087 |
|
---|
3088 | Documentation on how to use the Perl source repository has been added
|
---|
3089 | to F<Porting/repository.pod>.
|
---|
3090 |
|
---|
3091 | =item *
|
---|
3092 |
|
---|
3093 | There are now several profiling make targets.
|
---|
3094 |
|
---|
3095 | =back
|
---|
3096 |
|
---|
3097 | =head1 Security Vulnerability Closed [561]
|
---|
3098 |
|
---|
3099 | (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)
|
---|
3100 | (5.7.0 came out before 5.6.1: the development branch 5.7 released
|
---|
3101 | earlier than the maintenance branch 5.6)
|
---|
3102 |
|
---|
3103 | A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component
|
---|
3104 | of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor
|
---|
3105 | installed by default. As of November 2001 the only known vulnerable
|
---|
3106 | platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and
|
---|
3107 | various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability.
|
---|
3108 | See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt
|
---|
3109 | for more information.
|
---|
3110 |
|
---|
3111 | The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security
|
---|
3112 | exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux
|
---|
3113 | platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which
|
---|
3114 | when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in
|
---|
3115 | a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you
|
---|
3116 | don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if
|
---|
3117 | suidperl is not installed, you are safe.
|
---|
3118 |
|
---|
3119 | The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from
|
---|
3120 | Perl 5.8.0 (and the maintenance release 5.6.1, and it was removed also
|
---|
3121 | from all the Perl 5.7 releases), so that particular vulnerability
|
---|
3122 | isn't there anymore. However, further security vulnerabilities are,
|
---|
3123 | unfortunately, always possible. The suidperl functionality is most
|
---|
3124 | probably going to be removed in Perl 5.10. In any case, suidperl
|
---|
3125 | should only be used by security experts who know exactly what they are
|
---|
3126 | doing and why they are using suidperl instead of some other solution
|
---|
3127 | such as sudo ( see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ).
|
---|
3128 |
|
---|
3129 | =head1 New Tests
|
---|
3130 |
|
---|
3131 | Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> and
|
---|
3132 | F<ext> subsections. There are now about 69 000 individual tests
|
---|
3133 | (spread over about 700 test scripts), in the regression suite (5.6.1
|
---|
3134 | has about 11 700 tests, in 258 test scripts) The exact numbers depend
|
---|
3135 | on the platform and Perl configuration used. Many of the new tests
|
---|
3136 | are of course introduced by the new modules, but still in general Perl
|
---|
3137 | is now more thoroughly tested.
|
---|
3138 |
|
---|
3139 | Because of the large number of tests, running the regression suite
|
---|
3140 | will take considerably longer time than it used to: expect the suite
|
---|
3141 | to take up to 4-5 times longer to run than in perl 5.6. On a really
|
---|
3142 | fast machine you can hope to finish the suite in about 6-8 minutes
|
---|
3143 | (wallclock time).
|
---|
3144 |
|
---|
3145 | The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls.
|
---|
3146 | (This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved
|
---|
3147 | to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.)
|
---|
3148 |
|
---|
3149 | =head1 Known Problems
|
---|
3150 |
|
---|
3151 | =head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Very Experimental
|
---|
3152 |
|
---|
3153 | The compiler suite is slowly getting better but it continues to be
|
---|
3154 | highly experimental. Use in production environments is discouraged.
|
---|
3155 |
|
---|
3156 | =head2 Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken
|
---|
3157 |
|
---|
3158 | local %tied_array;
|
---|
3159 |
|
---|
3160 | doesn't work as one would expect: the old value is restored
|
---|
3161 | incorrectly. This will be changed in a future release, but we don't
|
---|
3162 | know yet what the new semantics will exactly be. In any case, the
|
---|
3163 | change will break existing code that relies on the current
|
---|
3164 | (ill-defined) semantics, so just avoid doing this in general.
|
---|
3165 |
|
---|
3166 | =head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles
|
---|
3167 |
|
---|
3168 | Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with
|
---|
3169 | `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets
|
---|
3170 | default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile
|
---|
3171 | at all, or they may compile and work incorrectly. Currently, there
|
---|
3172 | is no good solution for the problem, but Configure now provides
|
---|
3173 | appropriate non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs
|
---|
3174 | in the %Config hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the
|
---|
3175 | extensions that are having problems can try configuring themselves
|
---|
3176 | without the largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution,
|
---|
3177 | and the solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is
|
---|
3178 | whether one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea to) link
|
---|
3179 | together at all binaries with different ideas about file offsets;
|
---|
3180 | all this is platform-dependent.
|
---|
3181 |
|
---|
3182 | =head2 Modifying $_ Inside for(..)
