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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
3 | perl5120delta - what is new for perl v5.12.0 | |
4 | ||
72d4e865 | 5 | =head1 XXX - THIS DOCUMENT IS ONLY CURRENT THROUGH PERL5115 |
3ab3a109 | 6 | |
dac9950b | 7 | FIX ME BEFORE RELEASE |
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8 | |
9 | OTHER ISSUES: | |
10 | ||
11 | UPDATED MODULE LIST NEEDS TO BE GENERATED | |
12 | ORDERING NEEDS CHECKING | |
13 | HEAVY COPYEDITING IS NEEDED | |
14 | ||
15 | ||
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16 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
17 | ||
18 | This document describes differences between the 5.10.0 release and | |
19 | the 5.12.0 release. | |
20 | ||
72d4e865 | 21 | Many of the bug fixes in 5.12.0 are already included in the 5.10.1 |
b16f1257 | 22 | maintenance release. |
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23 | |
24 | You can see the list of those changes in the 5.10.1 release notes (L<perl5101delta>). | |
25 | ||
26 | ||
27 | =head1 New features and New syntax | |
28 | ||
29 | =head2 New C<package NAME VERSION> syntax | |
30 | ||
31 | This new syntax allows a module author to set the $VERSION of a namespace | |
32 | when the namespace is declared with 'package'. It eliminates the need | |
33 | for C<our $VERSION = ...> and similar constructs. E.g. | |
34 | ||
35 | package Foo::Bar 1.23; | |
36 | # $Foo::Bar::VERSION == 1.23 | |
37 | ||
38 | There are several advantages to this: | |
39 | ||
b16f1257 | 40 | =over |
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41 | |
42 | =item * | |
43 | ||
44 | C<$VERSION> is parsed in exactly the same way as C<use NAME VERSION> | |
45 | ||
46 | =item * | |
47 | ||
48 | C<$VERSION> is set at compile time | |
49 | ||
50 | =item * | |
51 | ||
52 | C<$VERSION> is a version object that provides proper overloading of | |
53 | comparision operators so comparing C<$VERSION> to decimal (1.23) or | |
54 | dotted-decimal (v1.2.3) version numbers works correctly. | |
55 | ||
56 | =item * | |
57 | ||
58 | Eliminates C<$VERSION = ...> and C<eval $VERSION> clutter | |
59 | ||
60 | =item * | |
61 | ||
62 | As it requires VERSION to be a numeric literal or v-string | |
63 | literal, it can be statically parsed by toolchain modules | |
64 | without C<eval> the way MM-E<gt>parse_version does for C<$VERSION = ...> | |
65 | ||
66 | =item * | |
67 | ||
68 | It does not break old code with only C<package NAME>, but code that uses | |
69 | C<package NAME VERSION> will need to be restricted to perl 5.12.0 or newer | |
70 | This is analogous to the change to C<open> from two-args to three-args. | |
71 | Users requiring the latest Perl will benefit, and perhaps after several | |
72 | years, it will become a standard practice. | |
73 | ||
74 | =back | |
75 | ||
76 | However, C<package NAME VERSION> requires a new, 'strict' version | |
77 | number format. See L<"Version number formats"> for details. | |
78 | ||
79 | ||
80 | =head2 The C<...> operator | |
81 | ||
82 | A new operator, C<...>, nicknamed the Yada Yada operator, has been added. | |
83 | It is intended to mark placeholder code that is not yet implemented. | |
84 | See L<perlop/"Yada Yada Operator">. (chromatic) | |
85 | ||
86 | =head2 Implicit strictures | |
87 | ||
88 | Using the C<use VERSION> syntax with a version number greater or equal | |
89 | to 5.11.0 will lexically enable strictures just like C<use strict> | |
90 | would do (in addition to enabling features.) The following: | |
91 | ||
92 | use 5.12.0; | |
93 | ||
94 | means: | |
95 | ||
96 | use strict; | |
97 | use feature ':5.12'; | |
01358b4a | 98 | |
01358b4a | 99 | |
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100 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
101 | ||
102 | =head2 qr overloading | |
103 | ||
104 | It is now possible to overload the C<qr//> operator, that is, | |
105 | conversion to regexp, like it was already possible to overload | |
106 | conversion to boolean, string or number of objects. It is invoked when | |
c66407fa | 107 | an object appears on the right hand side of the C<=~> operator or when |
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108 | it is interpolated into a regexp. See L<overload>. |
109 | ||
110 | =head2 Pluggable keywords | |
111 | ||
112 | Extension modules can now cleanly hook into the Perl parser to define | |
113 | new kinds of keyword-headed expression and compound statement. The | |
114 | syntax following the keyword is defined entirely by the extension. This | |
115 | allow a completely non-Perl sublanguage to be parsed inline, with the | |
b16f1257 | 116 | correct ops cleanly generated. |
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117 | |
118 | See L<perlapi/PL_keyword_plugin> for the mechanism. The Perl core | |
119 | source distribution also includes a new module | |
120 | L<XS::APItest::KeywordRPN>, which implements reverse Polish notation | |
121 | arithmetic via pluggable keywords. This module is mainly used for test | |
122 | purposes, and is not normally installed, but also serves as an example | |
123 | of how to use the new mechanism. | |
124 | ||
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125 | Perl's developers consider this feature to be experimental. We may remove |
126 | it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. | |
127 | ||
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128 | =head2 APIs for more internals |
129 | ||
130 | The lowest layers of the lexer and parts of the pad system now have C | |
131 | APIs available to XS extensions. These are necessary to support proper | |
132 | use of pluggable keywords, but have other uses too. The new APIs are | |
133 | experimental, and only cover a small proportion of what would be | |
134 | necessary to take full advantage of the core's facilities in these | |
135 | areas. It is intended that the Perl 5.13 development cycle will see the | |
136 | addition of a full range of clean, supported interfaces. | |
137 | ||
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138 | Perl's developers consider this feature to be experimental. We may remove |
139 | it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. | |
140 | ||
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141 | =head2 Overridable function lookup |
142 | ||
143 | Where an extension module hooks the creation of rv2cv ops to modify the | |
144 | subroutine lookup process, this now works correctly for bareword | |
145 | subroutine calls. This means that prototypes on subroutines referenced | |
146 | this way will be processed correctly. (Previously bareword subroutine | |
147 | names were initially looked up, for parsing purposes, by an unhookable | |
148 | mechanism, so extensions could only properly influence subroutine names | |
149 | that appeared with an C<&> sigil.) | |
150 | ||
72d4e865 | 151 | =head2 Unicode version 5.2 |
3ab3a109 | 152 | |
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153 | Perl 5.12 comes with Unicode 5.2, the latest version available to |
154 | us at the time of release. This version of Unicode was released in | |
155 | October 2009. See L<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0> for | |
156 | further details about what's changed in this version of the standard. | |
157 | See L<perlunicode> for instructions on installing and using other versions | |
158 | of Unicode. | |
3ab3a109 | 159 | |
b16f1257 | 160 | =head2 Overhaul of Unicode property support |
3ab3a109 | 161 | |
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162 | Perl's developers have made a concerted effort to update Perl to be in |
163 | sync with the latest Unicode standard. Changes for this include: | |
b21d8e53 | 164 | |
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165 | Perl can now handle every Unicode character property. New documentation, |
166 | L<perluniprops>, lists all available non-Unihan character properties. By | |
167 | default, perl does not expose Unihan, deprecated or Unicode-internal | |
168 | properties. See below for more details on these; there is also a section | |
169 | in the pod listing them, and explaining why they are not exposed. | |
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170 | |
171 | Perl now fully supports the Unicode compound-style of using C<=> and C<:> | |
172 | in writing regular expressions: C<\p{property=value}> and | |
173 | C<\p{property:value}> (both of which mean the same thing). | |
174 | ||
175 | Perl now fully supports the Unicode loose matching rules for text | |
72d4e865 | 176 | between the braces in C<\p{...}> constructs. In addition, Perl allows |
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177 | underscores between digits of numbers. |
178 | ||
72d4e865 | 179 | Perl now accepts all the Unicode-defined synonyms for properties and property values. |
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180 | |
181 | C<qr/\X/>, which matches a Unicode logical character, has been expanded to work | |
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182 | better with various Asian languages. It now is defined as an I<extended |
183 | grapheme cluster>. (See L<http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29/>). | |
c66407fa | 184 | Anything matched previously and that made sense will continue to be |
72d4e865 | 185 | accepted. Additionally: |
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186 | |
187 | =over | |
188 | ||
189 | =item * | |
190 | ||
b21d8e53 | 191 | C<\X> will not break apart a C<S<CR LF>> sequence. |
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192 | |
193 | =item * | |
194 | ||
b21d8e53 | 195 | C<\X> will now match a sequence which includes the C<ZWJ> and C<ZWNJ> characters. |
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196 | |
197 | =item * | |
198 | ||
199 | C<\X> will now always match at least one character, including an initial mark. | |
200 | Marks generally come after a base character, but it is possible in Unicode to | |
201 | have them in isolation, and C<\X> will now handle that case, for example at the | |
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202 | beginning of a line, or after a C<ZWSP>. And this is the part where C<\X> |
203 | doesn't match the things that it used to that don't make sense. Formerly, for | |
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204 | example, you could have the nonsensical case of an accented LF. |
205 | ||
206 | =item * | |
207 | ||
208 | C<\X> will now match a (Korean) Hangul syllable sequence, and the Thai and Lao | |
209 | exception cases. | |
210 | ||
211 | =back | |
212 | ||
213 | Otherwise, this change should be transparent for the non-affected languages. | |
214 | ||
215 | C<\p{...}> matches using the Canonical_Combining_Class property were | |
72d4e865 | 216 | completely broken in previous releases of Perl. They should now work correctly. |
3ab3a109 | 217 | |
72d4e865 | 218 | Before Perl 5.12, the Unicode C<Decomposition_Type=Compat> property and a |
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219 | Perl extension had the same name, which led to neither matching all the |
220 | correct values (with more than 100 mistakes in one, and several thousand | |
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221 | in the other). The Perl extension has now been renamed to be |
222 | C<Decomposition_Type=Noncanonical> (short: C<dt=noncanon>). It has the same | |
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223 | meaning as was previously intended, namely the union of all the |
224 | non-canonical Decomposition types, with Unicode C<Compat> being just one of | |
225 | those. | |
226 | ||
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227 | C<\p{Decomposition_Type=Canonical}> now includes the Hangul syllables. |
228 | ||
229 | C<\p{Uppercase}> and C<\p{Lowercase}> now work as the Unicode standard says they should. | |
230 | This means they each match a few more characters than they used to. | |
3ab3a109 | 231 | |
72d4e865 | 232 | C<\p{Cntrl}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Control}>. This means it |
3ab3a109 | 233 | no longer will match Private Use (gc=co), Surrogates (gc=cs), nor Format |
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234 | (gc=cf) code points. The Format code points represent the biggest |
235 | possible problem. All but 36 of them are either officially deprecated | |
236 | or strongly discouraged from being used. Of those 36, likely the most | |
3ab3a109 | 237 | widely used are the soft hyphen (U+00AD), and BOM, ZWSP, ZWNJ, WJ, and |
b21d8e53 | 238 | similar characters, plus bidirectional controls. |
3ab3a109 | 239 | |
b16f1257 | 240 | C<\p{Alpha}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Alphabetic}>. Before 5.12, Perl's definition |
3ab3a109 | 241 | definition included a number of things that aren't really alpha (all |
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242 | marks) while omitting many that were. The |
243 | definitions of C<\p{Alnum}> and C<\p{Word}> depend on Alpha's definition and have changed accordingly. | |
3ab3a109 | 244 | |
72d4e865 | 245 | C<\p{Word}> no longer incorrectly matches non-word characters such as fractions. |
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246 | |
247 | C<\p{Print}> no longer matches the line control characters: Tab, LF, CR, | |
72d4e865 | 248 | FF, VT, and NEL. This brings it in line with standards and the documentation. |
3ab3a109 | 249 | |
72d4e865 | 250 | C<\p{XDigit}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Hex_Digit}>. This |
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251 | means that in addition to the characters it currently matches, |
252 | C<[A-Fa-f0-9]>, it will also match the 22 fullwidth equivalents, for | |
253 | example U+FF10: FULLWIDTH DIGIT ZERO. | |
254 | ||
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255 | The Numeric type property has been extended to include the Unihan |
256 | characters. | |
257 | ||
258 | There is a new Perl extension, the 'Present_In', or simply 'In', | |
72d4e865 | 259 | property. This is an extension of the Unicode Age property, but |
