| 1 | =encoding utf8 |
| 2 | |
| 3 | =head1 NAME |
| 4 | |
| 5 | perl5120delta - what is new for perl v5.12.0 |
| 6 | |
| 7 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 8 | |
| 9 | This document describes differences between the 5.10.0 release and the |
| 10 | 5.12.0 release. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Many of the bug fixes in 5.12.0 are already included in the 5.10.1 |
| 13 | maintenance release. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | You can see the list of those changes in the 5.10.1 release notes |
| 16 | (L<perl5101delta>). |
| 17 | |
| 18 | |
| 19 | =head1 Core Enhancements |
| 20 | |
| 21 | =head2 New C<package NAME VERSION> syntax |
| 22 | |
| 23 | This new syntax allows a module author to set the $VERSION of a namespace |
| 24 | when the namespace is declared with 'package'. It eliminates the need |
| 25 | for C<our $VERSION = ...> and similar constructs. E.g. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | package Foo::Bar 1.23; |
| 28 | # $Foo::Bar::VERSION == 1.23 |
| 29 | |
| 30 | There are several advantages to this: |
| 31 | |
| 32 | =over |
| 33 | |
| 34 | =item * |
| 35 | |
| 36 | C<$VERSION> is parsed in exactly the same way as C<use NAME VERSION> |
| 37 | |
| 38 | =item * |
| 39 | |
| 40 | C<$VERSION> is set at compile time |
| 41 | |
| 42 | =item * |
| 43 | |
| 44 | C<$VERSION> is a version object that provides proper overloading of |
| 45 | comparison operators so comparing C<$VERSION> to decimal (1.23) or |
| 46 | dotted-decimal (v1.2.3) version numbers works correctly. |
| 47 | |
| 48 | =item * |
| 49 | |
| 50 | Eliminates C<$VERSION = ...> and C<eval $VERSION> clutter |
| 51 | |
| 52 | =item * |
| 53 | |
| 54 | As it requires VERSION to be a numeric literal or v-string |
| 55 | literal, it can be statically parsed by toolchain modules |
| 56 | without C<eval> the way MM-E<gt>parse_version does for C<$VERSION = ...> |
| 57 | |
| 58 | =back |
| 59 | |
| 60 | It does not break old code with only C<package NAME>, but code that uses |
| 61 | C<package NAME VERSION> will need to be restricted to perl 5.12.0 or newer |
| 62 | This is analogous to the change to C<open> from two-args to three-args. |
| 63 | Users requiring the latest Perl will benefit, and perhaps after several |
| 64 | years, it will become a standard practice. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | |
| 67 | However, C<package NAME VERSION> requires a new, 'strict' version |
| 68 | number format. See L<"Version number formats"> for details. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | |
| 71 | =head2 The C<...> operator |
| 72 | |
| 73 | A new operator, C<...>, nicknamed the Yada Yada operator, has been added. |
| 74 | It is intended to mark placeholder code that is not yet implemented. |
| 75 | See L<perlop/"Yada Yada Operator">. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | =head2 Implicit strictures |
| 78 | |
| 79 | Using the C<use VERSION> syntax with a version number greater or equal |
| 80 | to 5.11.0 will lexically enable strictures just like C<use strict> |
| 81 | would do (in addition to enabling features.) The following: |
| 82 | |
| 83 | use 5.12.0; |
| 84 | |
| 85 | means: |
| 86 | |
| 87 | use strict; |
| 88 | use feature ':5.12'; |
| 89 | |
| 90 | =head2 Unicode improvements |
| 91 | |
| 92 | Perl 5.12 comes with Unicode 5.2, the latest version available to |
| 93 | us at the time of release. This version of Unicode was released in |
| 94 | October 2009. See L<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0> for |
| 95 | further details about what's changed in this version of the standard. |
| 96 | See L<perlunicode> for instructions on installing and using other versions |
| 97 | of Unicode. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | Additionally, Perl's developers have significantly improved Perl's Unicode |
| 100 | implementation. For full details, see L</Unicode overhaul> below. |
| 101 | |
| 102 | =head2 Y2038 compliance |
| 103 | |