|
---|
3183 |
|
---|
3184 | for (1..5) { $_++ }
|
---|
3185 |
|
---|
3186 | works without complaint. It shouldn't. (You should be able to
|
---|
3187 | modify only lvalue elements inside the loops.) You can see the
|
---|
3188 | correct behaviour by replacing the 1..5 with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
|
---|
3189 |
|
---|
3190 | =head2 mod_perl 1.26 Doesn't Build With Threaded Perl
|
---|
3191 |
|
---|
3192 | Use mod_perl 1.27 or higher.
|
---|
3193 |
|
---|
3194 | =head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'
|
---|
3195 |
|
---|
3196 | Don't panic. Read the 'make test' section of INSTALL instead.
|
---|
3197 |
|
---|
3198 | =head2 libwww-perl (LWP) fails base/date #51
|
---|
3199 |
|
---|
3200 | Use libwww-perl 5.65 or later.
|
---|
3201 |
|
---|
3202 | =head2 PDL failing some tests
|
---|
3203 |
|
---|
3204 | Use PDL 2.3.4 or later.
|
---|
3205 |
|
---|
3206 | =head2 Perl_get_sv
|
---|
3207 |
|
---|
3208 | You may get errors like 'Undefined symbol "Perl_get_sv"' or "can't
|
---|
3209 | resolve symbol 'Perl_get_sv'", or the symbol may be "Perl_sv_2pv".
|
---|
3210 | This probably means that you are trying to use an older shared Perl
|
---|
3211 | library (or extensions linked with such) with Perl 5.8.0 executable.
|
---|
3212 | Perl used to have such a subroutine, but that is no more the case.
|
---|
3213 | Check your shared library path, and any shared Perl libraries in those
|
---|
3214 | directories.
|
---|
3215 |
|
---|
3216 | Sometimes this problem may also indicate a partial Perl 5.8.0
|
---|
3217 | installation, see L</"Mac OS X dyld undefined symbols"> for an
|
---|
3218 | example and how to deal with it.
|
---|
3219 |
|
---|
3220 | =head2 Self-tying Problems
|
---|
3221 |
|
---|
3222 | Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and
|
---|
3223 | hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting
|
---|
3224 | frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often), it is
|
---|
3225 | forbidden for now (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt).
|
---|
3226 |
|
---|
3227 | A change to self-tying of globs has caused them to be recursively
|
---|
3228 | referenced (see: L<perlobj/"Two-Phased Garbage Collection">). You
|
---|
3229 | will now need an explicit untie to destroy a self-tied glob. This
|
---|
3230 | behaviour may be fixed at a later date.
|
---|
3231 |
|
---|
3232 | Self-tying of scalars and IO thingies works.
|
---|
3233 |
|
---|
3234 | =head2 ext/threads/t/libc
|
---|
3235 |
|
---|
3236 | If this test fails, it indicates that your libc (C library) is not
|
---|
3237 | threadsafe. This particular test stress tests the localtime() call to
|
---|
3238 | find out whether it is threadsafe. See L<perlthrtut> for more information.
|
---|
3239 |
|
---|
3240 | =head2 Failure of Thread (5.005-style) tests
|
---|
3241 |
|
---|
3242 | B<Note that support for 5.005-style threading is deprecated,
|
---|
3243 | experimental and practically unsupported. In 5.10, it is expected
|
---|
3244 | to be removed. You should migrate your code to ithreads.>
|
---|
3245 |
|
---|
3246 | The following tests are known to fail due to fundamental problems in
|
---|
3247 | the 5.005 threading implementation. These are not new failures--Perl
|
---|
3248 | 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have these tests.
|
---|
3249 |
|
---|
3250 | ../ext/B/t/xref.t 255 65280 14 12 85.71% 3-14
|
---|
3251 | ../ext/List/Util/t/first.t 255 65280 7 4 57.14% 2 5-7
|
---|
3252 | ../lib/English.t 2 512 54 2 3.70% 2-3
|
---|
3253 | ../lib/FileCache.t 5 1 20.00% 5
|
---|
3254 | ../lib/Filter/Simple/t/data.t 6 3 50.00% 1-3
|
---|
3255 | ../lib/Filter/Simple/t/filter_only. 9 3 33.33% 1-2 5
|
---|
3256 | ../lib/Math/BigInt/t/bare_mbf.t 1627 4 0.25% 8 11 1626-1627
|
---|
3257 | ../lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigfltpm.t 1629 4 0.25% 10 13 1628-
|
---|
3258 | 1629
|
---|
3259 | ../lib/Math/BigInt/t/sub_mbf.t 1633 4 0.24% 8 11 1632-1633
|
---|
3260 | ../lib/Math/BigInt/t/with_sub.t 1628 4 0.25% 9 12 1627-1628
|
---|
3261 | ../lib/Tie/File/t/31_autodefer.t 255 65280 65 32 49.23% 34-65
|
---|
3262 | ../lib/autouse.t 10 1 10.00% 4
|
---|
3263 | op/flip.t 15 1 6.67% 15
|
---|
3264 |
|
---|
3265 | These failures are unlikely to get fixed as 5.005-style threads
|
---|
3266 | are considered fundamentally broken. (Basically what happens is that
|
---|
3267 | competing threads can corrupt shared global state, one good example
|
---|
3268 | being regular expression engine's state.)