3ab3a109 | 260 | C<\p{In=5.0}> matches any code point whose usage has been determined |
72d4e865 | 261 | I<as of> Unicode version 5.0. The C<\p{Age=5.0}> only matches code points |
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262 | added in I<precisely> version 5.0. |
263 | ||
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264 | A number of properties now have the correct values for unassigned |
265 | code points. The affected properties are | |
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266 | Bidi_Class, East_Asian_Width, Joining_Type, Decomposition_Type, |
267 | Hangul_Syllable_Type, Numeric_Type, and Line_Break. | |
268 | ||
269 | The Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, ID_Continue, and ID_Start properties | |
72d4e865 | 270 | are now up to date with current Unicode definitions. |
3ab3a109 | 271 | |
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272 | Earlier versions of Perl erroneously exposed certain properties that are supposed to be Unicode internal-only. |
273 | Use of these in regular expressions will now generate, if enabled, a deprecation warning message. | |
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274 | The properties are: Other_Alphabetic, Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, |
275 | Other_Grapheme_Extend, Other_ID_Continue, Other_ID_Start, Other_Lowercase, | |
276 | Other_Math, and Other_Uppercase. | |
277 | ||
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278 | It is now possible to change which Unicode properties Perl understands |
279 | on a per-installation basis. As mentioned above, certain properties | |
280 | are turned off by default. These include all the Unihan properties | |
281 | (which should be accessible via the CPAN module Unicode::Unihan) and any | |
282 | deprecated or Unicode internal-only property that Perl has never exposed. | |
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283 | |
284 | The generated files in the C<lib/unicore/To> directory are now more | |
285 | clearly marked as being stable, directly usable by applications. | |
286 | New hash entries in them give the format of the normal entries, | |
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287 | which allows for easier machine parsing. Perl can generate files |
288 | in this directory for any property, though most are suppressed. | |
289 | You can find instructions for changing which are written in L<perluniprops>. | |
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290 | |
291 | =head2 Regular Expressions | |
292 | ||
293 | U+0FFFF is now a legal character in regular expressions. | |
294 | ||
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295 | =head2 A proper interface for pluggable Method Resolution Orders |
296 | ||
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297 | As of Perl 5.12.0 there is a new interface for plugging and using method |
298 | resolution orders other than the default linear depth first search. | |
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299 | The C3 method resolution order added in 5.10.0 has been re-implemented as |
300 | a plugin, without changing its Perl-space interface. See L<perlmroapi> for | |
301 | more information. | |
302 | ||
303 | =head2 The C<overloading> pragma | |
304 | ||
305 | This pragma allows you to lexically disable or enable overloading | |
306 | for some or all operations. (Yuval Kogman) | |
307 | ||
b3b85878 | 308 | |
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309 | =head2 \N{...} now compiles better, always forces UTF-8 internal representation. |
310 | ||
311 | There were several problems that have been fixed with recognizing C<\N{...}> | |
72d4e865 | 312 | constructs. As part of this, any scalar or regex that has either a |
5e75e599 | 313 | C<\N{I<name>}> or C<\N{U+I<wide hex char>}> in its definition will be stored in |
72d4e865 | 314 | UTF-8 format. (This was true previously for all occurences of C<\N{I<name>}> |
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315 | that did not use a custom translator, but now it's always true.) |
316 | ||
72d4e865 | 317 | =head2 C<\N> experimental regex escape |
3ab3a109 | 318 | |
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319 | Perl now supports C<\N>, a new regex escape which you can think of as |
320 | the inverse of C<\n>. It will match any character that is not a newline, | |
321 | independently from the presence or absence of the single line match | |
322 | modifier C</s>. It is not usable within a character class. C<\N{3}> | |
323 | means to match 3 non-newlines; C<\N{5,}> means to match at least 5. | |
324 | C<\N{NAME}> still means the character or sequence named C<NAME>, but | |
325 | C<NAME> no longer can be things like C<3>, or C<5,>. | |
326 | ||
327 | This will break a L<custom charnames translator|charnames/CUSTOM | |
328 | TRANSLATORS> which allows numbers for character names, as C<\N{3}> will | |
329 | now mean to match 3 non-newline characters, and not the character whose | |
330 | name is C<3>. (No name defined by the Unicode standard is a number, | |
331 | so only custom translators might be affected.) | |
332 | ||
333 | Perl's developers are somewhat concerned about possible user confusion | |
334 | with the existing C<\N{...}> construct which matches characters by their | |
335 | Unicode name. Consequently, this feature is experimental. We may remove | |
336 | it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. | |
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337 | |
338 | =head2 DTrace support | |
339 | ||
72d4e865 | 340 | Perl now has some support for DTrace. See "DTrace support" in F<INSTALL>. |
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341 | |
342 | =head2 Support for C<configure_requires> in CPAN module metadata | |
343 | ||
344 | Both C<CPAN> and C<CPANPLUS> now support the C<configure_requires> keyword | |
345 | in the F<META.yml> metadata file included in most recent CPAN distributions. | |
346 | This allows distribution authors to specify configuration prerequisites that | |
347 | must be installed before running F<Makefile.PL> or F<Build.PL>. | |
348 | ||
349 | See the documentation for C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> or C<Module::Build> for more | |
350 | on how to specify C<configure_requires> when creating a distribution for CPAN. | |
351 | ||
352 | =head2 C<each> is now more flexible | |
353 | ||
354 | The C<each> function can now operate on arrays. | |
355 | ||
356 | =head2 Y2038 compliance | |
357 | ||
72d4e865 | 358 | Perl's core time-related functions are now Y2038 compliant. (It may not mean much to you, but your kids will love it!) |
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359 | |
360 | =head2 C<$,> flexibility | |
361 | ||
362 | The variable C<$,> may now be tied. | |
363 | ||
364 | =head2 // in where clauses | |
365 | ||
366 | // now behaves like || in when clauses | |
367 | ||
368 | =head2 Enabling warnings from your shell environment | |
369 | ||
370 | You can now set C<-W> from the C<PERL5OPT> environment variable | |
371 | ||
372 | =head2 C<delete local> | |
373 | ||
374 | C<delete local> now allows you to locally delete a hash entry. | |
375 | ||
376 | =head2 New support for Abstract namespace sockets | |
377 | ||
378 | Abstract namespace sockets are Linux-specific socket type that live in | |
379 | AF_UNIX family, slightly abusing it to be able to use arbitrary | |
380 | character arrays as addresses: They start with nul byte and are not | |
381 | terminated by nul byte, but with the length passed to the socket() | |
382 | system call. | |
383 | ||
72d4e865 | 384 | =head2 32-bit limit on substr arguments removed |
3ab3a109 | 385 | |
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386 | The 32-bit limit on C<substr> arguments has now been removed. The full range |
387 | of the system's signed and unsigned integers is now available for the C<pos> | |
388 | and C<len> arguments. | |
3ab3a109 | 389 | |
72d4e865 | 390 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
3ab3a109 | 391 | |
72d4e865 | 392 | =head2 Deprecations warn by default |
3ab3a109 | 393 | |
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394 | Perl now defaults to issuing a warning if a deprecated language feature |
395 | is used. | |
252eec4f | 396 | |
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397 | To disable this feature in a given lexical scope, you should use C<no |
398 | warnings 'deprecated';> For information about which language features | |
399 | are deprecated and explanations of various deprecation warnings, please | |
400 | see L<perldiag.pod> | |
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401 | |
402 | =head2 Version number formats | |
403 | ||
404 | Acceptable version number formats have been formalized into "strict" and | |
72d4e865 | 405 | "lax" rules. C<package NAME VERSION> takes a strict version number. |
fab55263 | 406 | C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> and the L<version> object constructors take lax |
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407 | version numbers. Providing an invalid version will result in a fatal |
408 | error. The version argument in C<use NAME VERSION> is first parsed as a | |
fab55263 DG |
409 | numeric literal or v-string and then passed to C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> |
410 | (and must then pass the "lax" format test). | |
411 | ||
72d4e865 | 412 | These formats are documented fully in the L<version> module. To a first |
fab55263 DG |
413 | approximation, a "strict" version number is a positive decimal number |
414 | (integer or decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a | |
415 | dotted-decimal v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three | |
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416 | components. A "lax" version number allows v-strings with fewer than |
417 | three components or without a leading 'v'. Under "lax" rules, both | |
fab55263 DG |
418 | decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha" |
419 | component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or | |
420 | dotted-decimal component. | |
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421 | |
422 | The L<version> module adds C<version::is_strict> and C<version::is_lax> | |
423 | functions to check a scalar against these rules. | |
424 | ||
c66407fa | 425 | =head2 @INC reorganization |
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426 | |
427 | In @INC, ARCHLIB and PRIVLIB now occur after after the current version's | |
428 | site_perl and vendor_perl. | |
429 | ||
430 | =head2 Switch statement changes | |
431 | ||
432 | The handling of complex expressions by the C<given>/C<when> switch | |
433 | statement has been enhanced. These enhancements are also available in | |
c66407fa RS |
434 | 5.10.1 and subsequent 5.10 releases. There are two new cases where |
435 | C<when> now interprets its argument as a boolean, instead of an | |
436 | expression to be used in a smart match: | |
3ab3a109 JV |
437 | |
438 | =head2 flip-flop operators | |
439 | ||
440 | The C<..> and C<...> flip-flop operators are now evaluated in boolean | |
441 | context, following their usual semantics; see L<perlop/"Range Operators">. | |
442 | ||
443 | Note that, as in perl 5.10.0, C<when (1..10)> will not work to test | |
444 | whether a given value is an integer between 1 and 10; you should use | |
445 | C<when ([1..10])> instead (note the array reference). | |
446 | ||
447 | However, contrary to 5.10.0, evaluating the flip-flop operators in boolean | |
448 | context ensures it can now be useful in a C<when()>, notably for | |
449 | implementing bistable conditions, like in: | |
450 | ||
451 | when (/^=begin/ .. /^=end/) { | |
452 | # do something | |
453 | } | |
454 | ||
455 | =head2 defined-or operator | |
456 | ||
457 | A compound expression involving the defined-or operator, as in | |
458 | C<when (expr1 // expr2)>, will be treated as boolean if the first | |
459 | expression is boolean. (This just extends the existing rule that applies | |
460 | to the regular or operator, as in C<when (expr1 || expr2)>.) | |
461 | ||
462 | =head2 Smart match changes | |
463 | ||
464 | This section details more changes brought to the semantics to | |
465 | the smart match operator, that naturally also modify the behaviour | |
466 | of the switch statements where smart matching is implicitly used. | |
c66407fa | 467 | These changes were also made for the 5.10.1 release, and will remain in |
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468 | subsequent 5.10 releases. |
469 | ||
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470 | =head3 Changes to type-based dispatch |
471 | ||
472 | The smart match operator C<~~> is no longer commutative. The behaviour of | |
473 | a smart match now depends primarily on the type of its right hand | |
474 | argument. Moreover, its semantics have been adjusted for greater | |
475 | consistency or usefulness in several cases. While the general backwards | |
476 | compatibility is maintained, several changes must be noted: | |
477 | ||
478 | =over 4 | |
479 | ||
480 | =item * | |
481 | ||
482 | Code references with an empty prototype are no longer treated specially. | |
483 | They are passed an argument like the other code references (even if they | |
484 | choose to ignore it). | |
485 | ||
486 | =item * | |
487 | ||
488 | C<%hash ~~ sub {}> and C<@array ~~ sub {}> now test that the subroutine | |
489 | returns a true value for each key of the hash (or element of the | |
490 | array), instead of passing the whole hash or array as a reference to | |
491 | the subroutine. | |
492 | ||
493 | =item * | |
494 | ||
495 | Due to the commutativity breakage, code references are no longer | |
496 | treated specially when appearing on the left of the C<~~> operator, | |
497 | but like any vulgar scalar. | |
498 | ||
499 | =item * | |
500 | ||
501 | C<undef ~~ %hash> is always false (since C<undef> can't be a key in a | |
502 | hash). No implicit conversion to C<""> is done (as was the case in perl | |
503 | 5.10.0). | |
504 | ||
505 | =item * | |
506 | ||
507 | C<$scalar ~~ @array> now always distributes the smart match across the | |
