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ba370e9b | 1 | =head1 NAME |
cc0fca54 | 2 | |
f39f21d8 | 3 | perldelta - what is new for perl v5.8.0 |
cc0fca54 GS |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
6 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
7 | This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release and the |
8 | 5.8.0 release. | |
9 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
10 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
11 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
12 | =head2 64-bit platforms and malloc |
13 | ||
057b7f2b | 14 | If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no longer being |
c2e23569 | 15 | used because it does not work well with 8-byte pointers. Also, |
61947107 | 16 | usually the system mallocs on such platforms are much better optimized |
c2e23569 JH |
17 | for such large memory models than the Perl malloc. Some memory-hungry |
18 | Perl applications like the PDL don't work well with Perl's malloc. | |
19 | Finally, other applications than Perl (like modperl) tend to prefer | |
20 | the system malloc. Such platforms include Alpha and 64-bit HPPA, | |
21 | MIPS, PPC, and Sparc. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
22 | |
23 | =head2 AIX Dynaloading | |
24 | ||
25 | The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native | |
26 | dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This | |
27 | change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled | |
28 | modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other | |
29 | applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface. | |
30 | ||
31 | =head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS | |
32 | ||
33 | The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being | |
34 | statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient | |
35 | TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test | |
36 | Perl in such configurations. | |
37 | ||
38 | =head2 Different Definition of the Unicode Character Classes \p{In...} | |
39 | ||
40 | As suggested by the Unicode consortium, the Unicode character classes | |
41 | now prefer I<scripts> as opposed to I<blocks> (as defined by Unicode); | |
42 | in Perl, when the C<\p{In....}> and the C<\p{In....}> regular expression | |
43 | constructs are used. This has changed the definition of some of those | |
44 | character classes. | |
45 | ||
46 | The difference between scripts and blocks is that scripts are the | |
47 | glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while the blocks | |
48 | are more artificial groupings of 256 characters based on the Unicode | |
49 | numbering. | |
50 | ||
51 | In general this change results in more inclusive Unicode character | |
52 | classes, but changes to the other direction also do take place: | |
53 | for example while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin | |
54 | characters and their various diacritic-adorned versions, it | |
55 | does not include the various punctuation or digits (since they | |
56 | are not solely C<Latin>). | |
57 | ||
58 | Changes in the character class semantics may have happened if a script | |
59 | and a block happen to have the same name, for example C<Hebrew>. | |
60 | In such cases the script wins and C<\p{InHebrew}> now means the script | |
61 | definition of Hebrew. The block definition in still available, | |
62 | though, by appending C<Block> to the name: C<\p{InHebrewBlock}> means | |
63 | what C<\p{InHebrew}> meant in perl 5.6.0. For the full list | |
64 | of affected character classes, see L<perlunicode/Blocks>. | |
65 | ||
61947107 JH |
66 | =head2 Perl Parser Stress Tested |
67 | ||
68 | The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and | |
69 | Markov chain input and the few found crashes and lockups have been | |
70 | fixed. | |
71 | ||
c2e23569 | 72 | =head2 REF(...) Instead Of SCALAR(...) |
77c8cf41 | 73 | |
057b7f2b | 74 | A reference to a reference now stringifies as "REF(0x81485ec)" instead |
c2e23569 JH |
75 | of "SCALAR(0x81485ec)" in order to be more consistent with the return |
76 | value of ref(). | |
77c8cf41 | 77 | |
c2e23569 | 78 | =head2 Deprecations |
77c8cf41 | 79 | |
61947107 | 80 | =over 4 |
77c8cf41 | 81 | |
61947107 | 82 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 83 | |
61947107 JH |
84 | The semantics of bless(REF, REF) were unclear and until someone proves |
85 | it to make some sense, it is forbidden. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
86 | |
87 | =item * | |
88 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
89 | The obsolete chat2 library that should never have been allowed |
90 | to escape the laboratory has been decommissioned. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
91 | |
92 | =item * | |
93 | ||
61947107 JH |
94 | The very dusty examples in the eg/ directory have been removed. |
95 | Suggestions for new shiny examples welcome but the main issue is that | |
96 | the examples need to be documented, tested and (most importantly) | |
97 | maintained. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
98 | |
99 | =item * | |
100 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
101 | The (bogus) escape sequences \8 and \9 now give an optional warning |
102 | ("Unrecognized escape passed through"). There is no need to \-escape | |
103 | any C<\w> character. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
104 | |
105 | =item * | |
106 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
107 | The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted |
108 | alphabetically to be csh-compliant. (bsd_glob() does still sort platform | |
109 | natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.) | |
f39f21d8 JH |
110 | |
111 | =item * | |
112 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
113 | Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that |
114 | depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new | |
115 | algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order. | |
116 | More details are in L</"Performance Enhancements">. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
117 | |
118 | =item * | |
119 | ||
61947107 JH |
120 | lstat(FILEHANDLE) now gives a warning because the operation makes no sense. |
121 | In future releases this may become a fatal error. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
122 | |
123 | =item * | |
124 | ||
057b7f2b | 125 | The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument) has been |
c2e23569 JH |
126 | deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its |
127 | implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to | |
128 | disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead. | |
61947107 JH |
129 | |
130 | =item * | |
131 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
132 | The unimplemented POSIX regex features [[.cc.]] and [[=c=]] are still |
133 | recognised but now cause fatal errors. The previous behaviour of | |
134 | ignoring them by default and warning if requested was unacceptable | |
135 | since it, in a way, falsely promised that the features could be used. | |
61947107 JH |
136 | |
137 | =item * | |
138 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
139 | The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird |
140 | use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0 | |
141 | and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be | |
142 | implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather | |
143 | ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash | |
144 | use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain | |
145 | available. | |
61947107 JH |
146 | |
147 | =item * | |
148 | ||
aecce728 | 149 | The syntaxes C<< @a->[...] >> and C<< %h->{...} >> have now been deprecated. |
61947107 JH |
150 | |
151 | =item * | |
152 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
153 | After years of trying the suidperl is considered to be too complex to |
154 | ever be considered truly secure. The suidperl functionality is likely | |
155 | to be removed in a future release. | |
156 | ||
157 | =item * | |
158 | ||
159 | The long deprecated uppercase aliases for the string comparison | |
160 | operators (EQ, NE, LT, LE, GE, GT) have now been removed. | |
161 | ||
162 | =item * | |
163 | ||
164 | The tr///C and tr///U features have been removed and will not return; | |
165 | the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar | |
166 | functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...). | |
f39f21d8 JH |
167 | |
168 | =back | |
169 | ||
61947107 JH |
170 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
171 | ||
77c8cf41 | 172 | =head2 PerlIO is Now The Default |
f39f21d8 JH |
173 | |
174 | =over 4 | |
175 | ||
176 | =item * | |
177 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
178 | IO is now by default done via PerlIO rather than system's "stdio". |
179 | PerlIO allows "layers" to be "pushed" onto a file handle to alter the | |
180 | handle's behaviour. Layers can be specified at open time via 3-arg | |
181 | form of open: | |
f39f21d8 | 182 | |
77c8cf41 | 183 | open($fh,'>:crlf :utf8', $path) || ... |
f39f21d8 | 184 | |
77c8cf41 | 185 | or on already opened handles via extended C<binmode>: |
f39f21d8 | 186 | |
77c8cf41 | 187 | binmode($fh,':encoding(iso-8859-7)'); |
f39f21d8 | 188 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
189 | The built-in layers are: unix (low level read/write), stdio (as in |
190 | previous Perls), perlio (re-implementation of stdio buffering in a | |
191 | portable manner), crlf (does CRLF <=> "\n" translation as on Win32, | |
192 | but available on any platform). A mmap layer may be available if | |
193 | platform supports it (mostly UNIXes). | |
f39f21d8 | 194 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
195 | Layers to be applied by default may be specified via the 'open' pragma. |
196 | ||
197 | See L</"Installation and Configuration Improvements"> for the effects | |
198 | of PerlIO on your architecture name. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
199 | |
200 | =item * | |
201 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
202 | File handles can be marked as accepting Perl's internal encoding of Unicode |
203 | (UTF-8 or UTF-EBCDIC depending on platform) by a pseudo layer ":utf8" : | |
f39f21d8 | 204 | |
77c8cf41 | 205 | open($fh,">:utf8","Uni.txt"); |
f39f21d8 | 206 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
207 | Note for EBCDIC users: the pseudo layer ":utf8" is erroneously named |
208 | for you since it's not UTF-8 what you will be getting but instead | |
209 | UTF-EBCDIC. See L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>, and | |
210 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ for more information. | |
211 | In future releases this naming may change. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
212 | |
213 | =item * | |
214 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
215 | File handles can translate character encodings from/to Perl's internal |
216 | Unicode form on read/write via the ":encoding()" layer. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
217 | |
218 | =item * | |
219 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
220 | File handles can be opened to "in memory" files held in Perl scalars via: |
221 | ||
222 | open($fh,'>', \$variable) || ... | |
f39f21d8 JH |
223 | |
224 | =item * | |
225 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
226 | Anonymous temporary files are available without need to |
227 | 'use FileHandle' or other module via | |
f39f21d8 | 228 | |
77c8cf41 | 229 | open($fh,"+>", undef) || ... |
f39f21d8 | 230 | |
77c8cf41 | 231 | That is a literal undef, not an undefined value. |
f39f21d8 JH |
232 | |
233 | =item * | |
234 | ||
77c8cf41 | 235 | The list form of C<open> is now implemented for pipes (at least on UNIX): |
f39f21d8 | 236 | |
77c8cf41 | 237 | open($fh,"-|", 'cat', '/etc/motd') |
f39f21d8 | 238 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
239 | creates a pipe, and runs the equivalent of exec('cat', '/etc/motd') in |
240 | the child process. | |
f39f21d8 | 241 | |
e1f170bd | 242 | =back |
f39f21d8 | 243 | |
e1f170bd | 244 | =head2 Signals Are Now Safe |
f39f21d8 | 245 | |
e1f170bd JH |
246 | Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments |
247 | could corrupt Perl's internal state. Now Perl postpones handling of | |
248 | signals until it's safe. | |
f39f21d8 | 249 | |
e1f170bd | 250 | =head2 Unicode Overhaul |
f39f21d8 | 251 | |
e1f170bd JH |
252 | Unicode in general should be now much more usable than in Perl 5.6.0 |
253 | (or even in 5.6.1). Unicode can be used in hash keys, Unicode in | |
254 | regular expressions should work now, Unicode in tr/// should work now, | |
255 | Unicode in I/O should work now. | |
f39f21d8 | 256 | |
e1f170bd | 257 | =over 4 |
f39f21d8 JH |
258 | |
259 | =item * | |
260 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
261 | The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded |
262 | to Unicode 3.1.1. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
263 | |
264 | =item * | |
265 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
266 | For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities: |