|
---|
3269 |
|
---|
3270 | =head2 Timing problems
|
---|
3271 |
|
---|
3272 | The following tests may fail intermittently because of timing
|
---|
3273 | problems, for example if the system is heavily loaded.
|
---|
3274 |
|
---|
3275 | t/op/alarm.t
|
---|
3276 | ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t
|
---|
3277 | lib/Benchmark.t
|
---|
3278 | lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t
|
---|
3279 | lib/Memoize/t/speed.t
|
---|
3280 |
|
---|
3281 | In case of failure please try running them manually, for example
|
---|
3282 |
|
---|
3283 | ./perl -Ilib ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t
|
---|
3284 |
|
---|
3285 | =head2 Tied/Magical Array/Hash Elements Do Not Autovivify
|
---|
3286 |
|
---|
3287 | For normal arrays C<$foo = \$bar[1]> will assign C<undef> to
|
---|
3288 | C<$bar[1]> (assuming that it didn't exist before), but for
|
---|
3289 | tied/magical arrays and hashes such autovivification does not happen
|
---|
3290 | because there is currently no way to catch the reference creation.
|
---|
3291 | The same problem affects slicing over non-existent indices/keys of
|
---|
3292 | a tied/magical array/hash.
|
---|
3293 |
|
---|
3294 | =head2 Unicode in package/class and subroutine names does not work
|
---|
3295 |
|
---|
3296 | One can have Unicode in identifier names, but not in package/class or
|
---|
3297 | subroutine names. While some limited functionality towards this does
|
---|
3298 | exist as of Perl 5.8.0, that is more accidental than designed; use of
|
---|
3299 | Unicode for the said purposes is unsupported.
|
---|
3300 |
|
---|
3301 | One reason of this unfinishedness is its (currently) inherent
|
---|
3302 | unportability: since both package names and subroutine names may
|
---|
3303 | need to be mapped to file and directory names, the Unicode capability
|
---|
3304 | of the filesystem becomes important-- and there unfortunately aren't
|
---|
3305 | portable answers.
|
---|
3306 |
|
---|
3307 | =head1 Platform Specific Problems
|
---|
3308 |
|
---|
3309 | =head2 AIX
|
---|
3310 |
|
---|
3311 | =over 4
|
---|
3312 |
|
---|
3313 | =item *
|
---|
3314 |
|
---|
3315 | If using the AIX native make command, instead of just "make" issue
|
---|
3316 | "make all". In some setups the former has been known to spuriously
|
---|
3317 | also try to run "make install". Alternatively, you may want to use
|
---|
3318 | GNU make.
|
---|
3319 |
|
---|
3320 | =item *
|
---|
3321 |
|
---|
3322 | In AIX 4.2, Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
|
---|
3323 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
|
---|
3324 | In newer AIX releases, this has been solved by linking Perl with
|
---|
3325 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
|
---|
3326 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
|
---|
3327 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
|
---|
3328 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against libC_r.
|
---|
3329 |
|
---|
3330 | =item *
|
---|
3331 |
|
---|
3332 | vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl
|
---|
3333 |
|
---|
3334 | The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code,
|
---|
3335 | resulting in a few random tests failing when run as part of "make
|
---|
3336 | test", but when the failing tests are run by hand, they succeed.
|
---|
3337 | We suggest upgrading to at least vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been
|
---|
3338 | known to compile Perl correctly. "lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell
|
---|
3339 | you the vac version. See README.aix.
|
---|
3340 |
|
---|
3341 | =item *
|
---|
3342 |
|
---|
3343 | If building threaded Perl, you may get compilation warning from pp_sys.c:
|
---|
3344 |
|
---|
3345 | "pp_sys.c", line 4651.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
|
---|
3346 |
|
---|
3347 | This is harmless; it is caused by the getnetbyaddr() and getnetbyaddr_r()
|
---|
3348 | having slightly different types for their first argument.