508 | elements of the array. It's true if one element in @array verifies | |
509 | C<$scalar ~~ $element>. This is a generalization of the old behaviour | |
510 | that tested whether the array contained the scalar. | |
511 | ||
512 | =back | |
513 | ||
514 | The full dispatch table for the smart match operator is given in | |
515 | L<perlsyn/"Smart matching in detail">. | |
516 | ||
517 | =head3 Smart match and overloading | |
518 | ||
519 | According to the rule of dispatch based on the rightmost argument type, | |
520 | when an object overloading C<~~> appears on the right side of the | |
521 | operator, the overload routine will always be called (with a 3rd argument | |
522 | set to a true value, see L<overload>.) However, when the object will | |
523 | appear on the left, the overload routine will be called only when the | |
c66407fa RS |
524 | rightmost argument is a simple scalar. This way, distributivity of smart |
525 | match across arrays is not broken, as well as the other behaviours with | |
526 | complex types (coderefs, hashes, regexes). Thus, writers of overloading | |
527 | routines for smart match mostly need to worry only with comparing | |
528 | against a scalar, and possibly with stringification overloading; the | |
529 | other common cases will be automatically handled consistently. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
530 | |
531 | C<~~> will now refuse to work on objects that do not overload it (in order | |
532 | to avoid relying on the object's underlying structure). (However, if the | |
533 | object overloads the stringification or the numification operators, and | |
534 | if overload fallback is active, it will be used instead, as usual.) | |
535 | ||
536 | =head2 Labels can't be keywords | |
537 | ||
538 | Labels used as targets for the C<goto>, C<last>, C<next> or C<redo> | |
539 | statements cannot be keywords anymore. This restriction will prevent | |
540 | potential confusion between the C<goto LABEL> and C<goto EXPR> syntaxes: | |
541 | for example, a statement like C<goto print> would jump to a label whose | |
542 | name would be the return value of C<print()>, (usually 1), instead of a | |
543 | label named C<print>. Moreover, the other control flow statements | |
544 | would just ignore any keyword passed to them as a label name. Since | |
545 | such labels cannot be defined anymore, this kind of error will be | |
546 | avoided. | |
547 | ||
548 | =head2 Other incompatible changes | |
549 | ||
550 | =over 4 | |
551 | ||
552 | =item * | |
553 | ||
b16f1257 JV |
554 | The definitions of a number of Unicode properties have changed to match |
555 | those of the current Unicode standard. These are listed above under | |
556 | L</Overhaul of Unicode property support>. This could break code that | |
557 | is expecting the old definitions. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
558 | |
559 | =item * | |
560 | ||
b21d8e53 KW |
561 | The boolkeys op moved to the group of hash ops. This breaks binary |
562 | compatibility. | |
c66407fa RS |
563 | |
564 | =item * | |
565 | ||
72d4e865 | 566 | Filehandles are now always blessed into C<IO::File>. |
c66407fa RS |
567 | |
568 | The previous behaviour was to bless Filehandles into L<FileHandle> | |
569 | (an empty proxy class) if it was loaded into memory and otherwise | |
570 | to bless them into C<IO::Handle>. | |
571 | ||
572 | =item * | |
573 | ||
574 | The semantics of C<use feature :5.10*> have changed slightly. | |
575 | See L<"Modules and Pragmata"> for more information. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
576 | |
577 | =item * | |
578 | ||
579 | The version control system used for the development of the perl | |
72d4e865 | 580 | interpreter has been switched from Perforce to git. This is mainly an |
3ab3a109 JV |
581 | internal issue that only affects people actively working on the perl core; |
582 | but it may have minor external visibility, for example in some of details | |
583 | of the output of C<perl -V>. See L<perlrepository> for more information. | |
584 | ||
585 | =item * | |
586 | ||
587 | The internal structure of the C<ext/> directory in the perl source has | |
588 | been reorganised. In general, a module C<Foo::Bar> whose source was | |
589 | stored under F<ext/Foo/Bar/> is now located under F<ext/Foo-Bar/>. Also, | |
590 | nearly all dual-life modules have been moved from F<lib/> to F<ext/>. This | |
591 | is purely a source tarball change, and should make no difference to the | |
592 | compilation or installation of perl, unless you have a very customised build | |
593 | process that explicitly relies on this structure, or which hard-codes the | |
594 | C<nonxs_ext> F<Configure> parameter. Specifically, this change does not by | |
595 | default alter the location of any files in the final installation. | |
596 | ||
597 | =item * | |
598 | ||
599 | As part of the C<Test::Harness> 2.x to 3.x upgrade, the experimental | |
600 | C<Test::Harness::Straps> module has been removed. | |
601 | See L</"Updated Modules"> for more details. | |
602 | ||
603 | =item * | |
604 | ||
605 | As part of the C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> upgrade, the | |
606 | C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> and C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> modules | |
607 | have been removed from this distribution. | |
608 | ||
609 | =item * | |
610 | ||
611 | C<Module::CoreList> no longer contains the C<%:patchlevel> hash. | |
612 | ||
613 | =item * | |
614 | ||
615 | This one is actually a change introduced in 5.10.0, but it was missed | |
616 | from that release's perldelta, so it is mentioned here instead. | |
617 | ||
618 | A bugfix related to the handling of the C</m> modifier and C<qr> resulted | |
619 | in a change of behaviour between 5.8.x and 5.10.0: | |
620 | ||
621 | # matches in 5.8.x, doesn't match in 5.10.0 | |
622 | $re = qr/^bar/; "foo\nbar" =~ /$re/m; | |
623 | ||
624 | =item * | |
625 | ||
626 | C<length undef> now returns undef. | |
627 | ||
628 | =item * | |
629 | ||
630 | Unsupported private C API functions are now declared "static" to prevent | |
631 | leakage to Perl's public API. | |
632 | ||
633 | =item * | |
634 | ||
635 | To support the bootstrapping process, F<miniperl> no longer builds with | |
636 | UTF-8 support in the regexp engine. | |
637 | ||
638 | This allows a build to complete with PERL_UNICODE set and a UTF-8 locale. | |
639 | Without this there's a bootstrapping problem, as miniperl can't load the UTF-8 | |
640 | components of the regexp engine, because they're not yet built. | |
641 | ||
642 | =item * | |
643 | ||
c66407fa RS |
644 | F<miniperl>'s @INC is now restricted to just C<-I...>, the split of |
645 | C<$ENV{PERL5LIB}>, and "C<.>" | |
3ab3a109 JV |
646 | |
647 | =item * | |
648 | ||
649 | A space or a newline is now required after a C<"#line XXX"> directive. | |
650 | ||
651 | =item * | |
652 | ||
653 | Tied filehandles now have an additional method EOF which provides the EOF type | |
654 | ||
655 | =item * | |
656 | ||
c66407fa RS |
657 | To better match all other flow control statements, C<foreach> may no |
658 | longer be used as an attribute. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
659 | |
660 | =back | |
661 | ||
662 | =head1 Deprecations | |
663 | ||
664 | From time to time, Perl's developers find it necessary to deprecate | |
665 | features or modules we've previously shipped as part of the core | |
666 | distribution. We are well aware of the pain and frustration that a | |
667 | backwards-incompatible change to Perl can cause for developers building | |
668 | or maintaining software in Perl. You can be sure that when we deprecate | |
669 | a functionality or syntax, it isn't a choice we make lightly. Sometimes, | |
670 | we choose to deprecate functionality or syntax because it was found to | |
671 | be poorly designed or implemented. Sometimes, this is because they're | |
672 | holding back other features or causing performance problems. Sometimes, | |
673 | the reasons are more complex. Wherever possible, we try to keep deprecated | |
674 | functionality available to developers in its previous form for at least | |
72d4e865 | 675 | one major release. So long as a deprecated feature isn't actively |
3ab3a109 JV |
676 | disrupting our ability to maintain and extend Perl, we'll try to leave |
677 | it in place as long as possible. | |
678 | ||
679 | The following items are now deprecated. | |
680 | ||
681 | =over 4 | |
682 | ||
683 | =item Use of C<:=> to mean an empty attribute list is now deprecated. | |
684 | ||
685 | An accident of Perl's parser meant that these constructions were all | |
686 | equivalent: | |
687 | ||
688 | my $pi := 4; | |
689 | my $pi : = 4; | |
690 | my $pi : = 4; | |
691 | ||
692 | with the C<:> being treated as the start of an attribute list, which | |
693 | ends before the C<=>. As whitespace is not significant here, all are | |
694 | parsed as an empty attribute list, hence all the above are equivalent | |
695 | to, and better written as | |
696 | ||
697 | my $pi = 4; | |
698 | ||
699 | because no attribute processing is done for an empty list. | |
700 | ||
701 | As is, this meant that C<:=> cannot be used as a new token, without | |
702 | silently changing the meaning of existing code. Hence that particular | |
703 | form is now deprecated, and will become a syntax error. If it is | |
704 | absolutely necessary to have empty attribute lists (for example, | |
705 | because of a code generator) then avoid the warning by adding a space | |
706 | before the C<=>. | |
707 | ||
c66407fa | 708 | =item C<< UNIVERSAL->import() >> |
3ab3a109 | 709 | |
72d4e865 | 710 | The method C<< UNIVERSAL->import() >> is now deprecated. Attempting to |
3ab3a109 | 711 | pass import arguments to a C<use UNIVERSAL> statement will result in a |
c66407fa | 712 | deprecation warning. |
3ab3a109 JV |
713 | |
714 | =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated | |
715 | ||
c66407fa RS |
716 | Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner scope is now |
717 | deprecated. This rare use case was causing problems in the | |
718 | implementation of scopes. | |
3ab3a109 | 719 | |
8c66a230 KW |
720 | =item Custom character names in \N{name} should look like names |
721 | ||
72d4e865 | 722 | In C<\N{I<name>}>, I<name> can be just about anything. The standard Unicode |
8c66a230 | 723 | names have a very limited domain, but a custom name translator could create |
72d4e865 | 724 | names that are, for example, made up entirely of punctuation symbols. It is |
8c66a230 KW |
725 | now deprecated to make names that don't begin with an alphabetic character, and |
726 | aren't alphanumeric or contain other than a very few other characters, | |
72d4e865 | 727 | namely spaces, dashes, parentheses and colons. Because of the added meaning of |
8c66a230 | 728 | C<\N> (See L</C<\N> experimental regex escape>), names that look like curly |
72d4e865 | 729 | brace -enclosed quantifiers won't work. For example, C<\N{3,4}> now means to |
8c66a230 KW |
730 | match 3 to 4 non-newlines; before a custom name C<3,4> could have been created. |
731 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
732 | =item Deprecated Modules |
733 | ||
734 | The following modules will be removed from the core distribution in a future | |
735 | release, and should be installed from CPAN instead. Distributions on CPAN | |
736 | which require these should add them to their prerequisites. The core versions | |
737 | of these modules warnings will issue a deprecation warning. | |
738 | ||
8df7d2a3 JV |
739 | If you ship a packaged version of Perl, either alone or as part of a larger |
740 | system, then you should carefully consider the reprecussions of core module | |
72d4e865 | 741 | deprecations. You may want to consider shipping your default build of |
8df7d2a3 JV |
742 | Perl with packages for some or all deprecated modules which install into |
743 | C<vendor> or C<site> perl library directories. This will inhibit the | |
744 | deprecation warnings. | |
745 | ||
746 | Alternatively, you may want to consider patching F<lib/deprecate.pm> | |
747 | to provide deprecation warnings specific to your packaging system or | |
b951c6bd NC |
748 | distribution of Perl, consistent with how your packaging system or |
749 | distribution manages a staged transition from a release where the | |
750 | installation of a single package provides the given functionality, to a later | |
751 | release where the system administrator needs to know to install multiple | |
752 | packages to get that same functionality. | |
8df7d2a3 | 753 | |
3ab3a109 JV |
754 | =over |
755 | ||
c66407fa RS |
756 | =item L<Class::ISA> |
757 | ||
758 | =item L<Pod::Plainer> | |
759 | ||
760 | =item L<Shell> | |
3ab3a109 | 761 | |
c66407fa | 762 | =item L<Switch> |
3ab3a109 | 763 | |
72d4e865 | 764 | Switch is buggy and should be avoided. See L<perlsyn/"Switch |
c66407fa | 765 | statements"> for its replacement. |
3ab3a109 JV |
766 | |
767 | =back | |
768 | ||
769 | =item suidperl | |
770 | ||
771 | C<suidperl> has been removed. It used to provide a mechanism to | |
772 | emulate setuid permission bits on systems that don't support it properly. | |
773 | ||
774 | =item Assignment to $[ | |
775 | ||
776 | =item attrs | |
777 | ||
778 | Remove attrs, which has been deprecated since 1999-10-02. | |
779 | ||
780 | =item Use of the attribute :locked on subroutines. | |
781 | ||
782 | =item Use of "locked" with the attributes pragma. | |
783 | ||
784 | =item Use of "unique" with the attributes pragma. | |
785 | ||
786 | =item Numerous Perl 4-era libraries: | |
787 | ||
788 | F<termcap.pl>, F<tainted.pl>, F<stat.pl>, F<shellwords.pl>, F<pwd.pl>, | |
789 | F<open3.pl>, F<open2.pl>, F<newgetopt.pl>, F<look.pl>, F<find.pl>, | |
790 | F<finddepth.pl>, F<importenv.pl>, F<hostname.pl>, F<getopts.pl>, | |
791 | F<getopt.pl>, F<getcwd.pl>, F<flush.pl>, F<fastcwd.pl>, F<exceptions.pl>, | |
792 | F<ctime.pl>, F<complete.pl>, F<cacheout.pl>, F<bigrat.pl>, F<bigint.pl>, | |
793 | F<bigfloat.pl>, F<assert.pl>, F<abbrev.pl>, F<dotsh.pl>, and | |