267 | almost all the UCD files are included with the Perl distribution in | |
e1f170bd | 268 | the lib/unicore subdirectory. The most notable omission, for space |
77c8cf41 | 269 | considerations, is the Unihan database. |
f39f21d8 JH |
270 | |
271 | =item * | |
272 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
273 | The Unicode character classes \p{Blank} and \p{SpacePerl} have been |
274 | added. "Blank" is like C isblank(), that is, it contains only | |
275 | "horizontal whitespace" (the space character is, the newline isn't), | |
276 | and the "SpacePerl" is the Unicode equivalent of C<\s> (\p{Space} | |
277 | isn't, since that includes the vertical tabulator character, whereas | |
278 | C<\s> doesn't.) | |
f39f21d8 JH |
279 | |
280 | =back | |
281 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
282 | =head2 Understanding of Numbers |
283 | ||
284 | In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's | |
285 | understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in | |
286 | many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()> | |
287 | and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their | |
288 | deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers. | |
f39f21d8 | 289 | |
e1f170bd JH |
290 | Perl now tries internally to use integer values in numeric conversions |
291 | and basic arithmetics (+ - * /) if the arguments are integers, and | |
292 | tries also to keep the results stored internally as integers. | |
057b7f2b | 293 | This change leads to often slightly faster and always less lossy |
e1f170bd JH |
294 | arithmetics. (Previously Perl always preferred floating point numbers |
295 | in its math.) | |
296 | ||
297 | =head2 Miscellaneous Enhancements | |
298 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
299 | =over 4 |
300 | ||
301 | =item * | |
302 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
303 | AUTOLOAD is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute |
304 | to AUTOLOAD subroutines and you can assign to the AUTOLOAD return value. | |
305 | ||
306 | =item * | |
307 | ||
61947107 JH |
308 | C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass |
309 | in multiple arguments.) | |
f39f21d8 JH |
310 | |
311 | =item * | |
312 | ||
61947107 JH |
313 | END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block. |
314 | Internally, the execution of END blocks is now controlled by | |
315 | PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new | |
316 | behaviour for Perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See | |
317 | L<perlembed>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
318 | |
319 | =item * | |
320 | ||
e1f170bd | 321 | Formats now support zero-padded decimal fields. |
f39f21d8 JH |
322 | |
323 | =item * | |
324 | ||
77c8cf41 | 325 | Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context. |
f39f21d8 JH |
326 | |
327 | =item * | |
328 | ||
61947107 JH |
329 | A new special regular expression variable has been introduced: |
330 | C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch). | |
f39f21d8 JH |
331 | |
332 | =item * | |
333 | ||
61947107 | 334 | C<no Module;> now works even if there is no "sub unimport" in the Module. |
f39f21d8 JH |
335 | |
336 | =item * | |
337 | ||
61947107 JH |
338 | The numerical comparison operators return C<undef> if either operand |
339 | is a NaN. Previously the behaviour was unspecified. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
340 | |
341 | =item * | |
342 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
343 | The following builtin functions are now overridable: each(), keys(), |
344 | pop(), push(), shift(), splice(), unshift(). | |
345 | ||
346 | =item * | |
347 | ||
61947107 | 348 | C<pack('U0a*', ...)> can now be used to force a string to UTF8. |
f39f21d8 JH |
349 | |
350 | =item * | |
351 | ||
61947107 | 352 | my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works. |
f39f21d8 JH |
353 | |
354 | =item * | |
355 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
356 | The printf() and sprintf() now support parameter reordering using the |
357 | C<%\d+\$> and C<*\d+\$> syntaxes. For example | |
358 | ||
359 | print "%2\$s %1\$s\n", "foo", "bar"; | |
360 | ||
361 | will print "bar foo\n"; This feature helps in writing | |
362 | internationalised software. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
363 | |
364 | =item * | |
365 | ||
e1f170bd | 366 | prototype(\&) is now available. |
61947107 JH |
367 | |
368 | =item * | |
369 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
370 | prototype(\[$@%&]) is now available to implicitly create references |
371 | (useful for example if you want to emulate the tie() interface). | |
61947107 JH |
372 | |
373 | =item * | |
374 | ||
e1f170bd | 375 | UNTIE method is now recognised. |
61947107 JH |
376 | |
377 | =item * | |
378 | ||
379 | L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the | |
380 | file timestamps to the current time. | |
381 | ||
382 | =item * | |
383 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
384 | The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants |
385 | have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore | |
386 | simply B<between digits>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
387 | |
388 | =back | |
389 | ||
77c8cf41 | 390 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
f39f21d8 | 391 | |
1e13d81f | 392 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata |
f39f21d8 JH |
393 | |
394 | =over 4 | |
395 | ||
396 | =item * | |
397 | ||
61947107 | 398 | C<Attribute::Handlers> allows a class to define attribute handlers. |
f39f21d8 | 399 | |
61947107 JH |
400 | package MyPack; |
401 | use Attribute::Handlers; | |
402 | sub Wolf :ATTR(SCALAR) { print "howl!\n" } | |
f39f21d8 | 403 | |
61947107 | 404 | # later, in some package using or inheriting from MyPack... |
f39f21d8 | 405 | |
61947107 | 406 | my MyPack $Fluffy : Wolf; # the attribute handler Wolf will be called |
ba370e9b | 407 | |
61947107 JH |
408 | Both variables and routines can have attribute handlers. Handlers can |
409 | be specific to type (SCALAR, ARRAY, HASH, or CODE), or specific to the | |
410 | exact compilation phase (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, or END). | |
f39f21d8 | 411 | |
61947107 | 412 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 413 | |
61947107 JH |
414 | B<B::Concise> is a new compiler backend for walking the Perl syntax |
415 | tree, printing concise info about ops, from Stephen McCamant. The | |
416 | output is highly customisable. See L<B::Concise>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
417 | |
418 | =item * | |
419 | ||
61947107 JH |
420 | C<Class::ISA> for reporting the search path for a class's ISA tree, |
421 | by Sean Burke, has been added. See L<Class::ISA>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
422 | |
423 | =item * | |
424 | ||
61947107 JH |
425 | C<Cwd> has now a split personality: if possible, an XS extension is |
426 | used, (this will hopefully be faster, more secure, and more robust) | |
427 | but if not possible, the familiar Perl implementation is used. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
428 | |
429 | =item * | |
430 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
431 | C<Devel::PPPort>, originally from Kenneth Albanowski and now |
432 | maintained by Paul Marquess, has been added. It is primarily used | |
433 | by C<h2xs> to enhance portability of of XS modules between different | |
434 | versions of Perl. | |
1e13d81f JH |
435 | |
436 | =item * | |
437 | ||
61947107 JH |
438 | C<Digest>, frontend module for calculating digests (checksums), from |
439 | Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
440 | |
441 | =item * | |
442 | ||
61947107 JH |
443 | C<Digest::MD5> for calculating MD5 digests (checksums) as defined in |
444 | RFC 1321, from Gisle Aas, has been added. See L<Digest::MD5>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
445 | |
446 | use Digest::MD5 'md5_hex'; | |
447 | ||
448 | $digest = md5_hex("Thirsty Camel"); | |
449 | ||
450 | print $digest, "\n"; # 01d19d9d2045e005c3f1b80e8b164de1 | |
451 | ||
61947107 | 452 | NOTE: the C<MD5> backward compatibility module is deliberately not |
e1f170bd | 453 | included since its further use is discouraged. |
f39f21d8 | 454 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
455 | =item * |
456 | ||
61947107 | 457 | C<Encode>, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides a mechanism to translate |
f39f21d8 JH |
458 | between different character encodings. Support for Unicode, |
459 | ISO-8859-*, ASCII, CP*, KOI8-R, and three variants of EBCDIC are | |
460 | compiled in to the module. Several other encodings (like Japanese, | |
461 | Chinese, and MacIntosh encodings) are included and will be loaded at | |
61947107 | 462 | runtime. See L<Encode>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
463 | |
464 | Any encoding supported by Encode module is also available to the | |
465 | ":encoding()" layer if PerlIO is used. | |
466 | ||
61947107 JH |
467 | =item * |
468 | ||
469 | C<I18N::Langinfo> can be use to query locale information. | |
470 | See L<I18N::Langinfo>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
471 | |
472 | =item * | |
473 | ||
61947107 | 474 | C<I18N::LangTags> has functions for dealing with RFC3066-style |
bea4d472 | 475 | language tags, by Sean Burke. See L<I18N::LangTags>. |
61947107 JH |
476 | |
477 | =item * | |
478 | ||
479 | C<ExtUtils::Constant> is a new tool for extension writers for | |
480 | generating XS code to import C header constants, by Nicholas Clark. | |
481 | See L<ExtUtils::Constant>. | |
482 | ||
483 | =item * | |
484 | ||
485 | C<Filter::Simple> is an easy-to-use frontend to Filter::Util::Call, | |
486 | from Damian Conway. See L<Filter::Simple>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
487 | |
488 | # in MyFilter.pm: | |
489 | ||
490 | package MyFilter; | |
491 | ||
492 | use Filter::Simple sub { | |
493 | while (my ($from, $to) = splice @_, 0, 2) { | |
494 | s/$from/$to/g; | |
495 | } | |
496 | }; | |
497 | ||
498 | 1; | |
499 | ||
500 | # in user's code: | |
501 | ||
502 | use MyFilter qr/red/ => 'green'; | |
503 | ||
504 | print "red\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "green\n" | |
505 | print "bored\n"; # this code is filtered, will print "bogreen\n" | |
506 | ||
507 | no MyFilter; | |
508 | ||
509 | print "red\n"; # this code is not filtered, will print "red\n" | |
510 | ||
61947107 JH |
511 | =item * |
512 | ||
513 | C<File::Temp> allows one to create temporary files and directories in | |
514 | an easy, portable, and secure way, by Tim Jenness. See L<File::Temp>. | |
515 | ||
516 | =item * | |
517 | ||
518 | C<Filter::Util::Call> provides you with the framework to write | |
519 | I<Source Filters> in Perl, from Paul Marquess. For most uses the | |
520 | frontend Filter::Simple is to be preferred. See L<Filter::Util::Call>. | |
521 | ||
522 | =item * | |
523 | ||
524 | L<libnet> is a collection of perl5 modules related to network | |
525 | programming, from Graham Barr. See L<Net::FTP>, L<Net::NNTP>, | |
526 | L<Net::Ping>, L<Net::POP3>, L<Net::SMTP>, and L<Net::Time>. | |
527 | ||
528 | Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
529 | |
530 | =item * | |
531 | ||
61947107 | 532 | C<List::Util> is a selection of general-utility list subroutines, like |
bea4d472 | 533 | sum(), min(), first(), and shuffle(), by Graham Barr. See L<List::Util>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
534 | |
535 | =item * | |
536 | ||
61947107 JH |
537 | C<Locale::Constants>, C<Locale::Country>, C<Locale::Currency>, and |
538 | C<Locale::Language>, from Neil Bowers, have been added. They provide the | |
539 | codes for various locale standards, such as "fr" for France, "usd" for | |
540 | US Dollar, and "jp" for Japanese. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
541 | |
542 | use Locale::Country; | |
543 | ||
544 | $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan' | |
545 | $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no' | |
546 | ||
547 | See L<Locale::Constants>, L<Locale::Country>, L<Locale::Currency>, | |
61947107 JH |
548 | and L<Locale::Language>. |
549 | ||
550 | =item * | |
551 | ||
552 | C<Locale::Maketext> is localization framework from Sean Burke. See | |
553 | L<Locale::Maketext>, and L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13>. The latter is an | |
554 | article about software localization, originally published in The Perl | |
555 | Journal #13, republished here with kind permission. | |
556 | ||
557 | =item * | |
558 | ||
559 | C<Memoize> can make your functions faster by trading space for time, | |
560 | from Mark-Jason Dominus. See L<Memoize>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
561 | |
562 | =item * | |
563 | ||
61947107 JH |
564 | C<MIME::Base64> allows you to encode data in base64, from Gisle Aas, |
565 | as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail | |
566 | Extensions)>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
567 | |
568 | use MIME::Base64; | |
569 | ||
570 | $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame'); | |
571 | $decoded = decode_base64($encoded); | |