|
---|
3349 |
|
---|
3350 | =back
|
---|
3351 |
|
---|
3352 | =head2 Alpha systems with old gccs fail several tests
|
---|
3353 |
|
---|
3354 | If you see op/pack, op/pat, op/regexp, or ext/Storable tests failing
|
---|
3355 | in a Linux/alpha or *BSD/Alpha, it's probably time to upgrade your gcc.
|
---|
3356 | gccs prior to 2.95.3 are definitely not good enough, and gcc 3.1 may
|
---|
3357 | be even better. (RedHat Linux/alpha with gcc 3.1 reported no problems,
|
---|
3358 | as did Linux 2.4.18 with gcc 2.95.4.) (In Tru64, it is preferable to
|
---|
3359 | use the bundled C compiler.)
|
---|
3360 |
|
---|
3361 | =head2 AmigaOS
|
---|
3362 |
|
---|
3363 | Perl 5.8.0 doesn't build in AmigaOS. It broke at some point during
|
---|
3364 | the ithreads work and we could not find Amiga experts to unbreak the
|
---|
3365 | problems. Perl 5.6.1 still works for AmigaOS (as does the 5.7.2
|
---|
3366 | development release).
|
---|
3367 |
|
---|
3368 | =head2 BeOS
|
---|
3369 |
|
---|
3370 | The following tests fail on 5.8.0 Perl in BeOS Personal 5.03:
|
---|
3371 |
|
---|
3372 | t/op/lfs............................FAILED at test 17
|
---|
3373 | t/op/magic..........................FAILED at test 24
|
---|
3374 | ext/Fcntl/t/syslfs..................FAILED at test 17
|
---|
3375 | ext/File/Glob/t/basic...............FAILED at test 3
|
---|
3376 | ext/POSIX/t/sigaction...............FAILED at test 13
|
---|
3377 | ext/POSIX/t/waitpid.................FAILED at test 1
|
---|
3378 |
|
---|
3379 | See L<perlbeos> (README.beos) for more details.
|
---|
3380 |
|
---|
3381 | =head2 Cygwin "unable to remap"
|
---|
3382 |
|
---|
3383 | For example when building the Tk extension for Cygwin,
|
---|
3384 | you may get an error message saying "unable to remap".
|
---|
3385 | This is known problem with Cygwin, and a workaround is
|
---|
3386 | detailed in here: http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html
|
---|
3387 |
|
---|
3388 | =head2 Cygwin ndbm tests fail on FAT
|
---|
3389 |
|
---|
3390 | One can build but not install (or test the build of) the NDBM_File
|
---|
3391 | on FAT filesystems. Installation (or build) on NTFS works fine.
|
---|
3392 | If one attempts the test on a FAT install (or build) the following
|
---|
3393 | failures are expected:
|
---|
3394 |
|
---|
3395 | ../ext/NDBM_File/ndbm.t 13 3328 71 59 83.10% 1-2 4 16-71
|
---|
3396 | ../ext/ODBM_File/odbm.t 255 65280 ?? ?? % ??
|
---|
3397 | ../lib/AnyDBM_File.t 2 512 12 2 16.67% 1 4
|
---|
3398 | ../lib/Memoize/t/errors.t 0 139 11 5 45.45% 7-11
|
---|
3399 | ../lib/Memoize/t/tie_ndbm.t 13 3328 4 4 100.00% 1-4
|
---|
3400 | run/fresh_perl.t 97 1 1.03% 91
|
---|
3401 |
|
---|
3402 | NDBM_File fails and ODBM_File just coredumps.
|
---|
3403 |
|
---|
3404 | If you intend to run only on FAT (or if using AnyDBM_File on FAT),
|
---|
3405 | run Configure with the -Ui_ndbm and -Ui_dbm options to prevent
|
---|
3406 | NDBM_File and ODBM_File being built.
|
---|
3407 |
|
---|
3408 | =head2 DJGPP Failures
|
---|
3409 |
|
---|
3410 | t/op/stat............................FAILED at test 29
|
---|
3411 | lib/File/Find/t/find.................FAILED at test 1
|
---|
3412 | lib/File/Find/t/taint................FAILED at test 1
|
---|
3413 | lib/h2xs.............................FAILED at test 15
|
---|
3414 | lib/Pod/t/eol........................FAILED at test 1
|
---|
3415 | lib/Test/Harness/t/strap-analyze.....FAILED at test 8
|
---|
3416 | lib/Test/Harness/t/test-harness......FAILED at test 23
|
---|
3417 | lib/Test/Simple/t/exit...............FAILED at test 1
|
---|
3418 |
|
---|
3419 | The above failures are known as of 5.8.0 with native builds with long
|
---|
3420 | filenames, but there are a few more if running under dosemu because of
|
---|
3421 | limitations (and maybe bugs) of dosemu:
|
---|
3422 |
|
---|
3423 | t/comp/cpp...........................FAILED at test 3
|
---|
3424 | t/op/inccode.........................(crash)
|
---|
3425 |
|
---|
3426 | and a few lib/ExtUtils tests, and several hundred Encode/t/Aliases.t
|
---|
3427 | failures that work fine with long filenames. So you really might
|
---|
3428 | prefer native builds and long filenames.