794 | F<timelocal.pl> are all now deprecated. Using them will incur a warning. | |
795 | ||
796 | =back | |
797 | ||
798 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata | |
799 | ||
800 | =head2 Dual-lifed modules moved | |
801 | ||
802 | Dual-lifed modules maintained primarily in the Perl core now live in dist/. | |
803 | Dual-lifed modules maintained primarily on CPAN now live in cpan/ | |
804 | ||
805 | In previous releases of Perl, it was customary to enumerate all module | |
c66407fa RS |
806 | changes in this section of the C<perldelta> file. From 5.11.0 forward |
807 | only notable updates (such as new or deprecated modules ) will be listed | |
808 | in this section. For a complete reference to the versions of modules | |
809 | shipped in a given release of perl, please see L<Module::CoreList>. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
810 | |
811 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata | |
812 | ||
813 | =over 4 | |
814 | ||
815 | =item * | |
816 | ||
817 | C<autodie> | |
818 | ||
819 | This is a new lexically-scoped alternative for the C<Fatal> module. | |
820 | The bundled version is 2.06_01. Note that in this release, using a string | |
821 | eval when C<autodie> is in effect can cause the autodie behaviour to leak | |
822 | into the surrounding scope. See L<autodie/"BUGS"> for more details. | |
823 | ||
824 | =item * | |
825 | ||
826 | C<Compress::Raw::Bzip2> | |
827 | ||
828 | This has been added to the core (version 2.020). | |
829 | ||
830 | =item * | |
831 | ||
832 | C<parent> | |
833 | ||
834 | This pragma establishes an ISA relationship with base classes at compile | |
c66407fa RS |
835 | time. It provides the key feature of C<base> without further unwanted |
836 | behaviors. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
837 | |
838 | =item * | |
839 | ||
840 | C<Parse::CPAN::Meta> | |
841 | ||
842 | This has been added to the core (version 1.39). | |
843 | ||
844 | =back | |
845 | ||
846 | =head2 Pragmata Changes | |
847 | ||
848 | =over 4 | |
849 | ||
850 | =item * | |
851 | ||
852 | C<overloading> | |
853 | ||
854 | See L</"The C<overloading> pragma"> above. | |
855 | ||
856 | =item * | |
857 | ||
858 | C<attrs> | |
859 | ||
860 | The C<attrs> pragma has been removed. It had been marked as deprecated since | |
861 | 5.6.0. | |
862 | ||
863 | =item * | |
864 | ||
865 | C<charnames> | |
866 | ||
867 | The Unicode F<NameAliases.txt> database file has been added. This has the | |
868 | effect of adding some extra C<\N> character names that formerly wouldn't | |
869 | have been recognised; for example, C<"\N{LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GHA}">. | |
870 | ||
871 | =item * | |
872 | ||
873 | C<feature> | |
874 | ||
875 | The meaning of the C<:5.10> and C<:5.10.X> feature bundles has | |
876 | changed slightly. The last component, if any (i.e. C<X>) is simply ignored. | |
877 | This is predicated on the assumption that new features will not, in | |
878 | general, be added to maintenance releases. So C<:5.10> and C<:5.10.X> | |
879 | have identical effect. This is a change to the behaviour documented for | |
880 | 5.10.0. | |
881 | ||
882 | =item * | |
883 | ||
884 | C<mro> | |
885 | ||
886 | Upgraded from version 1.00 to 1.01. Performance for single inheritance is 40% | |
887 | faster - see L</"Performance Enhancements"> below. | |
888 | ||
889 | C<mro> is now implemented as an XS extension. The documented interface has not | |
890 | changed. Code relying on the implementation detail that some C<mro::> | |
891 | methods happened to be available at all times gets to "keep both pieces". | |
892 | ||
893 | =item * | |
894 | ||
895 | C<diagnostics> | |
896 | ||
897 | Supports %.0f formatting internally. | |
898 | ||
899 | =item * | |
900 | ||
901 | C<overload> | |
902 | ||
903 | Allow overloading of 'qr'. | |
904 | ||
905 | =item * | |
906 | ||
907 | C<constant> | |
908 | ||
909 | Upgraded from version 1.19 to 1.20. | |
910 | ||
911 | =item * | |
912 | ||
913 | C<diagnostics> | |
914 | ||
c66407fa RS |
915 | This pragma no longer suppresses C<Use of uninitialized value in range |
916 | (or flip)> warnings. [perl #71204] | |
3ab3a109 JV |
917 | |
918 | =item * | |
919 | ||
920 | C<feature> | |
921 | ||
72d4e865 | 922 | Upgraded from 1.13 to 1.14. Added the C<unicode_strings> feature: |
3ab3a109 JV |
923 | |
924 | use feature "unicode_strings"; | |
925 | ||
926 | This pragma turns on Unicode semantics for the case-changing operations | |
c66407fa RS |
927 | (C<uc>, C<lc>, C<ucfirst>, C<lcfirst>) on strings that don't have the |
928 | internal UTF-8 flag set, but that contain single-byte characters between | |
929 | 128 and 255. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
930 | |
931 | =item * | |
932 | ||
933 | C<threads> | |
934 | ||
935 | Upgraded from version 1.74 to 1.75. | |
936 | ||
937 | =item * | |
938 | ||
939 | C<less> | |
940 | ||
c66407fa | 941 | Upgraded from version 0.02 to 0.03. |
3ab3a109 | 942 | |
c66407fa RS |
943 | This version introduces the C<stash_name> method to allow subclasses of |
944 | C<less> to pick where in %^H to store their stash. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
945 | |
946 | =item * | |
947 | ||
948 | C<version> | |
949 | ||
950 | Upgraded from version 0.77 to 0.81. | |
951 | ||
952 | This version adds support for L</Version number formats> as described earlier | |
953 | in this document and in its own documentation. | |
954 | ||
955 | =item * | |
956 | ||
957 | C<warnings> | |
958 | ||
959 | Upgraded from 1.07 to 1.09. | |
960 | ||
961 | Added new C<warnings::fatal_enabled()> function. | |
72d4e865 | 962 | This version adds the C<illegalproto> warning category. See also L</New or |
3ab3a109 JV |
963 | Changed Diagnostics> for this change. |
964 | ||
965 | =back | |
966 | ||
967 | ||
968 | =head2 Updated Modules | |
969 | ||
970 | =over 4 | |
971 | ||
972 | =item XXX TODO RECALCULATE THIS VS 5.10.0 | |
973 | ||
974 | =back | |
975 | ||
976 | =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata | |
977 | ||
978 | =over 4 | |
979 | ||
980 | =item * | |
981 | ||
982 | C<Devel::DProf::V> | |
983 | ||
72d4e865 | 984 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 'undef'. |
3ab3a109 JV |
985 | |
986 | =back | |
987 | ||
988 | =head1 Documentation | |
989 | ||
990 | =head2 New Documentation | |
991 | ||
992 | =over 4 | |
993 | ||
994 | =item * | |
995 | ||
996 | L<perlhaiku> | |
997 | ||
998 | This contains instructions on how to build perl for the Haiku platform. | |
999 | ||
1000 | =item * | |
1001 | ||
1002 | L<perlmroapi> | |
1003 | ||
1004 | This describes the new interface for pluggable Method Resolution Orders. | |
1005 | ||
1006 | =item * | |
1007 | ||
1008 | L<perlperf> | |
1009 | ||
1010 | This document, by Richard Foley, provides an introduction to the use of | |
1011 | performance and optimization techniques which can be used with particular | |
1012 | reference to perl programs. | |
1013 | ||
1014 | =item * | |
1015 | ||
1016 | L<perlrepository> | |
1017 | ||
1018 | This describes how to access the perl source using the I<git> version | |
1019 | control system. | |
1020 | ||
1021 | =item * | |
1022 | ||
1023 | L<perlpolicy> extends the "Social contract about contributed modules" into | |
1024 | the beginnings of a document on Perl porting policies. | |
1025 | ||
1026 | =back | |
1027 | ||
1028 | =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation | |
1029 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1030 | =over |
1031 | ||
1032 | ||
1033 | =item * | |
1034 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1035 | The various large F<Changes*> files (which listed every change made to perl |
1036 | over the last 18 years) have been removed, and replaced by a small file, | |
1037 | also called F<Changes>, which just explains how that same information may | |
1038 | be extracted from the git version control system. | |
1039 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1040 | =item * |
1041 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1042 | The file F<Porting/patching.pod> has been deleted, as it mainly described |
1043 | interacting with the old Perforce-based repository, which is now obsolete. | |
1044 | Information still relevant has been moved to L<perlrepository>. | |
1045 | ||
3ab3a109 | 1046 | |
72d4e865 JV |
1047 | =item * |
1048 | ||
1049 | The syntax C<unless (EXPR) BLOCK else BLOCK> is now documented as valid, as | |
1050 | is the syntax C<unless (EXPR) BLOCK elsif (EXPR) BLOCK ... else BLOCK>, | |
1051 | although actually using the latter may not be the best idea for the | |
1052 | readability of your source code. | |
1053 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1054 | |
1055 | =item * | |
1056 | ||
1057 | Documented -X overloading. | |
1058 | ||
1059 | =item * | |
1060 | ||
1061 | Documented that C<when()> treats specially most of the filetest operators | |
1062 | ||
1063 | =item * | |
1064 | ||
c66407fa | 1065 | Documented C<when> as a syntax modifier |
3ab3a109 JV |
1066 | |
1067 | =item * | |
1068 | ||
c66407fa | 1069 | Eliminated "Old Perl threads tutorial", which described 5005 threads. |
3ab3a109 JV |
1070 | |
1071 | F<pod/perlthrtut.pod> is the same material reworked for ithreads. | |
1072 | ||
1073 | =item * | |
1074 | ||
1075 | Correct previous documentation: v-strings are not deprecated | |
1076 | ||
72d4e865 | 1077 | With version objects, we need them to use MODULE VERSION syntax. This |
c66407fa | 1078 | patch removes the deprecation notice. |
3ab3a109 JV |
1079 | |
1080 | =item * | |
1081 | ||
1082 | Added security contact information to L<perlsec> | |
1083 | ||
1084 | A significant fraction of the core documentation has been updated to clarify | |
1085 | the behavior of Perl's Unicode handling. | |
1086 | ||
1087 | Much of the remaining core documentation has been reviewed and edited | |
1088 | for clarity, consistent use of language, and to fix the spelling of Tom | |
1089 | Christiansen's name. | |
1090 | ||
1091 | The Pod specification (L<perlpodspec>) has been updated to bring the | |
c66407fa | 1092 | specification in line with modern usage already supported by most Pod |
72d4e865 JV |
1093 | systems. A parameter string may now follow the format name in a |
1094 | "begin/end" region. Links to URIs with a text description are now | |
1095 | allowed. The usage of C<LE<lt>"section"E<gt>> has been marked as | |
c66407fa | 1096 | deprecated. |
3ab3a109 JV |
1097 | |
1098 | L<if.pm|if> has been documented in L<perlfunc/use> as a means to get | |
c66407fa RS |
1099 | conditional loading of modules despite the implicit BEGIN block around |
1100 | C<use>. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1101 | |
1102 | =item * | |
1103 | ||
c66407fa | 1104 | The documentation for C<$1> in perlvar.pod has been clarified. |
3ab3a109 | 1105 | |
a620a577 KW |
1106 | =item * |
1107 | ||
1108 | C<\N{U+I<wide hex char>}> is now documented. | |
1109 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1110 | =back |
1111 | ||
1112 | =head1 Performance Enhancements | |
1113 | ||
1114 | =over 4 | |
1115 | ||
1116 | =item * | |
1117 | ||
1118 | A new internal cache means that C<isa()> will often be faster. | |
1119 | ||
1120 | =item * | |
1121 | ||
1122 | The implementation of C<C3> Method Resolution Order has been optimised - | |
1123 | linearisation for classes with single inheritance is 40% faster. Performance | |
1124 | for multiple inheritance is unchanged. | |
1125 | ||
1126 | =item * | |
1127 | ||
1128 | Under C<use locale>, the locale-relevant information is now cached on | |
1129 | read-only values, such as the list returned by C<keys %hash>. This makes | |
1130 | operations such as C<sort keys %hash> in the scope of C<use locale> much | |
1131 | faster. | |
1132 | ||
1133 | =item * | |
1134 | ||
1135 | Empty C<DESTROY> methods are no longer called. | |
1136 | ||
1137 | =item * | |
1138 | ||
1139 | Faster C<Perl_sv_utf8_upgrade()> | |
1140 | ||
1141 | =item * | |
1142 | ||
1143 | Speed up C<keys> on empty hash | |
1144 | ||
1145 | =item * | |
1146 | ||
1147 | C<if (%foo)> has been optimized to be faster than C<if (keys %foo)> | |
1148 | ||
1149 | =item * | |
1150 | ||
1151 | Reversing an array to itself (as in C<@a = reverse @a>) in void context | |
1152 | now happens in-place and is several orders of magnitude faster than it | |
1153 | used to be. It will also preserve non-existent elements whenever | |
1154 | possible, i.e. for non magical arrays or tied arrays with C<EXISTS> and | |
1155 | C<DELETE> methods. | |
1156 | ||
1157 | =back | |
1158 | ||
1159 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements | |
1160 | ||
1161 | =head2 F<ext/> reorganisation | |
1162 | ||
1163 | The layout of directories in F<ext> has been revised. Specifically, all | |
1164 | extensions are now flat, and at the top level, with C</> in pathnames | |
1165 | replaced by C<->, so that F<ext/Data/Dumper/> is now F<ext/Data-Dumper/>, | |
72d4e865 | 1166 | etc. The names of the extensions as specified to F<Configure>, and as |
3ab3a109 JV |
1167 | reported by C<%Config::Config> under the keys C<dynamic_ext>, |
1168 | C<known_extensions>, C<nonxs_ext> and C<static_ext> have not changed, and | |
1169 | still use C</>. Hence this change will not have any affect once perl is | |
1170 | installed. C<Safe> has been split out from being part of C<Opcode>, and | |
1171 | C<mro> is now an extension in its own right. | |
1172 | ||
1173 | Nearly all dual-life modules have been moved from F<lib> to F<ext>, and will | |
1174 | now appear as known C<nonxs_ext>. This will made no difference to the | |
1175 | structure of an installed perl, nor will the modules installed differ, | |
1176 | unless you run F<Configure> with options to specify an exact list of | |
1177 | extensions to build. In this case, you will rapidly become aware that you | |
1178 | need to add to your list, because various modules needed to complete the | |
1179 | build, such as C<ExtUtils::ParseXS>, have now become extensions, and | |
1180 | without them the build will fail well before it attempts to run the | |
1181 | regression tests. | |
1182 | ||
b16f1257 | 1183 | =head2 Other Installation and Configuration Improvements |