572 | ||
573 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==" | |
574 | ||
61947107 | 575 | See L<MIME::Base64>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
576 | |
577 | =item * | |
578 | ||
61947107 JH |
579 | C<MIME::QuotedPrint> allows you to encode data in quoted-printable |
580 | encoding, as defined in RFC 2045 - I<MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail | |
581 | Extensions)>, from Gisle Aas. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
582 | |
583 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; | |
584 | ||
585 | $encoded = encode_qp("Smiley in Unicode: \x{263a}"); | |
586 | $decoded = decode_qp($encoded); | |
587 | ||
588 | print $encoded, "\n"; # "Smiley in Unicode: =263A" | |
589 | ||
590 | MIME::QuotedPrint has been enhanced to provide the basic methods | |
591 | necessary to use it with PerlIO::Via as in : | |
592 | ||
593 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; | |
057b7f2b | 594 | open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path); |
f39f21d8 | 595 | |
61947107 | 596 | See L<MIME::QuotedPrint>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
597 | |
598 | =item * | |
599 | ||
61947107 JH |
600 | C<NEXT> is pseudo-class for method redispatch, from Damian Conway. |
601 | See L<NEXT>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
602 | |
603 | =item * | |
604 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
605 | C<open> is a new pragma for setting the default I/O disciplines |
606 | for open(). | |
607 | ||
608 | =item * | |
609 | ||
61947107 JH |
610 | C<PerlIO::Scalar> provides the implementation of IO to "in memory" |
611 | Perl scalars as discussed above, from Nick Ing-Simmons. It also | |
612 | serves as an example of a loadable PerlIO layer. Other future | |
613 | possibilities include PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. | |
614 | See L<PerlIO::Scalar>. | |
615 | ||
616 | =item * | |
617 | ||
618 | C<PerlIO::Via> acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps PerlIO layer | |
619 | functionality provided by a class (typically implemented in perl | |
620 | code), from Nick Ing-Simmons. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
621 | |
622 | use MIME::QuotedPrint; | |
057b7f2b | 623 | open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path); |
f39f21d8 JH |
624 | |
625 | This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh> | |
61947107 | 626 | to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::Via>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
627 | |
628 | =item * | |
629 | ||
1e13d81f | 630 | C<Pod::ParseLink>, by Russ Allbery, has been added, |
e1f170bd | 631 | to parse L<> links in pods as described in the new |
1e13d81f JH |
632 | perlpodspec. |
633 | ||
634 | =item * | |
635 | ||
61947107 | 636 | C<Pod::Text::Overstrike>, by Joe Smith, has been added. |
f39f21d8 | 637 | It converts POD data to formatted overstrike text. |
61947107 | 638 | See L<Pod::Text::Overstrike>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
639 | |
640 | =item * | |
641 | ||
61947107 JH |
642 | C<Scalar::Util> is a selection of general-utility scalar subroutines, |
643 | like blessed(), reftype(), and tainted(). See L<Scalar::Util>. | |
644 | ||
645 | =item * | |
646 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
647 | C<sort> is a new pragma for controlling the behaviour of sort(). |
648 | ||
649 | =item * | |
650 | ||
61947107 JH |
651 | C<Storable> gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the |
652 | storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and | |
653 | compact binary format, from Raphael Manfredi. See L<Storable>. | |
654 | ||
655 | =item * | |
656 | ||
657 | C<Switch>, from Damian Conway, has been added. Just by saying | |
f39f21d8 JH |
658 | |
659 | use Switch; | |
660 | ||
661 | you have C<switch> and C<case> available in Perl. | |
662 | ||
663 | use Switch; | |
664 | ||
665 | switch ($val) { | |
666 | ||
667 | case 1 { print "number 1" } | |
668 | case "a" { print "string a" } | |
669 | case [1..10,42] { print "number in list" } | |
670 | case (@array) { print "number in list" } | |
671 | case /\w+/ { print "pattern" } | |
672 | case qr/\w+/ { print "pattern" } | |
673 | case (%hash) { print "entry in hash" } | |
674 | case (\%hash) { print "entry in hash" } | |
675 | case (\&sub) { print "arg to subroutine" } | |
676 | else { print "previous case not true" } | |
677 | } | |
678 | ||
61947107 JH |
679 | See L<Switch>. |
680 | ||
681 | =item * | |
682 | ||
683 | C<Test::More> is yet another framework for writing test scripts, | |
684 | more extensive than Test::Simple, by Michael Schwern. See L<Test::More>. | |
685 | ||
686 | =item * | |
687 | ||
aecce728 | 688 | C<Test::Simple> has basic utilities for writing tests, by Michael |
61947107 | 689 | Schwern. See L<Test::Simple>. |
77c8cf41 JH |
690 | |
691 | =item * | |
692 | ||
61947107 JH |
693 | C<Text::Balanced> has been added, for extracting delimited text |
694 | sequences from strings, from Damian Conway. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
695 | |
696 | use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited'; | |
697 | ||
698 | ($a, $b) = extract_delimited("'never say never', he never said", "'", ''); | |
699 | ||
700 | $a will be "'never say never'", $b will be ', he never said'. | |
701 | ||
702 | In addition to extract_delimited() there are also extract_bracketed(), | |
703 | extract_quotelike(), extract_codeblock(), extract_variable(), | |
704 | extract_tagged(), extract_multiple(), gen_delimited_pat(), and | |
705 | gen_extract_tagged(). With these you can implement rather advanced | |
61947107 | 706 | parsing algorithms. See L<Text::Balanced>. |
77c8cf41 JH |
707 | |
708 | =item * | |
709 | ||
c2e23569 | 710 | C<threads> is an interface to interpreter threads, by Arthur Bergman. |
61947107 | 711 | Interpreter threads (ithreads) is the new thread model introduced in |
c2e23569 JH |
712 | Perl 5.6 but only available as an internal interface for extension |
713 | writers (and for Win32 Perl for C<fork()> emulation). See L<threads>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
714 | |
715 | =item * | |
716 | ||
61947107 JH |
717 | C<threads::shared> allows data sharing for interpreter threads, from |
718 | Arthur Bergman. In the ithreads model any data sharing between | |
719 | threads must be explicit, as opposed to the old 5.005 thread model | |
720 | where data sharing was implicit. See L<threads::shared>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
721 | |
722 | =item * | |
723 | ||
61947107 | 724 | C<Tie::RefHash::Nestable>, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash |
ba370e9b JH |
725 | references (unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained |
726 | within Tie::RefHash, see L<Tie::RefHash>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
727 | |
728 | =item * | |
729 | ||
61947107 JH |
730 | C<Time::HiRes> provides high resolution timing (ualarm, usleep, |
731 | and gettimeofday), from Douglas E. Wegscheid. See L<Time::HiRes>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
732 | |
733 | =item * | |
734 | ||
61947107 JH |
735 | C<Unicode::UCD> offers a querying interface to the Unicode Character |
736 | Database. See L<Unicode::UCD>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
737 | |
738 | =item * | |
739 | ||
61947107 JH |
740 | C<Unicode::Collate> implements the UCA (Unicode Collation Algorithm) |
741 | for sorting Unicode strings, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Collate>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
742 | |
743 | =item * | |
744 | ||
61947107 JH |
745 | C<Unicode::Normalize> implements the various Unicode normalization |
746 | forms, by SADAHIRO Tomoyuki. See L<Unicode::Normalize>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
747 | |
748 | =item * | |
749 | ||
61947107 JH |
750 | C<XS::Typemap>, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises XS |
751 | typemaps. Nothing gets installed but for extension writers the code | |
752 | is worth studying. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
753 | |
754 | =back | |
755 | ||
756 | =head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata | |
757 | ||
758 | =over 4 | |
759 | ||
760 | =item * | |
761 | ||
61947107 JH |
762 | The following independently supported modules have been updated to the |
763 | newest versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, File::Temp, | |
764 | Getopt::Long, Math::BigFloat, Math::BigInt, the podlators bundle | |
765 | (Pod::Man, Pod::Text), Pod::LaTeX, Pod::Parser, Storable, | |
766 | Term::ANSIColor, Test, Text-Tabs+Wrap. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
767 | |
768 | =item * | |
769 | ||
61947107 | 770 | The attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments. |
77c8cf41 JH |
771 | |
772 | =item * | |
773 | ||
057b7f2b | 774 | AutoLoader can now be disabled with C<no AutoLoader;>. |
77c8cf41 JH |
775 | |
776 | =item * | |
777 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
778 | B::Deparse has been significantly enhanced. It now can deparse almost |
779 | all of the standard test suite (so that the tests still succeed). | |
780 | There is a make target "test.deparse" for trying this out. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
781 | |
782 | =item * | |
783 | ||
1e13d81f | 784 | Class::Struct can now define the classes in compile time. |
77c8cf41 JH |
785 | |
786 | =item * | |
787 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
788 | Class::Struct now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor |
789 | is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
790 | |
791 | =item * | |
792 | ||
1e13d81f | 793 | Data::Dumper has now an option to sort hashes. |
77c8cf41 JH |
794 | |
795 | =item * | |
796 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
797 | Data::Dumper has now an option to dump code references |
798 | using B::Deparse. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
799 | |
800 | =item * | |
801 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
802 | The English module can now be used without the infamous performance |
803 | hit by saying | |
77c8cf41 | 804 | |
1e13d81f | 805 | use English '-no_performance_hit'; |
77c8cf41 | 806 | |
1e13d81f JH |
807 | (Assuming, of course, that one doesn't need the troublesome variables |
808 | C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and | |
809 | C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
810 | |
811 | =item * | |
812 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
813 | Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten to use the |
814 | new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>). | |
815 | This means that they will be more robust and hopefully faster. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
816 | |
817 | =item * | |
818 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
819 | File::Find now has pre- and post-processing callbacks. It also |
820 | correctly changes directories when chasing symbolic links. Callbacks | |
821 | (naughtily) exiting with "next;" instead of "return;" now work. | |
61947107 JH |
822 | |
823 | =item * | |
824 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
825 | File::Find is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made |
826 | more portable. | |
77c8cf41 | 827 | |
61947107 JH |
828 | =item * |
829 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
830 | File::Glob::glob() renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob() to avoid |
831 | prototype mismatch with CORE::glob(). | |
61947107 JH |
832 | |
833 | =item * | |
834 | ||
835 | File::Glob now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the size of | |
836 | the returned list of filenames. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
837 | |
838 | =item * | |
839 | ||
840 | Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics | |
841 | (this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have | |
842 | compiled with debugging). | |
843 | ||
844 | =item * | |
845 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
846 | IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors. |
847 | ||
848 | =item * | |
849 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
850 | IO::Socket has now atmark() method, which returns true if the socket |
851 | is positioned at the out-of-band mark. The method is also exportable | |
852 | as a sockatmark() function. | |
853 | ||
854 | =item * | |
855 | ||
856 | IO::Socket::INET has support for ReusePort option (if your platform | |
857 | supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr. For clarity | |
858 | you may want to prefer ReuseAddr. | |
859 | ||
860 | =item * | |
861 | ||
61947107 JH |
862 | IO::Socket::INET now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning |
863 | that the operating system will make one up.) | |
77c8cf41 JH |
864 | |
865 | =item * | |
866 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
867 | use lib now works identically to @INC. Removing directories |
868 | with 'no lib' now works. | |
869 | ||
870 | =item * | |
871 | ||
872 | Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt have undergone a full rewrite. | |