|
---|
3429 |
|
---|
3430 | =head2 FreeBSD built with ithreads coredumps reading large directories
|
---|
3431 |
|
---|
3432 | This is a known bug in FreeBSD 4.5's readdir_r(), it has been fixed in
|
---|
3433 | FreeBSD 4.6 (see L<perlfreebsd> (README.freebsd)).
|
---|
3434 |
|
---|
3435 | =head2 FreeBSD Failing locale Test 117 For ISO 8859-15 Locales
|
---|
3436 |
|
---|
3437 | The ISO 8859-15 locales may fail the locale test 117 in FreeBSD.
|
---|
3438 | This is caused by the characters \xFF (y with diaeresis) and \xBE
|
---|
3439 | (Y with diaeresis) not behaving correctly when being matched
|
---|
3440 | case-insensitively. Apparently this problem has been fixed in
|
---|
3441 | the latest FreeBSD releases.
|
---|
3442 | ( http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=34308 )
|
---|
3443 |
|
---|
3444 | =head2 IRIX fails ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t or Digest::MD5
|
---|
3445 |
|
---|
3446 | IRIX with MIPSpro 7.3.1.2m or 7.3.1.3m compiler may fail the List::Util
|
---|
3447 | test ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t by dumping core. This seems to be
|
---|
3448 | a compiler error since if compiled with gcc no core dump ensues, and
|
---|
3449 | no failures have been seen on the said test on any other platform.
|
---|
3450 |
|
---|
3451 | Similarly, building the Digest::MD5 extension has been
|
---|
3452 | known to fail with "*** Termination code 139 (bu21)".
|
---|
3453 |
|
---|
3454 | The cure is to drop optimization level (Configure -Doptimize=-O2).
|
---|
3455 |
|
---|
3456 | =head2 HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured
|
---|
3457 |
|
---|
3458 | If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the
|
---|
3459 | subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the
|
---|
3460 | subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the
|
---|
3461 | subtest 9 failed.
|
---|
3462 |
|
---|
3463 | =head2 Linux with glibc 2.2.5 fails t/op/int subtest #6 with -Duse64bitint
|
---|
3464 |
|
---|
3465 | This is a known bug in the glibc 2.2.5 with long long integers.
|
---|
3466 | ( http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=65612 )
|
---|
3467 |
|
---|
3468 | =head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48
|
---|
3469 |
|
---|
3470 | No known fix.
|
---|
3471 |
|
---|
3472 | =head2 Mac OS X
|
---|
3473 |
|
---|
3474 | Please remember to set your environment variable LC_ALL to "C"
|
---|
3475 | (setenv LC_ALL C) before running "make test" to avoid a lot of
|
---|
3476 | warnings about the broken locales of Mac OS X.
|
---|
3477 |
|
---|
3478 | The following tests are known to fail in Mac OS X 10.1.5 because of
|
---|
3479 | buggy (old) implementations of Berkeley DB included in Mac OS X:
|
---|
3480 |
|
---|
3481 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
|
---|
3482 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
---|
3483 | ../ext/DB_File/t/db-btree.t 0 11 ?? ?? % ??
|
---|
3484 | ../ext/DB_File/t/db-recno.t 149 3 2.01% 61 63 65
|
---|
3485 |
|
---|
3486 | If you are building on a UFS partition, you will also probably see
|
---|
3487 | t/op/stat.t subtest #9 fail. This is caused by Darwin's UFS not
|
---|
3488 | supporting inode change time.
|
---|
3489 |
|
---|
3490 | Also the ext/POSIX/t/posix.t subtest #10 fails but it is skipped for
|
---|
3491 | now because the failure is Apple's fault, not Perl's (blocked signals
|
---|
3492 | are lost).
|
---|
3493 |
|
---|
3494 | If you Configure with ithreads, ext/threads/t/libc.t will fail. Again,
|
---|
3495 | this is not Perl's fault-- the libc of Mac OS X is not threadsafe
|
---|
3496 | (in this particular test, the localtime() call is found to be
|
---|
3497 | threadunsafe.)