72d4e865 JV |
1184 | |
1185 | =over 4 | |
1186 | ||
1187 | =item * | |
1188 | ||
1189 | L<perlapi>, L<perlintern>, L<perlmodlib> and L<perltoc> are now all | |
1190 | generated at build time, rather than being shipped as part of the release. | |
1191 | ||
1192 | =item * | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1193 | |
1194 | If C<vendorlib> and C<vendorarch> are the same, then they are only added to | |
1195 | C<@INC> once. | |
1196 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1197 | =item * |
1198 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1199 | C<$Config{usedevel}> and the C-level C<PERL_USE_DEVEL> are now defined if |
1200 | perl is built with C<-Dusedevel>. | |
1201 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1202 | =item * |
1203 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1204 | F<Configure> will enable use of C<-fstack-protector>, to provide protection |
1205 | against stack-smashing attacks, if the compiler supports it. | |
1206 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1207 | =item * |
1208 | ||
3ab3a109 | 1209 | F<Configure> will now determine the correct prototypes for re-entrant |
c66407fa | 1210 | functions and for C<gconvert> if you are using a C++ compiler rather |
3ab3a109 JV |
1211 | than a C compiler. |
1212 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1213 | =item * |
1214 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1215 | On Unix, if you build from a tree containing a git repository, the |
1216 | configuration process will note the commit hash you have checked out, for | |
1217 | display in the output of C<perl -v> and C<perl -V>. Unpushed local commits | |
1218 | are automatically added to the list of local patches displayed by | |
1219 | C<perl -V>. | |
1220 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1221 | =item * |
1222 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1223 | USE_ATTRIBUTES_FOR_PERLIO is now reported in the compile-time options |
1224 | listed by the C<-V> switch. | |
1225 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1226 | =item * |
1227 | ||
1228 | Support for SystemTap's C<dtrace> compatibility layer has been added and an | |
1229 | issue with linking C<miniperl> has been fixed in the process. | |
1230 | ||
1231 | =item * | |
1232 | ||
1233 | C<less -R> is now used instead of C<less> for C<groff>'s new usage of ANSI | |
1234 | escape codes by setting C<$Config{less}> (and thereby C<$Config{pager}>, | |
1235 | which fixes RT #72156. | |
1236 | ||
1237 | =item * | |
1238 | ||
1239 | USE_PERL_ATOF is now reported in the compile-time options listed by the C<-V> | |
1240 | switch. | |
1241 | ||
1242 | =back | |
1243 | ||
1244 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1245 | =head2 Compilation improvements |
1246 | ||
1247 | As part of the flattening of F<ext>, all extensions on all platforms are | |
1248 | built by F<make_ext.pl>. This replaces the Unix-specific | |
1249 | F<ext/util/make_ext>, VMS-specific F<make_ext.com> and Win32-specific | |
1250 | F<win32/buildext.pl>. | |
1251 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1252 | =head1 Changed Internals |
1253 | ||
1254 | =over 4 | |
1255 | ||
1256 | =item * | |
1257 | ||
1258 | C<Perl_pmflag> has been removed from the public API. Calling it now | |
1259 | generates a deprecation warning, and it will be removed in a future | |
1260 | release. Although listed as part of the API, it was never documented, | |
1261 | and only ever used in F<toke.c>, and prior to 5.10, F<regcomp.c>. In | |
1262 | core, it has been replaced by a static function. | |
1263 | ||
1264 | =item * | |
1265 | ||
1266 | Perl_magic_setmglob now knows about globs, fixing RT #71254. | |
1267 | ||
1268 | =item * | |
1269 | ||
1270 | TODO: C<SVt_RV> is gone. RVs are now stored in IVs | |
1271 | ||
1272 | =item * | |
1273 | ||
1274 | TODO: REGEXPs are first class | |
1275 | ||
1276 | =item * | |
1277 | ||
1278 | TODO: OOK is reworked, such that an OOKed scalar is PV not PVIV | |
1279 | ||
1280 | =item * | |
1281 | ||
1282 | The J.R.R. Tolkien quotes at the head of C source file have been checked and | |
1283 | proper citations added, thanks to a patch from Tom Christiansen. | |
1284 | ||
1285 | =item * | |
1286 | ||
1287 | C<Perl_vcroak()> now accepts a null first argument. In addition, a full audit | |
1288 | was made of the "not NULL" compiler annotations, and those for several | |
1289 | other internal functions were corrected. | |
1290 | ||
1291 | =item * | |
1292 | ||
1293 | New macros C<dSAVEDERRNO>, C<dSAVE_ERRNO>, C<SAVE_ERRNO>, C<RESTORE_ERRNO> | |
1294 | have been added to formalise the temporary saving of the C<errno> | |
1295 | variable. | |
1296 | ||
1297 | =item * | |
1298 | ||
1299 | The function C<Perl_sv_insert_flags> has been added to augment | |
1300 | C<Perl_sv_insert>. | |
1301 | ||
1302 | =item * | |
1303 | ||
1304 | The function C<Perl_newSV_type(type)> has been added, equivalent to | |
1305 | C<Perl_newSV()> followed by C<Perl_sv_upgrade(type)>. | |
1306 | ||
1307 | =item * | |
1308 | ||
1309 | The function C<Perl_newSVpvn_flags()> has been added, equivalent to | |
1310 | C<Perl_newSVpvn()> and then performing the action relevant to the flag. | |
1311 | ||
1312 | Two flag bits are currently supported. | |
1313 | ||
1314 | =over 4 | |
1315 | ||
1316 | =item * | |
1317 | ||
1318 | C<SVf_UTF8> | |
1319 | ||
1320 | This will call C<SvUTF8_on()> for you. (Note that this does not convert an | |
1321 | sequence of ISO 8859-1 characters to UTF-8). A wrapper, C<newSVpvn_utf8()> | |
1322 | is available for this. | |
1323 | ||
1324 | =item * | |
1325 | ||
1326 | C<SVs_TEMP> | |
1327 | ||
1328 | Call C<Perl_sv_2mortal()> on the new SV. | |
1329 | ||
1330 | =back | |
1331 | ||
1332 | There is also a wrapper that takes constant strings, C<newSVpvs_flags()>. | |
1333 | ||
1334 | =item * | |
1335 | ||
1336 | The function C<Perl_croak_xs_usage> has been added as a wrapper to | |
1337 | C<Perl_croak>. | |
1338 | ||
1339 | =item * | |
1340 | ||
1341 | The functions C<PerlIO_find_layer> and C<PerlIO_list_alloc> are now | |
1342 | exported. | |
1343 | ||
1344 | =item * | |
1345 | ||
1346 | C<PL_na> has been exterminated from the core code, replaced by local STRLEN | |
1347 | temporaries, or C<*_nolen()> calls. Either approach is faster than C<PL_na>, | |
17270880 | 1348 | which is a pointer dereference into the interpreter structure under ithreads, |
3ab3a109 JV |
1349 | and a global variable otherwise. |
1350 | ||
1351 | =item * | |
1352 | ||
1353 | C<Perl_mg_free()> used to leave freed memory accessible via C<SvMAGIC()> on | |
1354 | the scalar. It now updates the linked list to remove each piece of magic | |
1355 | as it is freed. | |
1356 | ||
1357 | =item * | |
1358 | ||
1359 | Under ithreads, the regex in C<PL_reg_curpm> is now reference counted. This | |
1360 | eliminates a lot of hackish workarounds to cope with it not being reference | |
1361 | counted. | |
1362 | ||
1363 | =item * | |
1364 | ||
1365 | C<Perl_mg_magical()> would sometimes incorrectly turn on C<SvRMAGICAL()>. | |
1366 | This has been fixed. | |
1367 | ||
1368 | =item * | |
1369 | ||
1370 | The I<public> IV and NV flags are now not set if the string value has | |
1371 | trailing "garbage". This behaviour is consistent with not setting the | |
1372 | public IV or NV flags if the value is out of range for the type. | |
1373 | ||
1374 | =item * | |
1375 | ||
1376 | SV allocation tracing has been added to the diagnostics enabled by C<-Dm>. | |
1377 | The tracing can alternatively output via the C<PERL_MEM_LOG> mechanism, if | |
1378 | that was enabled when the F<perl> binary was compiled. | |
1379 | ||
1380 | =item * | |
1381 | ||
1382 | Smartmatch resolution tracing has been added as a new diagnostic. Use C<-DM> to | |
1383 | enable it. | |
1384 | ||
1385 | =item * | |
1386 | ||
1387 | A new debugging flag C<-DB> now dumps subroutine definitions, leaving | |
1388 | C<-Dx> for its original purpose of dumping syntax trees. | |
1389 | ||
1390 | =item * | |
1391 | ||
1392 | Uses of C<Nullav>, C<Nullcv>, C<Nullhv>, C<Nullop>, C<Nullsv> etc have been | |
1393 | replaced by C<NULL> in the core code, and non-dual-life modules, as C<NULL> | |
1394 | is clearer to those unfamiliar with the core code. | |
1395 | ||
1396 | =item * | |
1397 | ||
1398 | A macro C<MUTABLE_PTR(p)> has been added, which on (non-pedantic) gcc will | |
1399 | not cast away C<const>, returning a C<void *>. Macros C<MUTABLE_SV(av)>, | |
1400 | C<MUTABLE_SV(cv)> etc build on this, casting to C<AV *> etc without | |
1401 | casting away C<const>. This allows proper compile-time auditing of | |
1402 | C<const> correctness in the core, and helped picked up some errors (now | |
1403 | fixed). | |
1404 | ||
1405 | =item * | |
1406 | ||
1407 | Macros C<mPUSHs()> and C<mXPUSHs()> have been added, for pushing SVs on the | |
1408 | stack and mortalizing them. | |
1409 | ||
1410 | =item * | |
1411 | ||
1412 | Use of the private structure C<mro_meta> has changed slightly. Nothing | |
1413 | outside the core should be accessing this directly anyway. | |
1414 | ||
1415 | =item * | |
1416 | ||
1417 | A new tool, F<Porting/expand-macro.pl> has been added, that allows you | |
1418 | to view how a C preprocessor macro would be expanded when compiled. | |
1419 | This is handy when trying to decode the macro hell that is the perl | |
1420 | guts. | |
1421 | ||
1422 | =back | |
1423 | ||
1424 | =head1 Testing | |
1425 | ||
1426 | =head2 New Tests | |
1427 | ||
1428 | Many modules updated from CPAN incorporate new tests. | |
1429 | Several tests that have the potential to hang forever if they fail now | |
1430 | incorporate a "watchdog" functionality that will kill them after a timeout, | |
1431 | which helps ensure that C<make test> and C<make test_harness> run to | |
1432 | completion automatically. (Jerry Hedden). | |
1433 | ||
1434 | Some core-specific tests have been added: | |
1435 | ||
1436 | =over 4 | |
1437 | ||
1438 | =item * | |
1439 | ||
1440 | Significant cleanups to core tests to ensure that language and | |
1441 | interpreter features are not used before they're tested. | |
1442 | ||
1443 | =item * | |
1444 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1445 | C<make test_porting> now runs a number of important pre-commit checks |
1446 | which might be of use to anyone working on the Perl core. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1447 | |
1448 | =item * | |
1449 | ||
1450 | F<t/porting/podcheck.t> automatically checks the well-formedness of | |
1451 | POD found in all .pl, .pm and .pod files in the F<MANIFEST>, other than in | |
1452 | dual-lifed modules which are primarily maintained outside the Perl core. | |
1453 | ||
1454 | =item * | |
1455 | ||
1456 | F<t/porting/manifest.t> now tests that all files listed in MANIFEST are present. | |
1457 | ||
1458 | =item * | |
1459 | ||
1460 | F<t/op/while_readdir.t> | |
1461 | ||
1462 | Test that a bare readdir in while loop sets $_. | |
1463 | ||
1464 | =item * | |
1465 | ||
c66407fa | 1466 | F<t/comp/retainedlines.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1467 | |
1468 | Check that the debugger can retain source lines from C<eval>. | |
1469 | ||
1470 | =item * | |
1471 | ||
c66407fa | 1472 | F<t/io/perlio_fail.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1473 | |
1474 | Check that bad layers fail. | |
1475 | ||
1476 | =item * | |
1477 | ||
c66407fa | 1478 | F<t/io/perlio_leaks.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1479 | |
1480 | Check that PerlIO layers are not leaking. | |
1481 | ||
1482 | =item * | |
1483 | ||
c66407fa | 1484 | F<t/io/perlio_open.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1485 | |
1486 | Check that certain special forms of open work. | |
1487 | ||
1488 | =item * | |
1489 | ||
c66407fa | 1490 | F<t/io/perlio.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1491 | |
1492 | General PerlIO tests. | |
1493 | ||
1494 | =item * | |
1495 | ||
c66407fa | 1496 | F<t/io/pvbm.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1497 | |
1498 | Check that there is no unexpected interaction between the internal types | |
1499 | C<PVBM> and C<PVGV>. | |
1500 | ||
1501 | =item * | |
1502 | ||
c66407fa | 1503 | F<t/mro/package_aliases.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1504 | |
1505 | Check that mro works properly in the presence of aliased packages. | |
1506 | ||
1507 | =item * | |
1508 | ||
c66407fa | 1509 | F<t/op/dbm.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1510 | |
1511 | Tests for C<dbmopen> and C<dbmclose>. | |
1512 | ||
1513 | =item * | |
1514 | ||
c66407fa | 1515 | F<t/op/index_thr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1516 | |
1517 | Tests for the interaction of C<index> and threads. | |
1518 | ||
1519 | =item * | |
1520 | ||
c66407fa | 1521 | F<t/op/pat_thr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1522 | |
1523 | Tests for the interaction of esoteric patterns and threads. | |
1524 | ||
1525 | =item * | |
1526 | ||
c66407fa | 1527 | F<t/op/qr_gc.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1528 | |
1529 | Test that C<qr> doesn't leak. | |
1530 | ||
1531 | =item * | |
1532 | ||
c66407fa | 1533 | F<t/op/reg_email_thr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1534 | |
1535 | Tests for the interaction of regex recursion and threads. | |
1536 | ||
1537 | =item * | |
1538 | ||
c66407fa | 1539 | F<t/op/regexp_qr_embed_thr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1540 | |
1541 | Tests for the interaction of patterns with embedded C<qr//> and threads. | |
1542 | ||
1543 | =item * | |
1544 | ||
c66407fa | 1545 | F<t/op/regexp_unicode_prop.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1546 | |
1547 | Tests for Unicode properties in regular expressions. | |
1548 | ||
1549 | =item * | |
1550 | ||
c66407fa | 1551 | F<t/op/regexp_unicode_prop_thr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1552 | |
1553 | Tests for the interaction of Unicode properties and threads. | |
1554 | ||
1555 | =item * | |
1556 | ||
c66407fa | 1557 | F<t/op/reg_nc_tie.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1558 | |
1559 | Test the tied methods of C<Tie::Hash::NamedCapture>. | |