873 | They are now magnitudes faster, and they support various | |
61947107 | 874 | bignum libraries such as GMP and PARI as their backends. |
f39f21d8 JH |
875 | |
876 | =item * | |
877 | ||
61947107 JH |
878 | Net::Ping has been enhanced. There is now "external" protocol which |
879 | uses Net::Ping::External module which runs external ping(1) and parses | |
880 | the output. An alpha version of Net::Ping::External is available in | |
881 | CPAN and in 5.7.2 the Net::Ping::External may be integrated to Perl. | |
f39f21d8 | 882 | |
77c8cf41 | 883 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 884 | |
c2e23569 | 885 | C<POSIX::sigaction()> is now much more flexible and robust. |
61947107 JH |
886 | You can now install coderef handlers, 'DEFAULT', and 'IGNORE' |
887 | handlers, installing new handlers was not atomic. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
888 | |
889 | =item * | |
890 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
891 | C<%INC> now localised in a Safe compartment so that use/require work. |
892 | ||
893 | =item * | |
894 | ||
895 | The Shell module now has an OO interface. | |
896 | ||
897 | =item * | |
898 | ||
61947107 | 899 | The Test module has been significantly enhanced. |
f39f21d8 JH |
900 | |
901 | =item * | |
902 | ||
61947107 | 903 | The C<vars> pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables. |
77c8cf41 | 904 | (Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.) |
f39f21d8 | 905 | |
888aee59 JH |
906 | =item * |
907 | ||
61947107 JH |
908 | The utf8:: name space (as in the pragma) provides various |
909 | Perl-callable functions to provide low level access to Perl's | |
910 | internal Unicode representation. At the moment only length() | |
911 | has been implemented. | |
888aee59 | 912 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
913 | =back |
914 | ||
77c8cf41 | 915 | =head1 Utility Changes |
f39f21d8 JH |
916 | |
917 | =over 4 | |
918 | ||
919 | =item * | |
920 | ||
61947107 | 921 | Emacs perl mode (emacs/cperl-mode.el) has been updated to version |
77c8cf41 | 922 | 4.31. |
f39f21d8 JH |
923 | |
924 | =item * | |
925 | ||
61947107 | 926 | F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster. |
f39f21d8 JH |
927 | |
928 | =item * | |
929 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
930 | C<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs. |
931 | ||
932 | =item * | |
933 | ||
934 | C<h2xs> now produces a template README. | |
f39f21d8 | 935 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
936 | =item * |
937 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
938 | C<h2xs> now uses C<Devel::PPort> for better portability between |
939 | different versions of Perl. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
940 | |
941 | =item * | |
942 | ||
1e13d81f | 943 | C<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect |
61947107 JH |
944 | newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is |
945 | more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a | |
946 | prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined), | |
947 | less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the | |
948 | old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants), | |
949 | and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your | |
950 | extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy). | |
951 | L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
952 | |
953 | =item * | |
954 | ||
1e13d81f | 955 | C<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet. |
f39f21d8 JH |
956 | |
957 | =item * | |
958 | ||
1e13d81f | 959 | C<perlbug> is now much more robust. It also sends the bug report to |
61947107 | 960 | perl.org, not perl.com. |
f39f21d8 JH |
961 | |
962 | =item * | |
963 | ||
1e13d81f | 964 | C<perlcc> has been rewritten and its user interface (that is, |
61947107 | 965 | command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc. |
f39f21d8 JH |
966 | |
967 | =item * | |
968 | ||
aecce728 JH |
969 | C<perlivp> is a new Installation Verification Procedure utility |
970 | for running any time after installing Perl. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
971 | |
972 | =item * | |
973 | ||
1e13d81f | 974 | C<pod2html> now allows specifying a cache directory. |
f39f21d8 JH |
975 | |
976 | =item * | |
977 | ||
1e13d81f JH |
978 | C<s2p> has been completely rewritten in Perl. (It is in fact a full |
979 | implementation of sed in Perl: you can use the sed functionality by | |
980 | using the C<psed> utility.) | |
61947107 JH |
981 | |
982 | =item * | |
983 | ||
1e13d81f | 984 | C<xsubpp> now understands POD documentation embedded in the *.xs files. |
f39f21d8 JH |
985 | |
986 | =item * | |
987 | ||
1e13d81f | 988 | C<xsubpp> now supports OUT keyword. |
f39f21d8 JH |
989 | |
990 | =back | |
991 | ||
77c8cf41 | 992 | =head1 New Documentation |
f39f21d8 JH |
993 | |
994 | =over 4 | |
995 | ||
996 | =item * | |
997 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
998 | perl56delta details the changes between the 5.005 release and the |
999 | 5.6.0 release. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1000 | |
1001 | =item * | |
1002 | ||
61947107 JH |
1003 | perlclib documents the internal replacements for standard C library |
1004 | functions. (Interesting only for extension writers and Perl core | |
1005 | hackers.) | |
1006 | ||
1007 | =item * | |
1008 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1009 | perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial. |
f39f21d8 | 1010 | |
77c8cf41 | 1011 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1012 | |
77c8cf41 | 1013 | perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms. |
f39f21d8 | 1014 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1015 | =item * |
1016 | ||
888aee59 JH |
1017 | perlintro is a gentle introduction to Perl. |
1018 | ||
1019 | =item * | |
1020 | ||
61947107 JH |
1021 | perliol documents the internals of PerlIO with layers. |
1022 | ||
1023 | =item * | |
1024 | ||
888aee59 JH |
1025 | perlmodstyle is a style guide for writing modules. |
1026 | ||
1027 | =item * | |
1028 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1029 | perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1030 | |
1031 | =item * | |
1032 | ||
34babc16 JH |
1033 | perlpacktut is a pack() tutorial. |
1034 | ||
1035 | =item * | |
1036 | ||
888aee59 JH |
1037 | perlpod has been rewritten to be clearer and to record the best |
1038 | practices gathered over the years. | |
1039 | ||
1040 | =item * | |
1041 | ||
057b7f2b | 1042 | perlpodspec is a more formal specification of the pod format, |
888aee59 JH |
1043 | mainly of interest for writers of pod applications, not to |
1044 | people writing in pod. | |
1045 | ||
1046 | =item * | |
1047 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1048 | perlretut is a regular expression tutorial. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1049 | |
1050 | =item * | |
1051 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1052 | perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide. |
1053 | Yes, much quicker than perlretut. | |
f39f21d8 | 1054 | |
77c8cf41 | 1055 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1056 | |
61947107 JH |
1057 | perltodo has been updated. |
1058 | ||
1059 | =item * | |
1060 | ||
888aee59 | 1061 | perltootc has been renamed as perltooc (to not to conflict |
61947107 | 1062 | with perltoot in filesystems restricted to "8.3" names) |
888aee59 JH |
1063 | |
1064 | =item * | |
1065 | ||
1066 | perluniintro is an introduction to using Unicode in Perl | |
1067 | (perlunicode is more of a reference) | |
1068 | ||
1069 | =item * | |
1070 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1071 | perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl |
1072 | distribution. | |
1073 | ||
1074 | =back | |
f39f21d8 | 1075 | |
61947107 JH |
1076 | The following platform-specific documents are available before |
1077 | the installation as README.I<platform>, and after the installation | |
1078 | as perlI<platform>: | |
f39f21d8 | 1079 | |
61947107 JH |
1080 | perlaix perlamiga perlapollo perlbeos perlbs2000 |
1081 | perlce perlcygwin perldgux perldos perlepoc perlhpux | |
1082 | perlhurd perlmachten perlmacos perlmint perlmpeix | |
1083 | perlnetware perlos2 perlos390 perlplan9 perlqnx perlsolaris | |
1084 | perltru64 perluts perlvmesa perlvms perlvos perlwin32 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1085 | |
1086 | =over 4 | |
1087 | ||
1088 | =item * | |
1089 | ||
61947107 JH |
1090 | The documentation for the POSIX-BC platform is called "BS2000", to avoid |
1091 | confusion with the Perl POSIX module. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1092 | |
1093 | =item * | |
1094 | ||
61947107 JH |
1095 | The documentation for the WinCE platform is called "CE", to avoid |
1096 | confusion with the perlwin32 documentation on 8.3-restricted filesystems. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1097 | |
1098 | =back | |
1099 | ||
1100 | =head1 Performance Enhancements | |
1101 | ||
1102 | =over 4 | |
1103 | ||
1104 | =item * | |
1105 | ||
1106 | map() that changes the size of the list should now work faster. | |
1107 | ||
1108 | =item * | |
1109 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1110 | sort() has been changed to use primarily mergesort internally as |
1111 | opposed to the earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may | |
1112 | result in slightly slower sorting times, but in general the speedup | |
1113 | should be at least 20%. Additional bonuses are that the worst case | |
1114 | behaviour of sort() is now better (in computer science terms it now | |
1115 | runs in time O(N log N), as opposed to quicksort's Theta(N**2) | |
1116 | worst-case run time behaviour), and that sort() is now stable | |
1117 | (meaning that elements with identical keys will stay ordered as they | |
1118 | were before the sort). See the C<sort> pragma for information. | |
77c8cf41 | 1119 | |
05e25c75 JH |
1120 | The story in more detail: suppose you want to serve yourself a little |
1121 | slice of Pi. | |
1122 | ||
1123 | @digits = ( 3,1,4,1,5,9 ); | |
1124 | ||
1125 | A numerical sort of the digits will yield (1,1,3,4,5,9), as expected. | |
1126 | Which C<1> comes first is hard to know, since one C<1> looks pretty | |
1127 | much like any other. You can regard this as totally trivial, | |
1128 | or somewhat profound. However, if you just want to sort the even | |
1129 | digits ahead of the odd ones, then what will | |
1130 | ||
1131 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } @digits; | |
1132 | ||
1133 | yield? The only even digit, C<4>, will come first. But how about | |
1134 | the odd numbers, which all compare equal? With the quicksort algorithm | |
1135 | used to implement Perl 5.6 and earlier, the order of ties is left up | |
1136 | to the sort. So, as you add more and more digits of Pi, the order | |
1137 | in which the sorted even and odd digits appear will change. | |
1138 | and, for sufficiently large slices of Pi, the quicksort algorithm | |
1139 | in Perl 5.8 won't return the same results even if reinvoked with the | |
1140 | same input. The justification for this rests with quicksort's | |
1141 | worst case behavior. If you run | |
1142 | ||
1143 | sort { $a <=> $b } ( 1 .. $N , 1 .. $N ); | |
1144 | ||
1145 | (something you might approximate if you wanted to merge two sorted | |
1146 | arrays using sort), doubling $N doesn't just double the quicksort time, | |
1147 | it I<quadruples> it. Quicksort has a worst case run time that can | |
1148 | grow like N**2, so-called I<quadratic> behaviour, and it can happen | |
1149 | on patterns that may well arise in normal use. You won't notice this | |
1150 | for small arrays, but you I<will> notice it with larger arrays, | |
1151 | and you may not live long enough for the sort to complete on arrays | |
1152 | of a million elements. So the 5.8 quicksort scrambles large arrays | |
1153 | before sorting them, as a statistical defence against quadratic behaviour. | |
1154 | But that means if you sort the same large array twice, ties may be | |
1155 | broken in different ways. | |
1156 | ||
1157 | Because of the unpredictability of tie-breaking order, and the quadratic | |
1158 | worst-case behaviour, quicksort was I<almost> replaced completely with | |
1159 | a stable mergesort. I<Stable> means that ties are broken to preserve | |
1160 | the original order of appearance in the input array. So | |
1161 | ||
1162 | sort { ($a % 2) <=> ($b % 2) } (3,1,4,1,5,9); | |
1163 | ||
1164 | will yield (4,3,1,1,5,9), guaranteed. The even and odd numbers | |
1165 | appear in the output in the same order they appeared in the input. | |
1166 | Mergesort has worst case O(NlogN) behaviour, the best value | |
1167 | attainable. And, ironically, this mergesort does particularly | |
1168 | well where quicksort goes quadratic: mergesort sorts (1..$N, 1..$N) | |
1169 | in O(N) time. But quicksort was rescued at the last moment because | |
1170 | it is faster than mergesort on certain inputs and platforms. | |
1171 | For example, if you really I<don't> care about the order of even | |
1172 | and odd digits, quicksort will run in O(N) time; it's very good | |
