| 1 | =head1 NAME |
| 2 | |
| 3 | perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3 |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 6 | |
| 7 | This document describes differences between the 5.8.2 release and |
| 8 | the 5.8.3 release. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1, first read |
| 11 | the L<perl58delta>, which describes differences between 5.6.0 and |
| 12 | 5.8.0, and the L<perl581delta> and L<perl582delta>, which describe differences |
| 13 | between 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2 |
| 14 | |
| 15 | =head1 Incompatible Changes |
| 16 | |
| 17 | There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
| 20 | |
| 21 | A C<SCALAR> method is now available for tied hashes. This is called when |
| 22 | a tied hash is used in scalar context, such as |
| 23 | |
| 24 | if (%tied_hash) { |
| 25 | ... |
| 26 | } |
| 27 | |
| 28 | |
| 29 | The old behaviour was that %tied_hash would return whatever would have been |
| 30 | returned for that hash before the hash was tied (so usually 0). The new |
| 31 | behaviour in the absence of a SCALAR method is to return TRUE if in the |
| 32 | middle of an C<each> iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY to check if the |
| 33 | hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent C<each> will also begin by |
| 34 | calling FIRSTKEY). Please see L<perltie/SCALAR> for the full details and |
| 35 | caveats. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
| 38 | |
| 39 | =over 4 |
| 40 | |
| 41 | =item CGI |
| 42 | |
| 43 | =item Cwd |
| 44 | |
| 45 | =item Digest |
| 46 | |
| 47 | =item Digest::MD5 |
| 48 | |
| 49 | =item Encode |
| 50 | |
| 51 | =item File::Spec |
| 52 | |
| 53 | =item FindBin |
| 54 | |
| 55 | A function C<again> is provided to resolve problems where modules in different |
| 56 | directories wish to use FindBin. |
| 57 | |
| 58 | =item List::Util |
| 59 | |
| 60 | You can now weaken references to read only values. |
| 61 | |
| 62 | =item Math::BigInt |
| 63 | |
| 64 | =item PodParser |
| 65 | |
| 66 | =item Pod::Perldoc |
| 67 | |
| 68 | =item POSIX |
| 69 | |
| 70 | =item Unicode::Collate |
| 71 | |
| 72 | =item Unicode::Normalize |
| 73 | |
| 74 | =item Test::Harness |
| 75 | |
| 76 | =item threads::shared |
| 77 | |
| 78 | C<cond_wait> has a new two argument form. C<cond_timedwait> has been added. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | =back |
| 81 | |
| 82 | =head1 Utility Changes |
| 83 | |
| 84 | C<find2perl> now assumes C<-print> as a default action. Previously, it |
| 85 | needed to be specified explicitly. |
| 86 | |
| 87 | A new utility, C<prove>, makes it easy to run an individual regression test |
| 88 | at the command line. C<prove> is part of Test::Harness, which users of earlier |
| 89 | Perl versions can install from CPAN. |
| 90 | |
| 91 | =head1 New Documentation |
| 92 | |
| 93 | The documentation has been revised in places to produce more standard manpages. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | The documentation for the special code blocks (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, END) |
| 96 | has been improved. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
| 99 | |
| 100 | Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64 |
| 101 | |
| 102 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
| 103 | |
| 104 | Using substr() on a UTF8 string could cause subsequent accesses on that |
| 105 | string to return garbage. This was due to incorrect UTF8 offsets being |
| 106 | cached, and is now fixed. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | join() could return garbage when the same join() statement was used to |
| 109 | process 8 bit data having earlier processed UTF8 data, due to the flags |
| 110 | on that statement's temporary workspace not being reset correctly. This |
| 111 | is now fixed. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | C<$a .. $b> will now work as expected when either $a or $b is C<undef> |
| 114 | |
| 115 | Using Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | Reading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the C code implementing $^E |
| 118 | did not preserve C<errno>, so reading $^E could cause C<errno> and therefore |
| 119 | C<$!> to change unexpectedly. |
| 120 | |
| 121 | Reentrant functions will (once more) work with C++. 5.8.2 introduced a bugfix |
| 122 | which accidentally broke the compilation of Perl extensions written in C++ |
| 123 | |
| 124 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
| 125 | |
| 126 | The fatal error "DESTROY created new reference to dead object" is now |
| 127 | documented in L<perldiag>. |
| 128 | |
| 129 | =head1 Changed Internals |
| 130 | |
| 131 | The hash code has been refactored to reduce source duplication. The |
| 132 | external interface is unchanged, and aside from the bug fixes described |
| 133 | above, there should be no change in behaviour. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | C<hv_clear_placeholders> is now part of the perl API |
| 136 | |
| 137 | Some C macros have been tidied. In particular macros which create temporary |
| 138 | local variables now name these variables more defensively, which should |
| 139 | avoid bugs where names clash. |
| 140 | |
| 141 | <signal.h> is now always included. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | =head1 Configuration and Building |
| 144 | |
| 145 | C<Configure> now invokes callbacks regardless of the value of the variable |
| 146 | they are called for. Previously callbacks were only invoked in the |
| 147 | C<case $variable $define)> branch. This change should only affect platform |
| 148 | maintainers writing configuration hints files. |
| 149 | |
| 150 | =head1 Platform Specific Problems |
| 151 | |
| 152 | The regression test ext/threads/shared/t/wait.t fails on early RedHat 9 |
| 153 | and HP-UX 10.20 due to bugs in their threading implementations. |
| 154 | RedHat users should see https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-136.html |
| 155 | and consider upgrading their glibc. |
| 156 | |
| 157 | =head1 Known Problems |
| 158 | |
| 159 | Detached threads aren't supported on Windows yet, as they may lead to |
| 160 | memory access violation problems. |
| 161 | |
| 162 | There is a known race condition opening scripts in C<suidperl>. C<suidperl> |
| 163 | is neither built nor installed by default, and has been deprecated since |
| 164 | perl 5.8.0. You are advised to replace use of suidperl with tools such |
| 165 | as sudo ( http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ) |
| 166 | |
| 167 | We have a backlog of unresolved bugs. Dealing with bugs and bug reports |
| 168 | is unglamorous work; not something ideally suited to volunteer labour, |
| 169 | but that is all that we have. |
| 170 | |
| 171 | The perl5 development team are implementing changes to help address this |
| 172 | problem, which should go live in early 2004. |
| 173 | |
| 174 | =head1 Future Directions |
| 175 | |
| 176 | Code freeze for the next maintenance release (5.8.4) is on March 31st 2004, |
| 177 | with release expected by mid April. Similarly 5.8.5's freeze will be at |
| 178 | the end of June, with release by mid July. |
| 179 | |
| 180 | =head1 Obituary |
| 181 | |
| 182 | Iain 'Spoon' Truskett, Perl hacker, author of L<perlreref> and |
| 183 | contributor to CPAN, died suddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24. |
| 184 | He will be missed. |
| 185 | |
| 186 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
| 187 | |
| 188 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
| 189 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
| 190 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be |
| 191 | information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page. |
| 192 | |
| 193 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
| 194 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
| 195 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
| 196 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
| 197 | analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search |
| 198 | the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/ |
| 199 | |
| 200 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
| 201 | |
| 202 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
| 207 | |
| 208 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
| 209 | |
| 210 | =cut |