1560 | ||
1561 | =item * | |
1562 | ||
c66407fa | 1563 | F<t/op/reg_posixcc.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1564 | |
1565 | Check that POSIX character classes behave consistently. | |
1566 | ||
1567 | =item * | |
1568 | ||
c66407fa | 1569 | F<t/op/re.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1570 | |
1571 | Check that exportable C<re> functions in F<universal.c> work. | |
1572 | ||
1573 | =item * | |
1574 | ||
c66407fa | 1575 | F<t/op/setpgrpstack.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1576 | |
1577 | Check that C<setpgrp> works. | |
1578 | ||
1579 | =item * | |
1580 | ||
c66407fa | 1581 | F<t/op/substr_thr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1582 | |
1583 | Tests for the interaction of C<substr> and threads. | |
1584 | ||
1585 | =item * | |
1586 | ||
c66407fa | 1587 | F<t/op/upgrade.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1588 | |
1589 | Check that upgrading and assigning scalars works. | |
1590 | ||
1591 | =item * | |
1592 | ||
c66407fa | 1593 | F<t/uni/lex_utf8.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1594 | |
1595 | Check that Unicode in the lexer works. | |
1596 | ||
1597 | =item * | |
1598 | ||
c66407fa | 1599 | F<t/uni/tie.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1600 | |
1601 | Check that Unicode and C<tie> work. | |
1602 | ||
1603 | =item * | |
1604 | ||
c66407fa | 1605 | F<t/comp/final_line_num.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1606 | |
1607 | See if line numbers are correct at EOF | |
1608 | ||
1609 | =item * | |
1610 | ||
c66407fa | 1611 | F<t/comp/form_scope.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1612 | |
1613 | See if format scoping works | |
1614 | ||
1615 | =item * | |
1616 | ||
c66407fa | 1617 | F<t/comp/line_debug.t> |
3ab3a109 | 1618 | |
c66407fa | 1619 | See if C<< @{"_<$file"} >> works |
3ab3a109 JV |
1620 | |
1621 | =item * | |
1622 | ||
c66407fa | 1623 | F<t/op/filetest_t.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1624 | |
1625 | See if -t file test works | |
1626 | ||
1627 | =item * | |
1628 | ||
c66407fa | 1629 | F<t/op/qr.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1630 | |
1631 | See if qr works | |
1632 | ||
1633 | =item * | |
1634 | ||
c66407fa | 1635 | F<t/op/utf8cache.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1636 | |
1637 | Tests malfunctions of utf8 cache | |
1638 | ||
1639 | =item * | |
1640 | ||
c66407fa | 1641 | F<t/re/uniprops.t> |
3ab3a109 JV |
1642 | |
1643 | Test unicode \p{} regex constructs | |
1644 | ||
b16f1257 JV |
1645 | =item * |
1646 | ||
1647 | F<t/op/filehandle.t> | |
72d4e865 JV |
1648 | |
1649 | Tests some suitably portable filetest operators to check that they work as | |
1650 | expected, particularly in the light of some internal changes made in how | |
1651 | filehandles are blessed. | |
1652 | ||
b16f1257 JV |
1653 | =item * |
1654 | ||
1655 | F<t/op/time_loop.t> | |
72d4e865 JV |
1656 | |
1657 | Tests that times greater than C<2**63>, which can now be handed to C<gmtime> | |
1658 | and C<localtime>, do not cause an internal overflow or an excessively long | |
1659 | loop. | |
1660 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1661 | =back |
1662 | ||
1663 | =head2 Testing improvements | |
1664 | ||
1665 | =over 4 | |
1666 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1667 | =item Parallel tests |
1668 | ||
1669 | The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on | |
1670 | Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in | |
1671 | your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run | |
1672 | C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as | |
1673 | ||
1674 | TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel | |
1675 | ||
1676 | An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because | |
1677 | L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test | |
1678 | scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to | |
1679 | interact with their job schedulers. | |
1680 | ||
1681 | Note that currently some test scripts may fail when run in parallel (most | |
1682 | notably C<ext/IO/t/io_dir.t>). If necessary run just the failing scripts | |
1683 | again sequentially and see if the failures go away. | |
1684 | ||
b16f1257 | 1685 | =item Test harness flexibility |
3ab3a109 JV |
1686 | |
1687 | It's now possible to override C<PERL5OPT> and friends in F<t/TEST> | |
1688 | ||
1689 | =back | |
1690 | ||
1691 | ||
1692 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics | |
1693 | ||
1694 | Several new diagnostics, see L<perldiag> for details. | |
1695 | ||
1696 | =over 4 | |
1697 | ||
1698 | =item * | |
1699 | ||
1700 | C<Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'> | |
1701 | ||
1702 | =item * | |
1703 | ||
1704 | C<gmtime(%.0f) too large> | |
1705 | ||
1706 | =item * | |
1707 | ||
1708 | C<Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input> | |
1709 | ||
1710 | =item * | |
1711 | ||
1712 | C<Lexing code internal error (%s)> | |
1713 | ||
1714 | =item * | |
1715 | ||
1716 | C<localtime(%.0f) too large> | |
1717 | ||
1718 | =item * | |
1719 | ||
1720 | C<Overloaded dereference did not return a reference> | |
1721 | ||
1722 | =item * | |
1723 | ||
1724 | C<Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP> | |
1725 | ||
1726 | =item * | |
1727 | ||
1728 | C<Perl_pmflag() is deprecated, and will be removed from the XS API> | |
1729 | ||
1730 | =item * | |
1731 | ||
1732 | New warning category C<illegalproto> | |
1733 | ||
1734 | The two warnings : | |
1735 | ||
1736 | Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s | |
1737 | Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s | |
1738 | ||
1739 | have been moved from the C<syntax> top-level warnings category into a new | |
1740 | first-level category, C<illegalproto>. These two warnings are currently the | |
1741 | only ones emitted during parsing of an invalid/illegal prototype, so one | |
1742 | can now do | |
1743 | ||
1744 | no warnings 'illegalproto'; | |
1745 | ||
1746 | to suppress only those, but not other syntax-related warnings. Warnings where | |
1747 | prototypes are changed, ignored, or not met are still in the C<prototype> | |
1748 | category as before. (Matt S. Trout) | |
1749 | ||
1750 | =item * | |
1751 | ||
1752 | lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined | |
1753 | ||
1754 | This new warning is issued when one attempts to mark a subroutine as | |
1755 | lvalue after it has been defined. | |
1756 | ||
1757 | =item * | |
1758 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1759 | warn if C<++> or C<--> are unable to change the value because it's |
1760 | beyond the limit of representation | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1761 | |
1762 | This uses a new warnings category: "imprecision". | |
1763 | ||
1764 | =item * | |
c66407fa RS |
1765 | |
1766 | C<lc>, C<uc>, C<lcfirst>, and C<ucfirst> warn when passed undef. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1767 | |
1768 | =item * | |
1769 | ||
1770 | Show constant in "Useless use of a constant in void context" | |
1771 | ||
1772 | =item * | |
1773 | ||
1774 | Make the new warning report undef constants as undef | |
1775 | ||
1776 | =item * | |
1777 | ||
1778 | Add a new warning, "Prototype after '%s'" | |
1779 | ||
1780 | =item * | |
1781 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1782 | Tweak the "Illegal character in prototype" warning so it's more precise |
1783 | when reporting illegal characters after _ | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1784 | |
1785 | =item * | |
1786 | ||
c66407fa | 1787 | Correct the unintended interpolation of C<$\> in regex |
3ab3a109 JV |
1788 | |
1789 | =item * | |
1790 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1791 | Make overflow warnings in C<gmtime> and C<localtime> only occur when |
1792 | warnings are enabled | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1793 | |
1794 | =item * | |
1795 | ||
1796 | Improve mro merging error messages. | |
1797 | ||
1798 | They are now very similar to those produced by Algorithm::C3. | |
1799 | ||
1800 | =item * | |
1801 | ||
1802 | Amelioration of the error message "Unrecognized character %s in column %d" | |
1803 | ||
1804 | Changes the error message to "Unrecognized character %s; marked by E<lt>-- | |
1805 | HERE after %sE<lt>-- HERE near column %d". This should make it a little | |
1806 | simpler to spot and correct the suspicious character. | |
1807 | ||
1808 | =item * | |
1809 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1810 | Explicitely point to C<$.> when it causes an uninitialized warning for |
1811 | ranges in scalar context | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1812 | |
1813 | =item * | |
1814 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1815 | C<split> now warns when called in void context |
1816 | ||
1817 | =item * | |
1818 | ||
1819 | C<printf>-style functions called with too few arguments will now issue the | |
1820 | warning C<"Missing argument in %s"> [perl #71000] | |
1821 | ||
1822 | =item * | |
1823 | ||
1824 | C<panic: sv_chop %s> | |
1825 | ||
1826 | This new fatal error occurs when the C routine C<Perl_sv_chop()> was | |
1827 | passed a position that is not within the scalar's string buffer. This | |
1828 | could be caused by buggy XS code, and at this point recovery is not | |
1829 | possible. | |
1830 | ||
1831 | =item * | |
1832 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1833 | C<Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"> |
1834 | ||
1835 | It is now possible to change the depth threshold for this warning from the | |
1836 | default of 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary, setting the C | |
1837 | pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value. | |
1838 | ||
1839 | =item * | |
1840 | ||
1841 | Perl now properly returns a syntax error instead of segfaulting | |
c66407fa | 1842 | if C<each>, C<keys>, or C<values> is used without an argument. |
3ab3a109 JV |
1843 | |
1844 | =item * | |
1845 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1846 | C<tell()> now fails properly if called without an argument and when no |
1847 | previous file was read. | |
3ab3a109 | 1848 | |
c66407fa RS |
1849 | C<tell()> now returns C<-1>, and sets errno to C<EBADF>, thus restoring |
1850 | the 5.8.x behaviour. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1851 | |
1852 | =item * | |
1853 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1854 | C<overload> no longer implicitly unsets fallback on repeated 'use |
1855 | overload' lines. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1856 | |
1857 | =item * | |
1858 | ||
1859 | POSIX::strftime() can now handle Unicode characters in the format string. | |
1860 | ||
1861 | =item * | |
1862 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1863 | The Windows select() implementation now supports all empty C<fd_set>s |
1864 | more correctly. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1865 | |
1866 | =item * | |
1867 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1868 | The "syntax" category was removed from 5 warnings that should only be in |
1869 | "deprecated". | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1870 | |
1871 | =item * | |
1872 | ||
c66407fa RS |
1873 | Three fatal C<pack>/C<unpack> error messages have been normalized to |
1874 | "panic: %s" | |
3ab3a109 JV |
1875 | |
1876 | =item * | |
1877 | ||
1878 | "Unicode character is illegal" has been rephrased to be more accurate | |
1879 | ||
1880 | It now reads C<Unicode non-character is illegal in interchange> and the | |
1881 | perldiag documentation has been expanded a bit. | |
1882 | ||
1883 | =item * | |
1884 | ||
72d4e865 JV |
1885 | The fatal error C<Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N> is now produced if the |
1886 | C<charnames> handler returns malformed UTF-8. | |
3ab3a109 | 1887 | |
72d4e865 JV |
1888 | =item * |
1889 | ||
1890 | If an unresolved named character or sequence was encountered when compiling a | |
1891 | regex pattern then the fatal error C<\\N{NAME} must be resolved by the lexer> | |
1892 | is now produced. This can happen, for example, when using a single-quotish | |
1893 | context like C<$re = '\N{SPACE}'; $re;>. See L<perldiag> for more examples of | |
1894 | how the lexer can get bypassed. | |
1895 | ||
1896 | =item * | |
1897 | ||
1898 | The fatal error C<Invalid hexadecimal number in \\N{U+...}> will be produced | |
1899 | if the character constant represented by C<...> is not a valid hexadecimal | |
b16f1257 | 1900 | number. |
72d4e865 JV |
1901 | |
1902 | =item * | |
1903 | ||
1904 | The new meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed character | |
1905 | class, just like C<.> in a character class loses its special meaning, and will | |
1906 | cause the fatal error C<\\N in a character class must be a named character: | |
1907 | \\N{...}>. | |
1908 | ||
1909 | =item * | |
1910 | ||
1911 | The rules on what is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}> have been tightened | |
1912 | up so that unless the C<...> begins with an alphabetic character and continues | |
1913 | with a combination of alphanumerics, dashes, spaces, parentheses or colons | |
1914 | then the warning C<Deprecated character(s) in \\N{...} starting at '%s'> is | |
1915 | now issued. | |
1916 | ||
1917 | =item * | |
1918 | ||
1919 | The warning C<Using just the first characters returned by \N{}> will be | |
1920 | issued if the C<charnames> handler returns a sequence of characters which | |
1921 | exceeds the limit of the number of characters that can be used. The message | |
1922 | will indicate which characters were used and which were discarded. | |
1923 | ||
1924 | =item * | |
1925 | ||
1926 | Currently, all but the first of the several characters that the C<charnames> | |
1927 | handler may return are discarded when used in a regular expression pattern | |
1928 | bracketed character class. If this happens then the warning C<Using just the | |
1929 | first character returned by \N{} in character class> will be issued. | |
1930 | ||
1931 | =item * | |
1932 | ||