1173 | at sorting many repetitions of a small number of distinct elements. | |
1174 | The quicksort divide and conquer strategy works well on platforms | |
1175 | with relatively small, very fast, caches. Eventually, the problem gets | |
1176 | whittled down to one that fits in the cache, from which point it | |
1177 | benefits from the increased memory speed. | |
1178 | ||
1179 | Quicksort was rescued by implementing a sort pragma to control aspects | |
1180 | of the sort. The B<stable> subpragma forces stable behaviour, | |
1181 | regardless of algorithm. The B<_quicksort> and B<_mergesort> | |
1182 | subpragmas are heavy-handed ways to select the underlying implementation. | |
1183 | The leading C<_> is a reminder that these subpragmas may not survive | |
1184 | beyond 5.8. More appropriate mechanisms for selecting the implementation | |
1185 | exist, but they wouldn't have arrived in time to save quicksort. | |
1186 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1187 | =item * |
1188 | ||
1189 | Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm | |
1190 | (http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html). This algorithm is | |
1191 | reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than | |
1192 | the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by | |
1193 | Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of | |
1194 | all 3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the | |
1195 | DIEHARD random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this | |
1196 | change has not affected the overall speed of Perl. | |
1197 | ||
1198 | =item * | |
1199 | ||
1200 | unshift() should now be noticeably faster. | |
1201 | ||
1202 | =back | |
1203 | ||
1204 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements | |
1205 | ||
1206 | =head2 Generic Improvements | |
1207 | ||
1208 | =over 4 | |
1209 | ||
1210 | =item * | |
1211 | ||
1212 | INSTALL now explains how you can configure Perl to use 64-bit | |
1213 | integers even on non-64-bit platforms. | |
1214 | ||
1215 | =item * | |
1216 | ||
1217 | Policy.sh policy change: if you are reusing a Policy.sh file | |
1218 | (see INSTALL) and you use Configure -Dprefix=/foo/bar and in the old | |
1219 | Policy $prefix eq $siteprefix and $prefix eq $vendorprefix, all of | |
1220 | them will now be changed to the new prefix, /foo/bar. (Previously | |
1221 | only $prefix changed.) If you do not like this new behaviour, | |
1222 | specify prefix, siteprefix, and vendorprefix explicitly. | |
1223 | ||
1224 | =item * | |
1225 | ||
1226 | A new optional location for Perl libraries, otherlibdirs, is available. | |
1227 | It can be used for example for vendor add-ons without disturbing Perl's | |
1228 | own library directories. | |
1229 | ||
1230 | =item * | |
1231 | ||
1232 | In many platforms the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to | |
1233 | build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems | |
1234 | to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler | |
1235 | 'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead. | |
1236 | ||
1237 | =item * | |
1238 | ||
1239 | gcc needs to closely track the operating system release to avoid | |
1240 | build problems. If Configure finds that gcc was built for a different | |
1241 | operating system release than is running, it now gives a clearly visible | |
1242 | warning that there may be trouble ahead. | |
1243 | ||
1244 | =item * | |
1245 | ||
1246 | If binary compatibility with the 5.005 release is not wanted, Configure | |
1247 | no longer suggests including the 5.005 modules in @INC. | |
1248 | ||
1249 | =item * | |
1250 | ||
1251 | Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively. | |
1252 | ||
1253 | =item * | |
1254 | ||
1255 | configure.gnu now works with options with whitespace in them. | |
f39f21d8 | 1256 | |
77c8cf41 | 1257 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1258 | |
77c8cf41 | 1259 | installperl now outputs everything to STDERR. |
f39f21d8 | 1260 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1261 | =item * |
1262 | ||
1263 | $Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically (this is more robust | |
1264 | with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries for | |
1265 | more than one binary platform.) | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1266 | |
1267 | =item * | |
1268 | ||
1269 | Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, "-perlio" doesn't | |
1270 | get appended to the $Config{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore. | |
1271 | Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command | |
1272 | line option -Uuseperlio), you will get "-stdio" appended. | |
1273 | ||
1274 | =item * | |
1275 | ||
1276 | Another change related to the architecture name is that "-64all" | |
1277 | (-Duse64bitall, or "maximally 64-bit") is appended only if your | |
1278 | pointers are 64 bits wide. (To be exact, the use64bitall is ignored.) | |
1279 | ||
1280 | =item * | |
1281 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1282 | In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be |
1283 | somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure | |
1284 | parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>. | |
1285 | ||
1286 | =item * | |
1287 | ||
61947107 JH |
1288 | APPLLIB_EXP, a less-know configuration-time definition, has been |
1289 | documented. It can be used to prepend site-specific directories | |
1290 | to Perl's default search path (@INC), see INSTALL for information. | |
1291 | ||
1292 | =item * | |
1293 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1294 | The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the |
1295 | DB_File extension) was built is now available as | |
1296 | C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}> | |
1297 | from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG | |
1298 | DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C. | |
1299 | ||
1300 | =item * | |
1301 | ||
61947107 JH |
1302 | Building Berkeley DB3 for compatibility modes for DB, NDBM, and ODBM |
1303 | has been documented in INSTALL. | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1304 | |
1305 | =item * | |
1306 | ||
61947107 JH |
1307 | If you have CPAN access (either network or a local copy such as a |
1308 | CD-ROM) you can during specify extra modules to Configure to build and | |
1309 | install with Perl using the -Dextras=... option. See INSTALL for | |
1310 | more details. | |
f39f21d8 | 1311 | |
61947107 | 1312 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1313 | |
61947107 JH |
1314 | In addition to config.over a new override file, config.arch, is |
1315 | available. That is supposed to be used by hints file writers for | |
1316 | architecture-wide changes (as opposed to config.over which is for | |
1317 | site-wide changes). | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1318 | |
1319 | =item * | |
1320 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1321 | If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside |
1322 | of the source directory by | |
1323 | ||
1324 | mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory | |
1325 | cd /tmp/perl/build/directory | |
1326 | sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ... | |
1327 | ||
1328 | This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links | |
1329 | pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left | |
1330 | unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say | |
1331 | ||
1332 | make all test | |
1333 | ||
1334 | and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory. | |
1335 | ||
1336 | =item * | |
1337 | ||
61947107 JH |
1338 | For Perl developers several new make targets for profiling |
1339 | and debugging have been added, see L<perlhack>. | |
1340 | ||
1341 | =over 8 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1342 | |
1343 | =item * | |
1344 | ||
61947107 JH |
1345 | Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in |
1346 | L<perlhack>. There is a make target called "perl.gprof" for | |
1347 | generating a gprofiled Perl executable. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1348 | |
1349 | =item * | |
1350 | ||
61947107 JH |
1351 | If you have GCC 3, there is a make target called "perl.gcov" for |
1352 | creating a gcoved Perl executable for coverage analysis. See | |
1353 | L<perlhack>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1354 | |
1355 | =item * | |
1356 | ||
61947107 JH |
1357 | If you are on IRIX or Tru64 platforms, new profiling/debugging options |
1358 | have been added, see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and | |
1359 | Third Degree. | |
1360 | ||
1361 | =back | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1362 | |
1363 | =item * | |
1364 | ||
61947107 JH |
1365 | Guidelines of how to construct minimal Perl installations have |
1366 | been added to INSTALL. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1367 | |
1368 | =item * | |
1369 | ||
61947107 JH |
1370 | The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads |
1371 | (C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the | |
1372 | Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>). | |
f39f21d8 | 1373 | |
61947107 JH |
1374 | But note that the Thread.pm interface is now shared by both |
1375 | thread models. | |
f39f21d8 | 1376 | |
61947107 | 1377 | =back |
f39f21d8 | 1378 | |
61947107 | 1379 | =head2 New Or Improved Platforms |
f39f21d8 | 1380 | |
61947107 JH |
1381 | For the list of platforms known to support Perl, |
1382 | see L<perlport/"Supported Platforms">. | |
1383 | ||
1384 | =over 4 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1385 | |
1386 | =item * | |
1387 | ||
61947107 | 1388 | AIX dynamic loading should be now better supported. |
f39f21d8 | 1389 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1390 | =item * |
1391 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1392 | AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the |
1393 | long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1394 | |
1395 | =item * | |
1396 | ||
61947107 JH |
1397 | After a long pause, AmigaOS has been verified to be happy with Perl. |
1398 | ||
1399 | =item * | |
1400 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1401 | AtheOS (http://www.atheos.cx/) is a new platform. |
f39f21d8 | 1402 | |
77c8cf41 | 1403 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1404 | |
77c8cf41 | 1405 | DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1406 | |
1407 | =item * | |
1408 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1409 | DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1410 | |
1411 | =item * | |
1412 | ||
61947107 JH |
1413 | EBCDIC platforms (z/OS, also known as OS/390, POSIX-BC, and VM/ESA) |
1414 | have been regained. Many test suite tests still fail and the | |
1415 | co-existence of Unicode and EBCDIC isn't quite settled, but the | |
1416 | situation is much better than with Perl 5.6. See L<perlos390>, | |
1417 | L<perlbs2000> (for POSIX-BC), and L<perlvmesa> for more information. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1418 | |
1419 | =item * | |
1420 | ||
61947107 JH |
1421 | Building perl with -Duseithreads or -Duse5005threads now works under |
1422 | HP-UX 10.20 (previously it only worked under 10.30 or later). You will | |
1423 | need a thread library package installed. See README.hpux. | |
f39f21d8 | 1424 | |
77c8cf41 | 1425 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1426 | |
61947107 JH |
1427 | MacOS Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since |
1428 | perl 5.004 but now the source code bases of standard Perl | |
1429 | and MacPerl have been synchronised) | |
f39f21d8 | 1430 | |
77c8cf41 | 1431 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1432 | |
61947107 JH |
1433 | MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+ |
1434 | filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.) | |
f39f21d8 | 1435 | |
888aee59 JH |
1436 | =item * |
1437 | ||
61947107 | 1438 | NCR MP-RAS is now supported. |
888aee59 JH |
1439 | |
1440 | =item * | |
1441 | ||
61947107 | 1442 | NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>. |
888aee59 JH |
1443 | |
1444 | =item * | |
1445 | ||
61947107 | 1446 | NonStop-UX is now supported. |
888aee59 JH |
1447 | |
1448 | =item * | |
1449 | ||
61947107 | 1450 | Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported. |
888aee59 JH |
1451 | |
1452 | =item * | |
1453 | ||
61947107 JH |
1454 | WinCE is now supported. See L<perlce>. |
1455 | ||
1456 | =item * | |
1457 | ||
1458 | z/OS (formerly known as OS/390, formerly known as MVS OE) has now | |
1459 | support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default, | |
1460 | however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure. | |
888aee59 | 1461 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1462 | =back |
1463 | ||
1464 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes | |
1465 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1466 | Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been |
1467 | hunted down. Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite | |
1468 | a bit. | |
ba370e9b | 1469 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1470 | =over 4 |
1471 | ||