|
---|
3498 |
|
---|
3499 | =head2 Mac OS X dyld undefined symbols
|
---|
3500 |
|
---|
3501 | If after installing Perl 5.8.0 you are getting warnings about missing
|
---|
3502 | symbols, for example
|
---|
3503 |
|
---|
3504 | dyld: perl Undefined symbols
|
---|
3505 | _perl_sv_2pv
|
---|
3506 | _perl_get_sv
|
---|
3507 |
|
---|
3508 | you probably have an old pre-Perl-5.8.0 installation (or parts of one)
|
---|
3509 | in /Library/Perl (the undefined symbols used to exist in pre-5.8.0 Perls).
|
---|
3510 | It seems that for some reason "make install" doesn't always completely
|
---|
3511 | overwrite the files in /Library/Perl. You can move the old Perl
|
---|
3512 | shared library out of the way like this:
|
---|
3513 |
|
---|
3514 | cd /Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
|
---|
3515 | mv libperl.dylib libperlold.dylib
|
---|
3516 |
|
---|
3517 | and then reissue "make install". Note that the above of course is
|
---|
3518 | extremely disruptive for anything using the /usr/local/bin/perl.
|
---|
3519 | If that doesn't help, you may have to try removing all the .bundle
|
---|
3520 | files from beneath /Library/Perl, and again "make install"-ing.
|
---|
3521 |
|
---|
3522 | =head2 OS/2 Test Failures
|
---|
3523 |
|
---|
3524 | The following tests are known to fail on OS/2 (for clarity
|
---|
3525 | only the failures are shown, not the full error messages):
|
---|
3526 |
|
---|
3527 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Mkbootstrap.t 1 256 18 1 5.56% 8
|
---|
3528 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Packlist.t 1 256 34 1 2.94% 17
|
---|
3529 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/basic.t 1 256 17 1 5.88% 14
|
---|
3530 | lib/os2_process.t 2 512 227 2 0.88% 174 209
|
---|
3531 | lib/os2_process_kid.t 227 2 0.88% 174 209
|
---|
3532 | lib/rx_cmprt.t 255 65280 18 3 16.67% 16-18
|
---|
3533 |
|
---|
3534 | =head2 op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130
|
---|
3535 |
|
---|
3536 | The op/sprintf tests 91, 129, and 130 are known to fail on some platforms.
|
---|
3537 | Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX.
|
---|
3538 |
|
---|
3539 | Test 91 is known to fail on QNX6 (nto), because C<sprintf '%e',0>
|
---|
3540 | incorrectly produces C<0.000000e+0> instead of C<0.000000e+00>.
|
---|
3541 |
|
---|
3542 | For tests 129 and 130, the failing platforms do not comply with
|
---|
3543 | the ANSI C Standard: lines 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989, to
|
---|
3544 | be exact. (They produce something other than "1" and "-1" when
|
---|
3545 | formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using the printf format "%.0f"; most often,
|
---|
3546 | they produce "0" and "-0".)
|
---|
3547 |
|
---|
3548 | =head2 SCO
|
---|
3549 |
|
---|
3550 | The socketpair tests are known to be unhappy in SCO 3.2v5.0.4:
|
---|
3551 |
|
---|
3552 | ext/Socket/socketpair.t...............FAILED tests 15-45
|
---|
3553 |
|
---|
3554 | =head2 Solaris 2.5
|
---|
3555 |
|
---|
3556 | In case you are still using Solaris 2.5 (aka SunOS 5.5), you may
|
---|
3557 | experience failures (the test core dumping) in lib/locale.t.
|
---|
3558 | The suggested cure is to upgrade your Solaris.
|
---|
3559 |
|
---|
3560 | =head2 Solaris x86 Fails Tests With -Duse64bitint
|
---|
3561 |
|
---|
3562 | The following tests are known to fail in Solaris x86 with Perl
|
---|
3563 | configured to use 64 bit integers:
|
---|
3564 |
|
---|
3565 | ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.............FAILED at test 268
|
---|
3566 | ext/Devel/Peek/Peek..................FAILED at test 7
|
---|
3567 |
|
---|
3568 | =head2 SUPER-UX (NEC SX)
|
---|
3569 |
|
---|
3570 | The following tests are known to fail on SUPER-UX:
|
---|
3571 |
|
---|
3572 | op/64bitint...........................FAILED tests 29-30, 32-33, 35-36
|
---|
3573 | op/arith..............................FAILED tests 128-130
|
---|
3574 | op/pack...............................FAILED tests 25-5625
|
---|
3575 | op/pow................................