| 104 | Perl's core time-related functions are now Y2038 compliant. (It may not mean much to you, but your kids will love it!) |
| 105 | |
| 106 | =head2 qr overloading |
| 107 | |
| 108 | It is now possible to overload the C<qr//> operator, that is, |
| 109 | conversion to regexp, like it was already possible to overload |
| 110 | conversion to boolean, string or number of objects. It is invoked when |
| 111 | an object appears on the right hand side of the C<=~> operator or when |
| 112 | it is interpolated into a regexp. See L<overload>. |
| 113 | |
| 114 | =head2 Pluggable keywords |
| 115 | |
| 116 | Extension modules can now cleanly hook into the Perl parser to define |
| 117 | new kinds of keyword-headed expression and compound statement. The |
| 118 | syntax following the keyword is defined entirely by the extension. This |
| 119 | allow a completely non-Perl sublanguage to be parsed inline, with the |
| 120 | correct ops cleanly generated. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | See L<perlapi/PL_keyword_plugin> for the mechanism. The Perl core |
| 123 | source distribution also includes a new module |
| 124 | L<XS::APItest::KeywordRPN>, which implements reverse Polish notation |
| 125 | arithmetic via pluggable keywords. This module is mainly used for test |
| 126 | purposes, and is not normally installed, but also serves as an example |
| 127 | of how to use the new mechanism. |
| 128 | |
| 129 | Perl's developers consider this feature to be experimental. We may remove |
| 130 | it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. |
| 131 | |
| 132 | =head2 APIs for more internals |
| 133 | |
| 134 | The lowest layers of the lexer and parts of the pad system now have C |
| 135 | APIs available to XS extensions. These are necessary to support proper |
| 136 | use of pluggable keywords, but have other uses too. The new APIs are |
| 137 | experimental, and only cover a small proportion of what would be |
| 138 | necessary to take full advantage of the core's facilities in these |
| 139 | areas. It is intended that the Perl 5.13 development cycle will see the |
| 140 | addition of a full range of clean, supported interfaces. |
| 141 | |
| 142 | Perl's developers consider this feature to be experimental. We may remove |
| 143 | it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. |
| 144 | |
| 145 | =head2 Overridable function lookup |
| 146 | |
| 147 | Where an extension module hooks the creation of rv2cv ops to modify the |
| 148 | subroutine lookup process, this now works correctly for bareword |
| 149 | subroutine calls. This means that prototypes on subroutines referenced |
| 150 | this way will be processed correctly. (Previously bareword subroutine |
| 151 | names were initially looked up, for parsing purposes, by an unhookable |
| 152 | mechanism, so extensions could only properly influence subroutine names |
| 153 | that appeared with an C<&> sigil.) |
| 154 | |
| 155 | =head2 A proper interface for pluggable Method Resolution Orders |
| 156 | |
| 157 | As of Perl 5.12.0 there is a new interface for plugging and using method |
| 158 | resolution orders other than the default linear depth first search. |
| 159 | The C3 method resolution order added in 5.10.0 has been re-implemented as |
| 160 | a plugin, without changing its Perl-space interface. See L<perlmroapi> for |
| 161 | more information. |
| 162 | |
| 163 | |
| 164 | |
| 165 | =head2 C<\N> experimental regex escape |
| 166 | |
| 167 | Perl now supports C<\N>, a new regex escape which you can think of as |
| 168 | the inverse of C<\n>. It will match any character that is not a newline, |
| 169 | independently from the presence or absence of the single line match |
| 170 | modifier C</s>. It is not usable within a character class. C<\N{3}> |
| 171 | means to match 3 non-newlines; C<\N{5,}> means to match at least 5. |
| 172 | C<\N{NAME}> still means the character or sequence named C<NAME>, but |
| 173 | C<NAME> no longer can be things like C<3>, or C<5,>. |
| 174 | |
| 175 | This will break a L<custom charnames translator|charnames/CUSTOM |