1472 | =item * | |
1473 | ||
e1f170bd | 1474 | The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1475 | |
1476 | =item * | |
1477 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1478 | chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in |
1479 | reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1480 | |
1481 | =item * | |
1482 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1483 | Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm) |
1484 | when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x, | |
1485 | which needs them. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1486 | |
1487 | =item * | |
1488 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1489 | The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as |
1490 | "0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35, | |
1491 | in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This | |
1492 | was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation | |
1493 | where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now | |
1494 | Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1495 | |
1496 | =item * | |
1497 | ||
e1f170bd | 1498 | The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1499 | |
1500 | =item * | |
1501 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1502 | Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code, |
1503 | condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks | |
1504 | line number, the C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, all debugger output now | |
1505 | goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1506 | |
1507 | =item * | |
1508 | ||
e1f170bd | 1509 | L<dprofpp> -R didn't work. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1510 | |
1511 | =item * | |
1512 | ||
e1f170bd | 1513 | C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1514 | |
1515 | =item * | |
1516 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1517 | UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke |
1518 | the Tk extension with 5.6.0.) | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1519 | |
1520 | =item * | |
1521 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1522 | Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved |
1523 | correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they | |
1524 | were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1525 | |
1526 | =item * | |
1527 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1528 | Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that |
1529 | were declared before the lexicals. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1530 | |
1531 | =item * | |
1532 | ||
e1f170bd | 1533 | Lexical warnings now propagating correctly between scopes. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1534 | |
1535 | =item * | |
1536 | ||
e1f170bd | 1537 | Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1538 | |
1539 | =item * | |
1540 | ||
e1f170bd | 1541 | Fixed numerous memory leaks, especially in eval "". |
f39f21d8 JH |
1542 | |
1543 | =item * | |
1544 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1545 | mkdir() now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name, |
1546 | as mandated by POSIX. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1547 | |
1548 | =item * | |
1549 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1550 | Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds |
1551 | with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness | |
1552 | and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have | |
1553 | fixed the modfl() bug. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1554 | |
1555 | =item * | |
1556 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1557 | Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to |
1558 | return 27406, instead of 27047). | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1559 | |
1560 | =item * | |
1561 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1562 | Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be |
1563 | more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number. | |
f39f21d8 | 1564 | |
77c8cf41 | 1565 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1566 | |
e1f170bd | 1567 | Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with our(). |
f39f21d8 JH |
1568 | |
1569 | =item * | |
1570 | ||
e1f170bd | 1571 | our() variables will not cause "will not stay shared" warnings. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1572 | |
1573 | =item * | |
1574 | ||
e1f170bd | 1575 | pack "Z" now correctly terminates the string with "\0". |
f39f21d8 JH |
1576 | |
1577 | =item * | |
1578 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1579 | Fix password routines which in some shadow password platforms |
1580 | (e.g. HP-UX) caused getpwent() to return every other entry. | |
f39f21d8 | 1581 | |
77c8cf41 | 1582 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1583 | |
e1f170bd JH |
1584 | The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments |
1585 | to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options. | |
f39f21d8 | 1586 | |
77c8cf41 | 1587 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1588 | |
e1f170bd | 1589 | PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work. |
f39f21d8 | 1590 | |
77c8cf41 | 1591 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1592 | |
e1f170bd | 1593 | printf() no longer resets the numeric locale to "C". |
f39f21d8 | 1594 | |
77c8cf41 | 1595 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1596 | |
e1f170bd | 1597 | C<q(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>. |
f39f21d8 | 1598 | |
77c8cf41 | 1599 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1600 | |
e1f170bd JH |
1601 | Printing quads (64-bit integers) with printf/sprintf now works |
1602 | without the q L ll prefixes (assuming you are on a quad-capable platform). | |
f39f21d8 | 1603 | |
77c8cf41 | 1604 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1605 | |
e1f170bd | 1606 | Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work. |
f39f21d8 | 1607 | |
ba370e9b JH |
1608 | =item * |
1609 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1610 | Right-hand side magic (GMAGIC) could in many cases such as string |
1611 | concatenation be invoked too many times. | |
ba370e9b JH |
1612 | |
1613 | =item * | |
1614 | ||
e1f170bd | 1615 | scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context. |
ba370e9b JH |
1616 | |
1617 | =item * | |
1618 | ||
e1f170bd | 1619 | SOCKS support is now much more robust. |
ba370e9b JH |
1620 | |
1621 | =item * | |
1622 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1623 | sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context |
1624 | (they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself). | |
ba370e9b JH |
1625 | |
1626 | =item * | |
1627 | ||
e1f170bd | 1628 | Changed the POSIX character class C<[[:space:]]> to include the (very |
c2e23569 JH |
1629 | rarely used) vertical tab character. Added a new POSIX-ish character |
1630 | class C<[[:blank:]]> which stands for horizontal whitespace | |
1631 | (currently, the space and the tab). | |
ba370e9b JH |
1632 | |
1633 | =item * | |
1634 | ||
1635 | The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does | |
1636 | not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the | |
1637 | behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation. | |
1638 | ||
1639 | =item * | |
1640 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
1641 | The regular expression captured submatches ($1, $2, ...) are now |
1642 | more consistently unset if the match fails, instead of leaving false | |
1643 | data lying around in them. | |
1644 | ||
1645 | =item * | |
1646 | ||
1647 | C<Sys::Syslog> ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant. | |
ba370e9b JH |
1648 | |
1649 | =item * | |
1650 | ||
e1f170bd | 1651 | All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional. |
ba370e9b JH |
1652 | |
1653 | =item * | |
1654 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1655 | $AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses |
1656 | in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe. | |
ba370e9b JH |
1657 | |
1658 | =item * | |
1659 | ||
e1f170bd | 1660 | Tie::ARRAY SPLICE method was broken. |
ba370e9b JH |
1661 | |
1662 | =item * | |
1663 | ||
e1f170bd | 1664 | Allow read-only string on left hand side of non-modifying tr///. |
ba370e9b JH |
1665 | |
1666 | =item * | |
1667 | ||
e1f170bd | 1668 | Several Unicode fixes. |
ba370e9b JH |
1669 | |
1670 | =over 8 | |
1671 | ||
1672 | =item * | |
1673 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1674 | BOMs (byte order marks) in the beginning of Perl files |
1675 | (scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped. | |
1676 | UTF-16 (UCS-2) encoded Perl files should now be read correctly. | |
ba370e9b JH |
1677 | |
1678 | =item * | |
1679 | ||
e1f170bd | 1680 | The character tables have been updated to Unicode 3.1.1. |
ba370e9b JH |
1681 | |
1682 | =item * | |
1683 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1684 | Comparing with utf8 data does not magically upgrade non-utf8 data |
1685 | into utf8. | |
ba370e9b JH |
1686 | |
1687 | =item * | |
1688 | ||
e1f170bd | 1689 | C<IsAlnum>, C<IsAlpha>, and C<IsWord> now match titlecase. |
f39f21d8 | 1690 | |
77c8cf41 | 1691 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1692 | |
e1f170bd JH |
1693 | Concatenation with the C<.> operator or via variable interpolation, |
1694 | C<eq>, C<substr>, C<reverse>, C<quotemeta>, the C<x> operator, | |
1695 | substitution with C<s///>, single-quoted UTF8, should now work. | |
f39f21d8 | 1696 | |
77c8cf41 | 1697 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1698 | |
e1f170bd JH |
1699 | The C<tr///> operator now works. Note that the C<tr///CU> |
1700 | functionality has been removed (but see pack('U0', ...)). | |
f39f21d8 | 1701 | |
77c8cf41 | 1702 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1703 | |
e1f170bd | 1704 | C<eval "v200"> now works. |
f39f21d8 | 1705 | |
77c8cf41 | 1706 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1707 | |
e1f170bd | 1708 | Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes like C<IsDigit>. |
f39f21d8 | 1709 | |
e1f170bd | 1710 | =back |
f39f21d8 | 1711 | |
77c8cf41 | 1712 | =back |
f39f21d8 | 1713 | |
77c8cf41 | 1714 | =head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes |
f39f21d8 JH |
1715 | |
1716 | =over 4 | |
1717 | ||
1718 | =item * | |
1719 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1720 | BSDI 4.* |
f39f21d8 | 1721 | |
77c8cf41 | 1722 | Perl now works on post-4.0 BSD/OSes. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1723 | |
1724 | =item * | |
1725 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1726 | All BSDs |
f39f21d8 | 1727 | |
057b7f2b | 1728 | Setting C<$0> now works (as much as possible; see L<perlvar> for details). |
f39f21d8 JH |
1729 | |
1730 | =item * | |
1731 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1732 | Cygwin |
f39f21d8 | 1733 | |
77c8cf41 | 1734 | Numerous updates; currently synchronised with Cygwin 1.1.4. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1735 | |
1736 | =item * | |
1737 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1738 | Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O. |
1739 | ||
1740 | =item * | |
1741 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1742 | EPOC |
f39f21d8 | 1743 | |
77c8cf41 | 1744 | EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1745 | |
1746 | =item * | |
1747 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1748 | FreeBSD 3.* |
f39f21d8 | 1749 | |
77c8cf41 | 1750 | Perl now works on post-3.0 FreeBSDs. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1751 | |
1752 | =item * | |
1753 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1754 | HP-UX |
1755 | ||
1756 | README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now almost works. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1757 | |
1758 | =item * | |
1759 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1760 | IRIX |
f39f21d8 | 1761 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1762 | Numerous compilation flag and hint enhancements; accidental mixing |
1763 | of 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (a doomed attempt) made much harder. | |
f39f21d8 | 1764 | |
77c8cf41 | 1765 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1766 | |
77c8cf41 | 1767 | Linux |
f39f21d8 | 1768 | |
e1f170bd JH |
1769 | =over 8 |
1770 | ||
1771 | =item * | |
1772 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1773 | Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL). |
f39f21d8 JH |
1774 | |
1775 | =item * | |
1776 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1777 | Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using |
1778 | accept(), revcfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and getsockname(). | |
1779 | ||
1780 | =back | |
1781 | ||
1782 | =item * | |
1783 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1784 | MacOS Classic |
f39f21d8 | 1785 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1786 | Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in MacOS Classic should |
1787 | now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and | |