|
---|
3576 | op/taint..............................# msgsnd failed
|
---|
3577 | ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_poll............FAILED tests 3-4
|
---|
3578 | ../ext/IPC/SysV/ipcsysv...............FAILED tests 2, 5-6
|
---|
3579 | ../ext/IPC/SysV/t/msg.................FAILED tests 2, 4-6
|
---|
3580 | ../ext/Socket/socketpair..............FAILED tests 12
|
---|
3581 | ../lib/IPC/SysV.......................FAILED tests 2, 5-6
|
---|
3582 | ../lib/warnings.......................FAILED tests 115-116, 118-119
|
---|
3583 |
|
---|
3584 | The op/pack failure ("Cannot compress negative numbers at op/pack.t line 126")
|
---|
3585 | is serious but as of yet unsolved. It points at some problems with the
|
---|
3586 | signedness handling of the C compiler, as do the 64bitint, arith, and pow
|
---|
3587 | failures. Most of the rest point at problems with SysV IPC.
|
---|
3588 |
|
---|
3589 | =head2 Term::ReadKey not working on Win32
|
---|
3590 |
|
---|
3591 | Use Term::ReadKey 2.20 or later.
|
---|
3592 |
|
---|
3593 | =head2 UNICOS/mk
|
---|
3594 |
|
---|
3595 | =over 4
|
---|
3596 |
|
---|
3597 | =item *
|
---|
3598 |
|
---|
3599 | During Configure, the test
|
---|
3600 |
|
---|
3601 | Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define...
|
---|
3602 |
|
---|
3603 | will probably fail with error messages like
|
---|
3604 |
|
---|
3605 | CC-20 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3
|
---|
3606 | The identifier "bad" is undefined.
|
---|
3607 |
|
---|
3608 | bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79bad switch yylook 79#ifdef A29K
|
---|
3609 | ^
|
---|
3610 |
|
---|
3611 | CC-65 cc: ERROR File = try.c, Line = 3
|
---|
3612 | A semicolon is expected at this point.
|
---|
3613 |
|
---|
3614 | This is caused by a bug in the awk utility of UNICOS/mk. You can ignore
|
---|
3615 | the error, but it does cause a slight problem: you cannot fully
|
---|
3616 | benefit from the h2ph utility (see L<h2ph>) that can be used to
|
---|
3617 | convert C headers to Perl libraries, mainly used to be able to access
|
---|
3618 | from Perl the constants defined using C preprocessor, cpp. Because of
|
---|
3619 | the above error, parts of the converted headers will be invisible.
|
---|
3620 | Luckily, these days the need for h2ph is rare.
|
---|
3621 |
|
---|
3622 | =item *
|
---|
3623 |
|
---|
3624 | If building Perl with interpreter threads (ithreads), the
|
---|
3625 | getgrent(), getgrnam(), and getgrgid() functions cannot return the
|
---|
3626 | list of the group members due to a bug in the multithreaded support of
|
---|
3627 | UNICOS/mk. What this means is that in list context the functions will
|
---|
3628 | return only three values, not four.
|
---|
3629 |
|
---|
3630 | =back
|
---|
3631 |
|
---|
3632 | =head2 UTS
|
---|
3633 |
|
---|
3634 | There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts> (README.uts).
|
---|
3635 |
|
---|
3636 | =head2 VOS (Stratus)
|
---|
3637 |
|
---|
3638 | When Perl is built using the native build process on VOS Release
|
---|
3639 | 14.5.0 and GNU C++/GNU Tools 2.0.1, all attempted tests either
|
---|
3640 | pass or result in TODO (ignored) failures.
|
---|
3641 |
|
---|
3642 | =head2 VMS
|
---|
3643 |
|
---|
3644 | There should be no reported test failures with a default configuration,
|
---|
3645 | though there are a number of tests marked TODO that point to areas
|
---|
3646 | needing further debugging and/or porting work.
|
---|
3647 |
|
---|
3648 | =head2 Win32
|
---|
3649 |
|
---|
3650 | In multi-CPU boxes, there are some problems with the I/O buffering:
|
---|
3651 | some output may appear twice.
|
---|
3652 |
|
---|
3653 | =head2 XML::Parser not working
|
---|
3654 |
|
---|
3655 | Use XML::Parser 2.31 or later.
|
---|
3656 |
|
---|
3657 | =head2 z/OS (OS/390)
|
---|
3658 |
|
---|
3659 | z/OS has rather many test failures but the situation is actually much
|
---|
3660 | better than it was in 5.6.0; it's just that so many new modules and
|
---|
3661 | tests have been added.