| 176 | TRANSLATORS> which allows numbers for character names, as C<\N{3}> will |
| 177 | now mean to match 3 non-newline characters, and not the character whose |
| 178 | name is C<3>. (No name defined by the Unicode standard is a number, |
| 179 | so only custom translators might be affected.) |
| 180 | |
| 181 | Perl's developers are somewhat concerned about possible user confusion |
| 182 | with the existing C<\N{...}> construct which matches characters by their |
| 183 | Unicode name. Consequently, this feature is experimental. We may remove |
| 184 | it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. |
| 185 | |
| 186 | =head2 DTrace support |
| 187 | |
| 188 | Perl now has some support for DTrace. See "DTrace support" in F<INSTALL>. |
| 189 | |
| 190 | =head2 Support for C<configure_requires> in CPAN module metadata |
| 191 | |
| 192 | Both C<CPAN> and C<CPANPLUS> now support the C<configure_requires> |
| 193 | keyword in the F<META.yml> metadata file included in most recent CPAN |
| 194 | distributions. This allows distribution authors to specify configuration |
| 195 | prerequisites that must be installed before running F<Makefile.PL> |
| 196 | or F<Build.PL>. |
| 197 | |
| 198 | See the documentation for C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> or C<Module::Build> for |
| 199 | more on how to specify C<configure_requires> when creating a distribution |
| 200 | for CPAN. |
| 201 | |
| 202 | =head2 C<each>, C<keys>, C<values> are now more flexible |
| 203 | |
| 204 | The C<each>, C<keys>, C<values> function can now operate on arrays. |
| 205 | |
| 206 | =head2 C<when> as a statement modifier |
| 207 | |
| 208 | C<when> is now allowed to be used as a statement modifier. |
| 209 | |
| 210 | =head2 C<$,> flexibility |
| 211 | |
| 212 | The variable C<$,> may now be tied. |
| 213 | |
| 214 | =head2 // in when clauses |
| 215 | |
| 216 | // now behaves like || in when clauses |
| 217 | |
| 218 | =head2 Enabling warnings from your shell environment |
| 219 | |
| 220 | You can now set C<-W> from the C<PERL5OPT> environment variable |
| 221 | |
| 222 | =head2 C<delete local> |
| 223 | |
| 224 | C<delete local> now allows you to locally delete a hash entry. |
| 225 | |
| 226 | =head2 New support for Abstract namespace sockets |
| 227 | |
| 228 | Abstract namespace sockets are Linux-specific socket type that live in |
| 229 | AF_UNIX family, slightly abusing it to be able to use arbitrary |
| 230 | character arrays as addresses: They start with nul byte and are not |
| 231 | terminated by nul byte, but with the length passed to the socket() |
| 232 | system call. |
| 233 | |
| 234 | =head2 32-bit limit on substr arguments removed |
| 235 | |
| 236 | The 32-bit limit on C<substr> arguments has now been removed. The full |
| 237 | range of the system's signed and unsigned integers is now available for |
| 238 | the C<pos> and C<len> arguments. |
| 239 | |
| 240 | =head1 Potentially Incompatible Changes |
| 241 | |
| 242 | =head2 Deprecations warn by default |
| 243 | |
| 244 | Over the years, Perl's developers have deprecated a number of language |
| 245 | features for a variety of reasons. Perl now defaults to issuing a |
| 246 | warning if a deprecated language feature is used. Many of the deprecations |
| 247 | Perl now warns you about have been deprecated for many years. You can |
| 248 | find a list of what was deprecated in a given release of Perl in the |
| 249 | C<perl5xxdelta.pod> file for that release. |
| 250 | |
| 251 | To disable this feature in a given lexical scope, you should use C<no |
| 252 | warnings 'deprecated';> For information about which language features |
| 253 | are deprecated and explanations of various deprecation warnings, please |
| 254 | see L<perldiag>. See L</Deprecations> below for the list of features |
| 255 | and modules Perl's developers have deprecated as part of this release. |
| 256 | |
| 257 | =head2 Version number formats |
| 258 | |
| 259 | Acceptable version number formats have been formalized into "strict" and |