1933 | The warning C<Missing right brace on \\N{} or unescaped left brace after \\N. | |
1934 | Assuming the latter> will be issued if Perl encounters a C<\N{> but doesn't | |
1935 | find a matching C<}>. In this case Perl doesn't know if it was mistakenly | |
1936 | omitted, or if "match non-newline" followed by "match a C<{>" was desired. | |
1937 | It assumes the latter because that is actually a valid interpretation as | |
1938 | written, unlike the other case. If you meant the former, you need to add the | |
1939 | matching right brace. If you did mean the latter, you can silence this | |
1940 | warning by writing instead C<\N\{>. | |
1941 | ||
1942 | =item * | |
1943 | ||
1944 | C<gmtime> and C<localtime> called with numbers smaller than they can reliably | |
1945 | handle will now issue the warnings C<gmtime(%.0f) too small> and | |
1946 | C<localtime(%.0f) too small>. | |
1947 | ||
1948 | =back | |
3ab3a109 | 1949 | |
c66407fa RS |
1950 | The following diagnostics have been removed: |
1951 | ||
1952 | =over 4 | |
1953 | ||
1954 | =item * | |
1955 | ||
1956 | C<Runaway format> | |
1957 | ||
1958 | =item * | |
1959 | ||
1960 | C<Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s> | |
1961 | ||
1962 | This warning has been removed. In general, it only got produced in | |
1963 | conjunction with other warnings, and removing it allowed an ISA lookup | |
1964 | optimisation to be added. | |
1965 | ||
1966 | =item * | |
1967 | ||
1968 | C<v-string in use/require is non-portable> | |
1969 | ||
1970 | =back | |
1971 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
1972 | =head1 Utility Changes |
1973 | ||
1974 | =over 4 | |
1975 | ||
1976 | =item * | |
1977 | ||
1978 | F<h2ph> | |
1979 | ||
1980 | Now looks in C<include-fixed> too, which is a recent addition to gcc's | |
1981 | search path. | |
1982 | ||
1983 | =item * | |
1984 | ||
1985 | F<h2xs> | |
1986 | ||
1987 | No longer incorrectly treats enum values like macros (Daniel Burr). | |
1988 | ||
1989 | Now handles C++ style constants (C<//>) properly in enums. (A patch from | |
1990 | Rainer Weikusat was used; Daniel Burr also proposed a similar fix). | |
1991 | ||
1992 | =item * | |
1993 | ||
1994 | F<perl5db.pl> | |
1995 | ||
1996 | C<LVALUE> subroutines now work under the debugger. | |
1997 | ||
1998 | The debugger now correctly handles proxy constant subroutines, and | |
1999 | subroutine stubs. | |
2000 | ||
2001 | =item * | |
2002 | ||
2003 | F<perlbug> | |
2004 | ||
2005 | F<perlbug> now uses C<%Module::CoreList::bug_tracker> to print out upstream bug | |
2006 | tracker URLs. | |
2007 | ||
2008 | Where the user names a module that their bug report is about, and we know the | |
2009 | URL for its upstream bug tracker, provide a message to the user explaining | |
2010 | that the core copies the CPAN version directly, and provide the URL for | |
2011 | reporting the bug directly to upstream. | |
2012 | ||
2013 | =item * | |
2014 | ||
2015 | F<perlthanks> | |
2016 | ||
2017 | Perl 5.11.0 added a new utility F<perlthanks>, which is a variant of | |
2018 | F<perlbug>, but for sending non-bug-reports to the authors and maintainers | |
2019 | of Perl. Getting nothing but bug reports can become a bit demoralising: | |
2020 | we'll see if this changes things. | |
2021 | ||
2022 | =item * | |
2023 | ||
2024 | F<perlbug> | |
2025 | ||
2026 | No longer reports "Message sent" when it hasn't actually sent the message | |
2027 | ||
2028 | =item * | |
2029 | ||
2030 | F<a2p> | |
2031 | ||
2032 | Fixed bugs with the match() operator in list context, remove mention of | |
c66407fa | 2033 | C<$[>. |
3ab3a109 JV |
2034 | |
2035 | =back | |
2036 | ||
2037 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes | |
2038 | ||
2039 | =over 4 | |
2040 | ||
2041 | =item * | |
2042 | ||
2043 | Ensure that pp_qr returns a new regexp SV each time. Resolves RT #69852. | |
2044 | ||
2045 | Instead of returning a(nother) reference to the (pre-compiled) regexp in the | |
2046 | optree, use reg_temp_copy() to create a copy of it, and return a reference to | |
2047 | that. This resolves issues about Regexp::DESTROY not being called in a timely | |
2048 | fashion (the original bug tracked by RT #69852), as well as bugs related to | |
2049 | blessing regexps, and of assigning to regexps, as described in correspondence | |
2050 | added to the ticket. | |
2051 | ||
2052 | It transpires that we also need to undo the SvPVX() sharing when ithreads | |
2053 | cloning a Regexp SV, because mother_re is set to NULL, instead of a cloned | |
2054 | copy of the mother_re. This change might fix bugs with regexps and threads in | |
2055 | certain other situations, but as yet neither tests nor bug reports have | |
2056 | indicated any problems, so it might not actually be an edge case that it's | |
2057 | possible to reach. | |
2058 | ||
2059 | =item * | |
2060 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
2061 | Several compilation errors and segfaults when perl was built with C<-Dmad> were fixed. |
2062 | ||
2063 | =item * | |
2064 | ||
2065 | Fixes for lexer API changes in 5.11.2 which broke NYTProf's savesrc option. | |
2066 | ||
2067 | =item * | |
2068 | ||
c66407fa | 2069 | C<-t> should only return TRUE for file handles connected to a TTY |
3ab3a109 | 2070 | |
c66407fa RS |
2071 | The Microsoft C version of C<isatty()> returns TRUE for all |
2072 | character mode devices, including the F</dev/null>-style "nul" | |
3ab3a109 JV |
2073 | device and printers like "lpt1". |
2074 | ||
2075 | =item * | |
2076 | ||
2077 | Fixed a regression caused by commit fafafbaf which caused a panic during | |
2078 | parameter passing [perl #70171] | |
2079 | ||
2080 | =item * | |
2081 | ||
2082 | On systems which in-place edits without backup files, -i'*' now works as | |
2083 | the documentation says it does [perl #70802] | |
2084 | ||
2085 | =item * | |
2086 | ||
2087 | Saving and restoring magic flags no longer loses readonly flag. | |
2088 | ||
2089 | =item * | |
2090 | ||
2091 | The malformed syntax C<grep EXPR LIST> (note the missing comma) no longer | |
2092 | causes abrupt and total failure. | |
2093 | ||
2094 | =item * | |
2095 | ||
2096 | Regular expressions compiled with C<qr{}> literals properly set C<$'> when | |
2097 | matching again. | |
2098 | ||
2099 | =item * | |
2100 | ||
2101 | Using named subroutines with C<sort> should no longer lead to bus errors [perl | |
2102 | #71076] | |
2103 | ||
2104 | =item * | |
2105 | ||
2106 | Numerous bugfixes catch small issues caused by the recently-added Lexer API. | |
2107 | ||
2108 | =item * | |
2109 | ||
2110 | Smart match against C<@_> sometimes gave false negatives. [perl #71078] | |
2111 | ||
2112 | =item * | |
2113 | ||
c66407fa RS |
2114 | C<$@> may now be assigned a read-only value (without error or busting |
2115 | the stack). | |
3ab3a109 JV |
2116 | |
2117 | =item * | |
2118 | ||
2119 | C<sort> called recursively from within an active comparison subroutine no | |
2120 | longer causes a bus error if run multiple times. [perl #71076] | |
2121 | ||
2122 | =item * | |
2123 | ||
c66407fa | 2124 | Tie::Hash::NamedCapture::* will not abort if passed bad input (RT #71828) |
3ab3a109 JV |
2125 | |
2126 | =item * | |
2127 | ||
2128 | @_ and $_ no longer leak under threads (RT #34342 and #41138, also | |
2129 | #70602, #70974) | |
2130 | ||
2131 | =item * | |
2132 | ||
2133 | C<-I> on shebang line now adds directories in front of @INC | |
2134 | as documented, and as does C<-I> when specified on the command-line. | |
2135 | ||
2136 | =item * | |
2137 | ||
2138 | C<kill> is now fatal when called on non-numeric process identifiers. | |
c66407fa RS |
2139 | Previously, an C<undef> process identifier would be interpreted as a |
2140 | request to kill process 0, which would terminate the current process | |
72d4e865 | 2141 | group on POSIX systems. Since process identifiers are always integers, |
c66407fa | 2142 | killing a non-numeric process is now fatal. |
3ab3a109 JV |
2143 | |
2144 | =item * | |
2145 | ||
2146 | 5.10.0 inadvertently disabled an optimisation, which caused a measurable | |
2147 | performance drop in list assignment, such as is often used to assign | |
2148 | function parameters from C<@_>. The optimisation has been re-instated, and | |
72d4e865 | 2149 | the performance regression fixed. (This fix is also present in 5.10.1) |
3ab3a109 JV |
2150 | |
2151 | =item * | |
2152 | ||
2153 | Fixed memory leak on C<while (1) { map 1, 1 }> [RT #53038]. | |
2154 | ||
2155 | =item * | |
2156 | ||
2157 | Some potential coredumps in PerlIO fixed [RT #57322,54828]. | |
2158 | ||
2159 | =item * | |
2160 | ||
2161 | The debugger now works with lvalue subroutines. | |
2162 | ||
2163 | =item * | |
2164 | ||
2165 | The debugger's C<m> command was broken on modules that defined constants | |
2166 | [RT #61222]. | |
2167 | ||
2168 | =item * | |
2169 | ||
2170 | C<crypt> and string complement could return tainted values for untainted | |
2171 | arguments [RT #59998]. | |
2172 | ||
2173 | =item * | |
2174 | ||
2175 | The C<-i>I<.suffix> command-line switch now recreates the file using | |
2176 | restricted permissions, before changing its mode to match the original | |
2177 | file. This eliminates a potential race condition [RT #60904]. | |
2178 | ||
2179 | =item * | |
2180 | ||
2181 | On some Unix systems, the value in C<$?> would not have the top bit set | |
2182 | (C<$? & 128>) even if the child core dumped. | |
2183 | ||
2184 | =item * | |
2185 | ||
2186 | Under some circumstances, C<$^R> could incorrectly become undefined | |
2187 | [RT #57042]. | |
2188 | ||
2189 | =item * | |
2190 | ||
2191 | In the XS API, various hash functions, when passed a pre-computed hash where | |
2192 | the key is UTF-8, might result in an incorrect lookup. | |
2193 | ||
2194 | =item * | |
2195 | ||
2196 | XS code including F<XSUB.h> before F<perl.h> gave a compile-time error | |
2197 | [RT #57176]. | |
2198 | ||
2199 | =item * | |
2200 | ||
2201 | C<< $object-E<gt>isa('Foo') >> would report false if the package C<Foo> didn't | |
2202 | exist, even if the object's C<@ISA> contained C<Foo>. | |
2203 | ||
2204 | =item * | |
2205 | ||
2206 | Various bugs in the new-to 5.10.0 mro code, triggered by manipulating | |
2207 | C<@ISA>, have been found and fixed. | |
2208 | ||
2209 | =item * | |
2210 | ||
2211 | Bitwise operations on references could crash the interpreter, e.g. | |
2212 | C<$x=\$y; $x |= "foo"> [RT #54956]. | |
2213 | ||
2214 | =item * | |
2215 | ||
2216 | Patterns including alternation might be sensitive to the internal UTF-8 | |
2217 | representation, e.g. | |
2218 | ||
2219 | my $byte = chr(192); | |
2220 | my $utf8 = chr(192); utf8::upgrade($utf8); | |
2221 | $utf8 =~ /$byte|X}/i; # failed in 5.10.0 | |
2222 | ||
2223 | =item * | |
2224 | ||
2225 | Within UTF8-encoded Perl source files (i.e. where C<use utf8> is in | |
2226 | effect), double-quoted literal strings could be corrupted where a C<\xNN>, | |
2227 | C<\0NNN> or C<\N{}> is followed by a literal character with ordinal value | |
2228 | greater than 255 [RT #59908]. | |
2229 | ||
2230 | =item * | |
2231 | ||
2232 | C<B::Deparse> failed to correctly deparse various constructs: | |
2233 | C<readpipe STRING> [RT #62428], C<CORE::require(STRING)> [RT #62488], | |
2234 | C<sub foo(_)> [RT #62484]. | |
2235 | ||
2236 | =item * | |
2237 | ||
2238 | Using C<setpgrp> with no arguments could corrupt the perl stack. | |
2239 | ||
2240 | =item * | |
2241 | ||
2242 | The block form of C<eval> is now specifically trappable by C<Safe> and | |
72d4e865 | 2243 | C<ops>. Previously it was erroneously treated like string C<eval>. |
3ab3a109 JV |
2244 | |
2245 | =item * | |
2246 | ||
2247 | In 5.10.0, the two characters C<[~> were sometimes parsed as the smart | |
2248 | match operator (C<~~>) [RT #63854]. | |
2249 | ||
2250 | =item * | |
2251 | ||
2252 | In 5.10.0, the C<*> quantifier in patterns was sometimes treated as | |
2253 | C<{0,32767}> [RT #60034, #60464]. For example, this match would fail: | |
2254 | ||
2255 | ("ab" x 32768) =~ /^(ab)*$/ | |
2256 | ||
2257 | =item * | |
2258 | ||
2259 | C<shmget> was limited to a 32 bit segment size on a 64 bit OS [RT #63924]. | |
2260 | ||
2261 | =item * | |
2262 | ||
2263 | Using C<next> or C<last> to exit a C<given> block no longer produces a | |
2264 | spurious warning like the following: | |
2265 | ||
2266 | Exiting given via last at foo.pl line 123 | |
2267 | ||
2268 | =item * | |
2269 | ||
2270 | On Windows, C<'.\foo'> and C<'..\foo'> were treated differently than | |
2271 | C<'./foo'> and C<'../foo'> by C<do> and C<require> [RT #63492]. | |
2272 | ||
2273 | =item * | |
2274 | ||
2275 | Assigning a format to a glob could corrupt the format; e.g.: | |
2276 | ||
2277 | *bar=*foo{FORMAT}; # foo format now bad | |
2278 | ||
2279 | =item * | |
2280 | ||
2281 | Attempting to coerce a typeglob to a string or number could cause an | |
2282 | assertion failure. The correct error message is now generated, | |
2283 | C<Can't coerce GLOB to I<$type>>. | |
2284 | ||
2285 | =item * | |
2286 | ||
2287 | Under C<use filetest 'access'>, C<-x> was using the wrong access mode. This | |
2288 | has been fixed [RT #49003]. | |
2289 | ||
2290 | =item * | |
2291 | ||
2292 | C<length> on a tied scalar that returned a Unicode value would not be | |
2293 | correct the first time. This has been fixed. | |
2294 | ||
2295 | =item * | |
2296 | ||
2297 | Using an array C<tie> inside in array C<tie> could SEGV. This has been | |
2298 | fixed. [RT #51636] | |
2299 | ||
2300 | =item * | |
2301 | ||
2302 | A race condition inside C<PerlIOStdio_close()> has been identified and | |
2303 | fixed. This used to cause various threading issues, including SEGVs. | |
2304 | ||
2305 | =item * | |
2306 | ||
2307 | In C<unpack>, the use of C<()> groups in scalar context was internally | |
2308 | placing a list on the interpreter's stack, which manifested in various | |
72d4e865 | 2309 | ways, including SEGVs. This is now fixed [RT #50256]. |
3ab3a109 JV |
2310 | |
2311 | =item * | |
2312 | ||
2313 | Magic was called twice in C<substr>, C<\&$x>, C<tie $x, $m> and C<chop>. | |
2314 | These have all been fixed. | |
2315 | ||
2316 | =item * | |
2317 | ||