|
---|
3662 |
|
---|
3663 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
|
---|
3664 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
---|
3665 | ../ext/Data/Dumper/t/dumper.t 357 8 2.24% 311 314 325 327
|
---|
3666 | 331 333 337 339
|
---|
3667 | ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 5 4 80.00% 2-5
|
---|
3668 | ../ext/Storable/t/downgrade.t 12 3072 169 12 7.10% 14-15 46-47 78-79
|
---|
3669 | 110-111 150 161
|
---|
3670 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Constant.t 121 30976 48 48 100.00% 1-48
|
---|
3671 | ../lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t 9 9 100.00% 1-9
|
---|
3672 | op/pat.t 922 7 0.76% 665 776 785 832-
|
---|
3673 | 834 845
|
---|
3674 | op/sprintf.t 224 3 1.34% 98 100 136
|
---|
3675 | op/tr.t 97 5 5.15% 63 71-74
|
---|
3676 | uni/fold.t 780 6 0.77% 61 169 196 661
|
---|
3677 | 710-711
|
---|
3678 |
|
---|
3679 | The failures in dumper.t and downgrade.t are problems in the tests,
|
---|
3680 | those in io_unix and sprintf are problems in the USS (UDP sockets and
|
---|
3681 | printf formats). The pat, tr, and fold failures are genuine Perl
|
---|
3682 | problems caused by EBCDIC (and in the pat and fold cases, combining
|
---|
3683 | that with Unicode). The Constant and Embed are probably problems in
|
---|
3684 | the tests (since they test Perl's ability to build extensions, and
|
---|
3685 | that seems to be working reasonably well.)
|
---|
3686 |
|
---|
3687 | =head2 Unicode Support on EBCDIC Still Spotty
|
---|
3688 |
|
---|
3689 | Though mostly working, Unicode support still has problem spots on
|
---|
3690 | EBCDIC platforms. One such known spot are the C<\p{}> and C<\P{}>
|
---|
3691 | regular expression constructs for code points less than 256: the
|
---|
3692 | C<pP> are testing for Unicode code points, not knowing about EBCDIC.
|
---|
3693 |
|
---|
3694 | =head2 Seen In Perl 5.7 But Gone Now
|
---|
3695 |
|
---|
3696 | C<Time::Piece> (previously known as C<Time::Object>) was removed
|
---|
3697 | because it was felt that it didn't have enough value in it to be a
|
---|
3698 | core module. It is still a useful module, though, and is available
|
---|
3699 | from the CPAN.
|
---|
3700 |
|
---|
3701 | Perl 5.8 unfortunately does not build anymore on AmigaOS; this broke
|
---|
3702 | accidentally at some point. Since there are not that many Amiga
|
---|
3703 | developers available, we could not get this fixed and tested in time
|
---|
3704 | for 5.8.0. Perl 5.6.1 still works for AmigaOS (as does the 5.7.2
|
---|
3705 | development release).
|
---|
3706 |
|
---|
3707 | The C<PerlIO::Scalar> and C<PerlIO::Via> (capitalised) were renamed as
|
---|
3708 | C<PerlIO::scalar> and C<PerlIO::via> (all lowercase) just before 5.8.0.
|
---|
3709 | The main rationale was to have all core PerlIO layers to have all
|
---|
3710 | lowercase names. The "plugins" are named as usual, for example
|
---|
3711 | C<PerlIO::via::QuotedPrint>.
|
---|
3712 |
|
---|
3713 | The C<threads::shared::queue> and C<threads::shared::semaphore> were
|
---|
3714 | renamed as C<Thread::Queue> and C<Thread::Semaphore> just before 5.8.0.
|
---|
3715 | The main rationale was to have thread modules to obey normal naming,
|
---|
3716 | C<Thread::> (the C<threads> and C<threads::shared> themselves are
|
---|
3717 | more pragma-like, they affect compile-time, so they stay lowercase).
|
---|
3718 |
|
---|
3719 | =head1 Reporting Bugs
|
---|
3720 |
|
---|
3721 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
|
---|
3722 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
|
---|
3723 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ . There may also be
|
---|
3724 | information at http://www.perl.com/ , the Perl Home Page.
|
---|
3725 |
|
---|
3726 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
|
---|
3727 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
|
---|
3728 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
|
---|
3729 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to [email protected] to be
|
---|
3730 | analysed by the Perl porting team.
|
---|
3731 |
|
---|
3732 | =head1 SEE ALSO
|
---|
3733 |
|
---|
3734 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
|
---|
3735 |
|
---|
3736 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
|
---|
3737 |
|
---|
3738 | The F<README> file for general stuff.
|
---|
3739 |
|
---|
3740 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
|
---|
3741 |
|
---|
3742 | =head1 HISTORY
|
---|
3743 |
|
---|
3744 | Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <F<[email protected]>>.
|
---|
3745 |
|
---|
3746 | =cut
|
---|