1788 | the missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing | |
1789 | list for details. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1790 | |
1791 | =item * | |
1792 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1793 | MPE/iX |
f39f21d8 | 1794 | |
77c8cf41 | 1795 | MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1796 | |
1797 | =item * | |
1798 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1799 | NetBSD/sparc |
f39f21d8 | 1800 | |
77c8cf41 | 1801 | Perl now works on NetBSD/sparc. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1802 | |
1803 | =item * | |
1804 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1805 | OS/2 |
f39f21d8 | 1806 | |
77c8cf41 | 1807 | Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL). |
f39f21d8 JH |
1808 | |
1809 | =item * | |
1810 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1811 | Solaris |
f39f21d8 | 1812 | |
77c8cf41 | 1813 | 64-bitness using the Sun Workshop compiler now works. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1814 | |
1815 | =item * | |
1816 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1817 | Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1) |
f39f21d8 | 1818 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1819 | The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}. |
1820 | Allow compiling with gcc (previously explicitly forbidden). Compiling | |
1821 | with gcc still not recommended because buggy code results, even with | |
1822 | gcc 2.95.2. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1823 | |
1824 | =item * | |
1825 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1826 | Unicos |
1827 | ||
1828 | Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either | |
1829 | during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime; | |
1830 | now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using | |
1831 | only 46 bit integers for speed. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1832 | |
1833 | =item * | |
1834 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1835 | VMS |
1836 | ||
1837 | chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY | |
1838 | (see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1839 | |
1840 | =item * | |
1841 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1842 | Windows |
f39f21d8 | 1843 | |
77c8cf41 | 1844 | =over 8 |
f39f21d8 JH |
1845 | |
1846 | =item * | |
1847 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1848 | accept() no longer leaks memory. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1849 | |
1850 | =item * | |
1851 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1852 | Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl. |
1853 | However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those | |
1854 | generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++). | |
1855 | ||
1856 | =item * | |
1857 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1858 | Better chdir() return value for a non-existent directory. |
f39f21d8 | 1859 | |
77c8cf41 | 1860 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1861 | |
e1f170bd JH |
1862 | Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x. |
1863 | ||
1864 | =item * | |
1865 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1866 | New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1867 | |
1868 | =item * | |
1869 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1870 | $ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C. |
1871 | ||
1872 | =item * | |
1873 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1874 | Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root. |
1875 | Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed. | |
1876 | ||
1877 | =item * | |
1878 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1879 | A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1880 | |
1881 | =item * | |
1882 | ||
e1f170bd JH |
1883 | HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html |
1884 | ||
1885 | =item * | |
1886 | ||
1887 | The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features | |
1888 | enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular Win32 binary distribution). | |
1889 | ||
1890 | =item * | |
1891 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1892 | Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1893 | |
1894 | =item * | |
1895 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1896 | Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1897 | |
1898 | =item * | |
1899 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1900 | Fake signal handling reenabled, bugs and all. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1901 | |
1902 | =item * | |
1903 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1904 | Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run |
1905 | concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.) | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1906 | |
1907 | =item * | |
1908 | ||
c2e23569 | 1909 | C<File::Spec->tmpdir()> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp |
77c8cf41 | 1910 | (works better when perl is running as service). |
f39f21d8 JH |
1911 | |
1912 | =item * | |
1913 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1914 | Better UNC path handling under ithreads. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1915 | |
1916 | =item * | |
1917 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1918 | wait() and waitpid() now work much better. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1919 | |
1920 | =item * | |
1921 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1922 | winsock handle leak fixed. |
f39f21d8 JH |
1923 | |
1924 | =back | |
1925 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1926 | =back |
f39f21d8 | 1927 | |
77c8cf41 | 1928 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
f39f21d8 | 1929 | |
ba370e9b JH |
1930 | =over 4 |
1931 | ||
1932 | =item * | |
1933 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1934 | All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully |
1935 | easier to understand both because the error message now comes before | |
1936 | the failed regex and because the point of failure is now clearly | |
ba370e9b JH |
1937 | marked by a C<E<lt>-- HERE> marker. |
1938 | ||
1939 | =item * | |
f39f21d8 | 1940 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1941 | The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings |
1942 | drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package, | |
bea4d472 | 1943 | for example C<STDIN> instead of C<main::STDIN>. |
f39f21d8 | 1944 | |
ba370e9b JH |
1945 | =item * |
1946 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1947 | The "Unrecognized escape" warning has been extended to include C<\8>, |
1948 | C<\9>, and C<\_>. There is no need to escape any of the C<\w> characters. | |
f39f21d8 | 1949 | |
ba370e9b | 1950 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 1951 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
1952 | Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your |
1953 | Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace | |
1954 | tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables, | |
1955 | respectively. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1956 | |
1957 | =item * | |
1958 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1959 | If an attempt to use a (non-blessed) reference as an array index |
1960 | is made, a warning is given. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1961 | |
1962 | =item * | |
1963 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1964 | C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift) |
1965 | now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled | |
1966 | code. | |
f39f21d8 | 1967 | |
ba370e9b JH |
1968 | =item * |
1969 | ||
1970 | If you try to L<perlfunc/pack> a number less than 0 or larger than 255 | |
1971 | using the C<"C"> format you will get an optional warning. Similarly | |
1972 | for the C<"c"> format and a number less than -128 or more than 127. | |
1973 | ||
1974 | =item * | |
1975 | ||
1976 | Certain regex modifiers such as C<(?o)> make sense only if applied to | |
1977 | the entire regex. You will an optional warning if you try to do otherwise. | |
1978 | ||
1979 | =item * | |
1980 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
1981 | Using arrays or hashes as references (e.g. C<< %foo->{bar} >> |
1982 | has been deprecated for a while. Now you will get an optional warning. | |
ba370e9b | 1983 | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1984 | =back |
1985 | ||
77c8cf41 | 1986 | =head1 Changed Internals |
f39f21d8 JH |
1987 | |
1988 | =over 4 | |
1989 | ||
1990 | =item * | |
1991 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1992 | perlapi.pod (a companion to perlguts) now attempts to document the |
1993 | internal API. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
1994 | |
1995 | =item * | |
1996 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
1997 | You can now build a really minimal perl called microperl. |
1998 | Building microperl does not require even running Configure; | |
1999 | C<make -f Makefile.micro> should be enough. Beware: microperl makes | |
2000 | many assumptions, some of which may be too bold; the resulting | |
2001 | executable may crash or otherwise misbehave in wondrous ways. | |
2002 | For careful hackers only. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
2003 | |
2004 | =item * | |
2005 | ||
c2e23569 JH |
2006 | Added rsignal(), whichsig(), do_join(), op_clear, op_null, |
2007 | ptr_table_clear(), ptr_table_free(), sv_setref_uv(), and several UTF-8 | |
2008 | interfaces to the publicised API. For the full list of the available | |
2009 | APIs see L<perlapi>. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
2010 | |
2011 | =item * | |
2012 | ||
77c8cf41 | 2013 | Made possible to propagate customised exceptions via croak()ing. |
f39f21d8 | 2014 | |
77c8cf41 | 2015 | =item * |
f39f21d8 | 2016 | |
77c8cf41 | 2017 | Now xsubs can have attributes just like subs. |
f39f21d8 JH |
2018 | |
2019 | =item * | |
2020 | ||
77c8cf41 JH |
2021 | dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's |
2022 | a no-op) and the latter replaced with dSP. | |
f39f21d8 JH |
2023 | |
2024 | =item * | |
2025 | ||
61947107 JH |
2026 | PERL_OBJECT has been completely removed. |
2027 | ||
2028 | =item * | |
2029 | ||
ba370e9b JH |
2030 | The MAGIC constants (e.g. C<'P'>) have been macrofied |
2031 | (e.g. C<PERL_MAGIC_TIED>) for better source code readability | |
2032 | and maintainability. | |
2033 | ||
2034 | =item * | |
2035 | ||
2036 | The regex compiler now maintains a structure that identifies nodes in | |
2037 | the compiled bytecode with the corresponding syntactic features of the | |
2038 | original regex expression. The information is attached to the new | |
2039 | C<offsets> member of the C<struct regexp>. See L<perldebguts> for more | |
2040 | complete information. | |
2041 | ||
2042 | =item * | |
2043 | ||
2044 | The C code has been made much more C<gcc -Wall> clean. Some warning | |
2045 | messages still remain in some platforms, so if you are compiling with | |
2046 | gcc you may see some warnings about dubious practices. The warnings | |
2047 | are being worked on. | |
2048 | ||
2049 | =item * | |
2050 | ||
2051 | F<perly.c>, F<sv.c>, and F<sv.h> have now been extensively commented. | |
2052 | ||
2053 | =item * | |
2054 | ||
61947107 JH |
2055 | Documentation on how to use the Perl source repository has been added |
2056 | to F<Porting/repository.pod>. | |
f39f21d8 | 2057 | |
888aee59 JH |
2058 | =item * |
2059 | ||
c2e23569 | 2060 | There are now several profiling make targets. |
888aee59 | 2061 | |
77c8cf41 | 2062 | =back |
f39f21d8 | 2063 | |
77c8cf41 | 2064 | =head1 Security Vulnerability Closed |
f39f21d8 | 2065 | |
77c8cf41 | 2066 | (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.) |
f39f21d8 | 2067 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
2068 | A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component |
2069 | of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor | |
2070 | installed by default. As of November 2001 the only known vulnerable | |
2071 | platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and | |
2072 | various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability. | |
2073 | See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt | |
2074 | for more information. | |
f39f21d8 | 2075 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
2076 | The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security |
2077 | exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux | |
2078 | platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which | |
2079 | when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in | |
2080 | a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you | |
2081 | don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if | |
2082 | suidperl is not installed, you are safe. | |
f39f21d8 | 2083 | |
77c8cf41 JH |
2084 | The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from |
2085 | Perl 5.8.0 (and the maintenance release 5.6.1, and it was removed also | |
2086 | from all the Perl 5.7 releases), so that particular vulnerability | |