2318 | A 5.10.0 optimisation to clear the temporary stack within the implicit | |
2319 | loop of C<s///ge> has been reverted, as it turned out to be the cause of | |
2320 | obscure bugs in seemingly unrelated parts of the interpreter [commit | |
2321 | ef0d4e17921ee3de]. | |
2322 | ||
2323 | =item * | |
2324 | ||
2325 | The line numbers for warnings inside C<elsif> are now correct. | |
2326 | ||
2327 | =item * | |
2328 | ||
2329 | The C<..> operator now works correctly with ranges whose ends are at or | |
2330 | close to the values of the smallest and largest integers. | |
2331 | ||
2332 | =item * | |
2333 | ||
2334 | C<binmode STDIN, ':raw'> could lead to segmentation faults on some platforms. | |
2335 | This has been fixed [RT #54828]. | |
2336 | ||
2337 | =item * | |
2338 | ||
2339 | An off-by-one error meant that C<index $str, ...> was effectively being | |
2340 | executed as C<index "$str\0", ...>. This has been fixed [RT #53746]. | |
2341 | ||
2342 | =item * | |
2343 | ||
2344 | Various leaks associated with named captures in regexes have been fixed | |
2345 | [RT #57024]. | |
2346 | ||
2347 | =item * | |
2348 | ||
2349 | A weak reference to a hash would leak. This was affecting C<DBI> | |
2350 | [RT #56908]. | |
2351 | ||
2352 | =item * | |
2353 | ||
2354 | Using (?|) in a regex could cause a segfault [RT #59734]. | |
2355 | ||
2356 | =item * | |
2357 | ||
2358 | Use of a UTF-8 C<tr//> within a closure could cause a segfault [RT #61520]. | |
2359 | ||
2360 | =item * | |
2361 | ||
2362 | Calling C<Perl_sv_chop()> or otherwise upgrading an SV could result in an | |
2363 | unaligned 64-bit access on the SPARC architecture [RT #60574]. | |
2364 | ||
2365 | =item * | |
2366 | ||
2367 | In the 5.10.0 release, C<inc_version_list> would incorrectly list | |
2368 | C<5.10.*> after C<5.8.*>; this affected the C<@INC> search order | |
2369 | [RT #67628]. | |
2370 | ||
2371 | =item * | |
2372 | ||
2373 | In 5.10.0, C<pack "a*", $tainted_value> returned a non-tainted value | |
2374 | [RT #52552]. | |
2375 | ||
2376 | =item * | |
2377 | ||
2378 | In 5.10.0, C<printf> and C<sprintf> could produce the fatal error | |
2379 | C<panic: utf8_mg_pos_cache_update> when printing UTF-8 strings | |
2380 | [RT #62666]. | |
2381 | ||
2382 | =item * | |
2383 | ||
2384 | In the 5.10.0 release, a dynamically created C<AUTOLOAD> method might be | |
2385 | missed (method cache issue) [RT #60220,60232]. | |
2386 | ||
2387 | =item * | |
2388 | ||
2389 | In the 5.10.0 release, a combination of C<use feature> and C<//ee> could | |
2390 | cause a memory leak [RT #63110]. | |
2391 | ||
2392 | =item * | |
2393 | ||
2394 | C<-C> on the shebang (C<#!>) line is once more permitted if it is also | |
2395 | specified on the command line. C<-C> on the shebang line used to be a | |
2396 | silent no-op I<if> it was not also on the command line, so perl 5.10.0 | |
2397 | disallowed it, which broke some scripts. Now perl checks whether it is | |
2398 | also on the command line and only dies if it is not [RT #67880]. | |
2399 | ||
2400 | =item * | |
2401 | ||
2402 | In 5.10.0, certain types of re-entrant regular expression could crash, | |
2403 | or cause the following assertion failure [RT #60508]: | |
2404 | ||
2405 | Assertion rx->sublen >= (s - rx->subbeg) + i failed | |
2406 | ||
2407 | =item * | |
2408 | ||
2409 | Previously missing files from Unicode 5.1 Character Database are now included. | |
2410 | ||
2411 | =item * | |
2412 | ||
2413 | C<TMPDIR> is now honored when opening an anonymous temporary file | |
2414 | ||
2415 | =back | |
2416 | ||
2417 | =head1 Platform Specific Changes | |
2418 | ||
2419 | =head2 New Platforms | |
2420 | ||
2421 | =over | |
2422 | ||
2423 | =item Haiku | |
2424 | ||
2425 | Patches from the Haiku maintainers have been merged in. Perl should now | |
2426 | build on Haiku. | |
2427 | ||
2428 | =item MirOS BSD | |
2429 | ||
2430 | Perl should now build on MirOS BSD. | |
2431 | ||
2432 | ||
2433 | =back | |
2434 | ||
2435 | =head2 Discontinued Platforms | |
2436 | ||
2437 | =over | |
2438 | ||
2439 | =item DomainOS | |
2440 | ||
2441 | Support for Apollo DomainOS was removed in Perl 5.11.0 | |
2442 | ||
2443 | =item MachTen | |
2444 | ||
2445 | Support for Tenon Intersystems MachTen Unix layer for MacOS Classic was | |
2446 | removed in Perl 5.11.0 | |
2447 | ||
2448 | =item MiNT | |
2449 | ||
2450 | Support for Atari MiNT was removed in Perl 5.11.0. | |
2451 | ||
2452 | =back | |
2453 | ||
2454 | =head2 Updated Platforms | |
2455 | ||
2456 | =over 4 | |
2457 | ||
2458 | =item Darwin (Mac OS X) | |
2459 | ||
2460 | =over 4 | |
2461 | ||
2462 | =item * | |
2463 | ||
2464 | Skip testing the be_BY.CP1131 locale on Darwin 10 (Mac OS X 10.6), | |
2465 | as it's still buggy. | |
2466 | ||
2467 | =item * | |
2468 | ||
2469 | Correct infelicities in the regexp used to identify buggy locales | |
2470 | on Darwin 8 and 9 (Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, respectively). | |
2471 | ||
2472 | =back | |
2473 | ||
2474 | =item DragonFly BSD | |
2475 | ||
2476 | =over 4 | |
2477 | ||
2478 | =item * | |
2479 | ||
2480 | Fix thread library selection [perl #69686] | |
2481 | ||
2482 | =back | |
2483 | ||
2484 | =item Win32 | |
2485 | ||
2486 | =over 4 | |
2487 | ||
2488 | =item * | |
2489 | ||
2490 | Initial support for mingw64 is now available | |
2491 | ||
2492 | =item * | |
2493 | ||
c66407fa RS |
2494 | Various bits of Perl's build infrastructure are no longer converted to |
2495 | win32 line endings at release time. If this hurts you, please report the | |
2496 | problem with the L<perlbug> program included with perl. | |
3ab3a109 JV |
2497 | |
2498 | =item * | |
2499 | ||
2500 | Always add a manifest resource to C<perl.exe> to specify the C<trustInfo> | |
72d4e865 | 2501 | settings for Windows Vista and later. Without this setting Windows |
3ab3a109 JV |
2502 | will treat C<perl.exe> as a legacy application and apply various |
2503 | heuristics like redirecting access to protected file system areas | |
2504 | (like the "Program Files" folder) to the users "VirtualStore" | |
2505 | instead of generating a proper "permission denied" error. | |
2506 | ||
2507 | For VC8 and VC9 this manifest setting is automatically generated by | |
2508 | the compiler/linker (together with the binding information for their | |
2509 | respective runtime libraries); for all other compilers we need to | |
2510 | embed the manifest resource explicitly in the external resource file. | |
2511 | ||
2512 | This change also requests the Microsoft Common-Controls version 6.0 | |
2513 | (themed controls introduced in Windows XP) via the dependency list | |
72d4e865 | 2514 | in the assembly manifest. For VC8 and VC9 this is specified using the |
3ab3a109 JV |
2515 | C</manifestdependency> linker commandline option instead. |
2516 | ||
2517 | =item * | |
2518 | ||
2519 | Improved message window handling means that C<alarm> and C<kill> messages | |
2520 | will no longer be dropped under race conditions. | |
2521 | ||
2522 | =back | |
2523 | ||
2524 | =item cygwin | |
2525 | ||
2526 | =over 4 | |
2527 | ||
2528 | =item * | |
2529 | ||
2530 | Enable IPv6 support on cygwin 1.7 and newer | |
2531 | ||
2532 | =back | |
2533 | ||
2534 | =item OpenVMS | |
2535 | ||
2536 | =over 4 | |
2537 | ||
2538 | =item * | |
2539 | ||
2540 | Make -UDEBUGGING the default on VMS for 5.12.0. | |
2541 | ||
72d4e865 | 2542 | Like it has been everywhere else for ages and ages. Also make |
3ab3a109 JV |
2543 | command-line selection of -UDEBUGGING and -DDEBUGGING work in |
2544 | configure.com; before the only way to turn it off was by saying | |
2545 | no in answer to the interactive question. | |
2546 | ||
2547 | =item * | |
2548 | ||
2549 | The default pipe buffer size on VMS has been updated to 8192 on 64-bit | |
2550 | systems. | |
2551 | ||
2552 | =item * | |
2553 | ||
2554 | Reads from the in-memory temporary files of C<PerlIO::scalar> used to fail | |
2555 | if C<$/> was set to a numeric reference (to indicate record-style reads). | |
2556 | This is now fixed. | |
2557 | ||
2558 | =item * | |
2559 | ||
2560 | VMS now supports C<getgrgid>. | |
2561 | ||
2562 | =item * | |
2563 | ||
2564 | Many improvements and cleanups have been made to the VMS file name handling | |
2565 | and conversion code. | |
2566 | ||
2567 | =item * | |
2568 | ||
2569 | Enabling the C<PERL_VMS_POSIX_EXIT> logical name now encodes a POSIX exit | |
2570 | status in a VMS condition value for better interaction with GNV's bash | |
72d4e865 | 2571 | shell and other utilities that depend on POSIX exit values. See |
3ab3a109 JV |
2572 | L<perlvms/"$?"> for details. |
2573 | ||
2574 | =item * | |
2575 | ||
2576 | C<File::Copy> now detects Unix compatibility mode on VMS. | |
2577 | ||
2578 | =back | |
2579 | ||
2580 | =item AIX | |
2581 | ||
2582 | Removed F<libbsd> for AIX 5L and 6.1. Only C<flock()> was used from F<libbsd>. | |
2583 | ||
2584 | Removed F<libgdbm> for AIX 5L and 6.1. The F<libgdbm> is delivered as an | |
2585 | optional package with the AIX Toolbox. Unfortunately the 64 bit version | |
2586 | is broken. | |
2587 | ||
2588 | Hints changes mean that AIX 4.2 should work again. | |
2589 | ||
2590 | =item Cygwin | |
2591 | ||
2592 | On Cygwin we now strip the last number from the DLL. This has been the | |
2593 | behaviour in the cygwin.com build for years. The hints files have been | |
2594 | updated. | |
2595 | ||
2596 | ||
2597 | =item FreeBSD | |
2598 | ||
2599 | The hints files now identify the correct threading libraries on FreeBSD 7 | |
2600 | and later. | |
2601 | ||
2602 | =item Irix | |
2603 | ||
2604 | We now work around a bizarre preprocessor bug in the Irix 6.5 compiler: | |
2605 | C<cc -E -> unfortunately goes into K&R mode, but C<cc -E file.c> doesn't. | |
2606 | ||
2607 | =item NetBSD | |
2608 | ||
2609 | Hints now supports versions 5.*. | |
2610 | ||
2611 | =item Stratus VOS | |
2612 | ||
2613 | Various changes from Stratus have been merged in. | |
2614 | ||
2615 | =item Symbian | |
2616 | ||
2617 | There is now support for Symbian S60 3.2 SDK and S60 5.0 SDK. | |
2618 | ||
2619 | =back | |
2620 | ||
2621 | =head1 Known Problems | |
2622 | ||
2623 | This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions | |
72d4e865 | 2624 | from either 5.10.x or 5.8.x. |
3ab3a109 JV |
2625 | |
2626 | =over 4 | |
2627 | ||
2628 | =item * | |
2629 | ||
2630 | C<List::Util::first> misbehaves in the presence of a lexical C<$_> | |
2631 | (typically introduced by C<my $_> or implicitly by C<given>). The variable | |
2632 | which gets set for each iteration is the package variable C<$_>, not the | |
2633 | lexical C<$_> [RT #67694]. | |
2634 | ||
2635 | A similar issue may occur in other modules that provide functions which | |
2636 | take a block as their first argument, like | |
2637 | ||
2638 | foo { ... $_ ...} list | |
2639 | ||
2640 | =item * | |
2641 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
2642 | Some regexes may run much more slowly when run in a child thread compared |
2643 | with the thread the pattern was compiled into [RT #55600]. | |
2644 | ||
2645 | =item * | |
2646 | ||
3d3a8206 KW |
2647 | Things like C<"\N{LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF}" =~ /\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER F}+/> |
2648 | will appear to hang as they get into a very long running loop [RT #72998]. | |
2649 | ||
2650 | =item * | |
2651 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
2652 | Untriaged test crashes on Windows 2000 |
2653 | ||
72d4e865 | 2654 | Several porters have reported mysterious crashes when Perl's entire test suite is run after a build on certain Windows 2000 systems. When run by hand, the individual tests reportedly work fine. |
3ab3a109 JV |
2655 | |
2656 | =item * | |
2657 | ||
2658 | Known test failures on VMS | |
2659 | ||
2660 | Perl 5.11.1 fails a small set of core and CPAN tests as of this release. | |
2661 | With luck, that'll be sorted out for 5.11.2 | |
2662 | ||
3ab3a109 JV |
2663 | =back |
2664 | ||
2665 | =head1 Acknowledgements | |
2666 | ||
2667 | Perl 5.12.0 represents approximately two years of development since | |
2668 | Perl 5.10.0 and contains __ lines of changes across ___ files | |
2669 | from __ authors and committers: | |
2670 | ||
2671 | XXX TODO LIST | |
2672 | ||
2673 | Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN | |
2674 | modules included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN | |
2675 | community for helping Perl to flourish. | |
2676 | ||
2677 | =head1 Reporting Bugs | |
2678 | ||
2679 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles | |
2680 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl | |
72d4e865 | 2681 | bug database at L<http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/>. There may also be |
3ab3a109 JV |
2682 | information at L<http://www.perl.org/>, the Perl Home Page. |
2683 | ||
2684 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> | |
72d4e865 JV |
2685 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
2686 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the | |
3ab3a109 JV |
2687 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
2688 | analyzed by the Perl porting team. | |
2689 | ||
2690 | If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it | |
2691 | inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send | |
2692 | it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription | |
2693 | unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able | |
2694 | to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help | |
2695 | co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all | |
2696 | platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for | |
2697 | security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently | |
2698 | distributed on CPAN. | |
2699 | ||
2700 | =head1 SEE ALSO | |
2701 | ||
2702 | The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details | |
2703 | on what changed. | |
2704 | ||
2705 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. | |
2706 | ||
2707 | The F<README> file for general stuff. | |
2708 | ||
2709 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. | |
2710 | ||
2711 | =cut |