2087 | isn't there anymore. However, further security vulnerabilities are, | |
ba370e9b JH |
2088 | unfortunately, always possible. The suidperl functionality is most |
2089 | probably going to be removed in Perl 5.10. In any case, suidperl | |
2090 | should only be used by security experts who know exactly what they are | |
2091 | doing and why they are using suidperl instead of some other solution | |
2092 | such as sudo (see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/). | |
77c8cf41 JH |
2093 | |
2094 | =head1 New Tests | |
2095 | ||
2096 | Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> subsection. | |
2097 | ||
2098 | The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls. | |
2099 | (This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved | |
2100 | to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.) | |
2101 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
2102 | =head1 Known Problems |
2103 | ||
2104 | Note that unlike other sections in this document (which describe | |
2105 | changes since 5.7.0) this section is cumulative containing known | |
2106 | problems for all the 5.7 releases. | |
2107 | ||
2108 | =head2 AIX | |
2109 | ||
2110 | =over 4 | |
2111 | ||
2112 | =item * | |
2113 | ||
2114 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics | |
2115 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. | |
2116 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with | |
2117 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library | |
2118 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time | |
2119 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and | |
2120 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. | |
2121 | ||
2122 | =item * | |
2123 | ||
2124 | vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl | |
2125 | ||
2126 | The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code, | |
2127 | resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests | |
2128 | are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least | |
2129 | vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly. | |
2130 | "lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell you the vac version. | |
2131 | ||
2132 | =back | |
2133 | ||
2134 | =head2 Amiga Perl Invoking Mystery | |
2135 | ||
2136 | One cannot call Perl using the C<volume:> syntax, that is, C<perl -v> | |
057b7f2b | 2137 | works, but for example C<bin:perl -v> doesn't. The exact reason isn't |
f39f21d8 JH |
2138 | known but the current suspect is the F<ixemul> library. |
2139 | ||
2140 | =head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure' | |
2141 | ||
2142 | Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead. | |
2143 | ||
2144 | =head2 Cygwin intermittent failures of lib/Memoize/t/expire_file 11 and 12 | |
2145 | ||
2146 | The subtests 11 and 12 sometimes fail and sometimes work. | |
2147 | ||
2148 | =head2 HP-UX lib/io_multihomed Fails When LP64-Configured | |
2149 | ||
2150 | The lib/io_multihomed test may hang in HP-UX if Perl has been | |
2151 | configured to be 64-bit. Because other 64-bit platforms do not hang in | |
2152 | this test, HP-UX is suspect. All other tests pass in 64-bit HP-UX. The | |
2153 | test attempts to create and connect to "multihomed" sockets (sockets | |
2154 | which have multiple IP addresses). | |
2155 | ||
2156 | =head2 HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured | |
2157 | ||
2158 | If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the | |
2159 | subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the | |
2160 | subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the | |
2161 | subtest 9 failed. | |
2162 | ||
2163 | =head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48 | |
2164 | ||
2165 | No known fix. | |
2166 | ||
2167 | =head2 OS/390 | |
2168 | ||
2169 | OS/390 has rather many test failures but the situation is actually | |
2170 | better than it was in 5.6.0, it's just that so many new modules and | |
2171 | tests have been added. | |
2172 | ||
2173 | Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed | |
2174 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
2175 | ../ext/B/Deparse.t 14 1 7.14% 14 | |
2176 | ../ext/B/Showlex.t 1 1 100.00% 1 | |
2177 | ../ext/Encode/Encode/Tcl.t 610 13 2.13% 592 594 596 598 | |
2178 | 600 602 604-610 | |
2179 | ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t 113 28928 5 3 60.00% 3-5 | |
2180 | ../ext/POSIX/POSIX.t 29 1 3.45% 14 | |
2181 | ../ext/Storable/t/lock.t 255 65280 5 3 60.00% 3-5 | |
2182 | ../lib/locale.t 129 33024 117 19 16.24% 99-117 | |
2183 | ../lib/warnings.t 434 1 0.23% 75 | |
2184 | ../lib/ExtUtils.t 27 1 3.70% 25 | |
2185 | ../lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigintpm.t 1190 1 0.08% 1145 | |
2186 | ../lib/Unicode/UCD.t 81 48 59.26% 1-16 49-64 66-81 | |
2187 | ../lib/User/pwent.t 9 1 11.11% 4 | |
2188 | op/pat.t 660 6 0.91% 242-243 424-425 | |
2189 | 626-627 | |
2190 | op/split.t 0 9 ?? ?? % ?? | |
2191 | op/taint.t 174 3 1.72% 156 162 168 | |
2192 | op/tr.t 70 3 4.29% 50 58-59 | |
2193 | Failed 16/422 test scripts, 96.21% okay. 105/23251 subtests failed, 99.55% okay. | |
2194 | ||
2195 | =head2 op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 | |
2196 | ||
2197 | The op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 are known to fail on some platforms. | |
2198 | Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX. | |
2199 | The failing platforms do not comply with the ANSI C Standard, line | |
2200 | 19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to be exact. (They produce | |
2201 | something other than "1" and "-1" when formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using | |
2202 | the printf format "%.0f", most often they produce "0" and "-0".) | |
2203 | ||
2204 | =head2 Failure of Thread tests | |
2205 | ||
2206 | B<Note that support for 5.005-style threading remains experimental.> | |
2207 | ||
2208 | The following tests are known to fail due to fundamental problems in | |
2209 | the 5.005 threading implementation. These are not new failures--Perl | |
2210 | 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have these tests. | |
2211 | ||
2212 | lib/autouse.t 4 | |
2213 | t/lib/thr5005.t 19-20 | |
2214 | ||
2215 | =head2 UNICOS | |
2216 | ||
2217 | =over 4 | |
2218 | ||
2219 | =item * | |
2220 | ||
2221 | ext/POSIX/sigaction subtests 6 and 13 may fail. | |
2222 | ||
2223 | =item * | |
2224 | ||
2225 | lib/ExtUtils may spuriously claim that subtest 28 failed, | |
2226 | which is interesting since the test only has 27 tests. | |
2227 | ||
2228 | =item * | |
2229 | ||
2230 | Numerous numerical test failures | |
2231 | ||
2232 | op/numconvert 209,210,217,218 | |
2233 | op/override 7 | |
2234 | ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes 9 | |
2235 | lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigintpm 1145 | |
2236 | lib/Math/Trig 25 | |
2237 | ||
2238 | These tests fail because of yet unresolved floating point inaccuracies. | |
2239 | ||
2240 | =back | |
2241 | ||
2242 | =head2 UTS | |
2243 | ||
2244 | There are a few known test failures, see L<perluts>. | |
2245 | ||
2246 | =head2 VMS | |
2247 | ||
057b7f2b SG |
2248 | Rather a lot of tests are failing in VMS, but actually more tests |
2249 | succeed in VMS than they used to; it's just that there are many, | |
f39f21d8 JH |
2250 | many more tests than there used to be. |
2251 | ||
2252 | Here are the known failures from some compiler/platform combinations. | |
2253 | ||
aecce728 JH |
2254 | Compaq C V6.2-009 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.3 |
2255 | ||
2256 | [.run]switches..........................FAILED on test 1 | |
2257 | [-.ext.posix.t]posix....................FAILED on test 10 | |
2258 | [-.ext.time.hires]hires.................FAILED on test 17 | |
2259 | [-.lib]db...............................FAILED on test 24 | |
2260 | [-.lib.net]hostent......................FAILED on test 5 | |
2261 | [-.lib.pod.t]basic......................FAILED on test 10 | |
2262 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
2263 | =head2 Win32 |
2264 | ||
2265 | In multi-CPU boxes there are some problems with the I/O buffering: | |
2266 | some output may appear twice. | |
2267 | ||
2268 | =head2 Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory | |
2269 | ||
2270 | use Tie::Hash; | |
2271 | tie my %tie_hash => 'Tie::StdHash'; | |
2272 | ||
2273 | ... | |
2274 | ||
2275 | local($tie_hash{Foo}) = 1; # leaks | |
2276 | ||
2277 | Code like the above is known to leak memory every time the local() | |
2278 | is executed. | |
2279 | ||
aecce728 JH |
2280 | =head2 Localising Tied Arrays and Hashes Is Broken |
2281 | ||
2282 | local %tied_array; | |
2283 | ||
2284 | doesn't work as one would expect: the old value is restored | |
2285 | incorrectly. | |
2286 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
2287 | =head2 Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden |
2288 | ||
2289 | Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and | |
2290 | hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting | |
2291 | frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is | |
2292 | for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt). | |
2293 | ||
2294 | =head2 Variable Attributes are not Currently Usable for Tieing | |
2295 | ||
2296 | This limitation will hopefully be fixed in future. (Subroutine | |
2297 | attributes work fine for tieing, see L<Attribute::Handlers>). | |
2298 | ||
aecce728 JH |
2299 | One way to run into this limitation is to have a loop variable with |
2300 | attributes within a loop: the tie is called only once, not for each | |
2301 | iteration of the loop. | |
2302 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
2303 | =head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles |
2304 | ||
2305 | Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with | |
2306 | `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets | |
2307 | default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile | |
2308 | at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good | |
2309 | solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate | |
2310 | non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config | |
2311 | hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are | |
2312 | having problems can try configuring themselves without the | |
2313 | largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the | |
2314 | solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether | |
2315 | one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at | |
2316 | all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is | |
2317 | platform-dependent. | |
2318 | ||
aecce728 JH |
2319 | =head2 Unicode Support on EBCDIC Still Spotty |
2320 | ||
2321 | Though mostly working, Unicode support still has problem spots on | |
2322 | EBCDIC platforms. One such known spot are the C<\p{}> and C<\P{}> | |
2323 | regular expression constructs for code points less than 256: the | |
2324 | pP are testing for Unicode code points, not knowing about EBCDIC. | |
2325 | ||
f39f21d8 JH |
2326 | =head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental |
2327 | ||
2328 | The compiler suite is slowly getting better but is nowhere near | |
2329 | working order yet. | |
2330 | ||
2331 | =head2 The Long Double Support is Still Experimental | |
2332 | ||
2333 | The ability to configure Perl's numbers to use "long doubles", | |
2334 | floating point numbers of hopefully better accuracy, is still | |
2335 | experimental. The implementations of long doubles are not yet | |
2336 | widespread and the existing implementations are not quite mature | |
2337 | or standardised, therefore trying to support them is a rare | |
2338 | and moving target. The gain of more precision may also be offset | |
2339 | by slowdown in computations (more bits to move around, and the | |
2340 | operations are more likely to be executed by less optimised | |
2341 | libraries). | |
33a87e58 | 2342 | |
cc0fca54 GS |
2343 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
2344 | ||
d4ad863d JH |
2345 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
2346 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl | |
2347 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be | |
2348 | information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl Home Page. | |
cc0fca54 GS |
2349 | |
2350 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> | |
2351 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down | |
2352 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the | |
d4ad863d | 2353 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
cc0fca54 GS |
2354 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
2355 | ||
2356 | =head1 SEE ALSO | |
2357 | ||
2358 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. | |
2359 | ||
2360 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. | |
2361 | ||
2362 | The F<README> file for general stuff. | |
2363 | ||
2364 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. | |
2365 | ||
2366 | =head1 HISTORY | |
2367 | ||
d468ca04 | 2368 | Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <F<jhi@iki.fi>>. |
cc0fca54 GS |
2369 | |
2370 | =cut |