| 260 | "lax" rules. C<package NAME VERSION> takes a strict version number. |
| 261 | C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> and the L<version> object constructors take lax |
| 262 | version numbers. Providing an invalid version will result in a fatal |
| 263 | error. The version argument in C<use NAME VERSION> is first parsed as a |
| 264 | numeric literal or v-string and then passed to C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> |
| 265 | (and must then pass the "lax" format test). |
| 266 | |
| 267 | These formats are documented fully in the L<version> module. To a first |
| 268 | approximation, a "strict" version number is a positive decimal number |
| 269 | (integer or decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a |
| 270 | dotted-decimal v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three |
| 271 | components. A "lax" version number allows v-strings with fewer than |
| 272 | three components or without a leading 'v'. Under "lax" rules, both |
| 273 | decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha" |
| 274 | component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or |
| 275 | dotted-decimal component. |
| 276 | |
| 277 | The L<version> module adds C<version::is_strict> and C<version::is_lax> |
| 278 | functions to check a scalar against these rules. |
| 279 | |
| 280 | =head2 @INC reorganization |
| 281 | |
| 282 | In C<@INC>, C<ARCHLIB> and C<PRIVLIB> now occur after after the current |
| 283 | version's C<site_perl> and C<vendor_perl>. Modules installed into |
| 284 | C<site_perl> and C<vendor_perl> will now be loaded in preference to |
| 285 | those installed in C<ARCHLIB> and C<PRIVLIB>. |
| 286 | |
| 287 | |
| 288 | =head2 REGEXPs are now first class |
| 289 | |
| 290 | Internally, Perl now treates compiled regular expressions (such as |
| 291 | those created with C<qr//>) as first class entities. Perl modules which |
| 292 | serialize, deserialize or otherwise have deep interaction with Perl's |
| 293 | internal data structures need to be updated for this change. Most |
| 294 | affected CPAN modules have already been updated as of this writing. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | =head2 Switch statement changes |
| 297 | |
| 298 | The C<given>/C<when> switch statement handles complex statements better |
| 299 | than Perl 5.10.0 did (These enhancements are also available in |
| 300 | 5.10.1 and subsequent 5.10 releases.) There are two new cases where |
| 301 | C<when> now interprets its argument as a boolean, instead of an |
| 302 | expression to be used in a smart match: |
| 303 | |
| 304 | =over |
| 305 | |
| 306 | =item flip-flop operators |
| 307 | |
| 308 | The C<..> and C<...> flip-flop operators are now evaluated in boolean |
| 309 | context, following their usual semantics; see L<perlop/"Range Operators">. |
| 310 | |
| 311 | Note that, as in perl 5.10.0, C<when (1..10)> will not work to test |
| 312 | whether a given value is an integer between 1 and 10; you should use |
| 313 | C<when ([1..10])> instead (note the array reference). |
| 314 | |
| 315 | However, contrary to 5.10.0, evaluating the flip-flop operators in |
| 316 | boolean context ensures it can now be useful in a C<when()>, notably |
| 317 | for implementing bistable conditions, like in: |
| 318 | |
| 319 | when (/^=begin/ .. /^=end/) { |
| 320 | # do something |
| 321 | } |
| 322 | |
| 323 | =item defined-or operator |
| 324 | |
| 325 | A compound expression involving the defined-or operator, as in |
| 326 | C<when (expr1 // expr2)>, will be treated as boolean if the first |
| 327 | expression is boolean. (This just extends the existing rule that applies |
| 328 | to the regular or operator, as in C<when (expr1 || expr2)>.) |
| 329 | |
| 330 | =back |
| 331 | |
| 332 | =head2 Smart match changes |
| 333 | |
| 334 | Since Perl 5.10.0, Perl's developers have made a number of changes to |
| 335 | the smart match operator. These, of course, also alter the behaviour |
| 336 | of the switch statements where smart matching is implicitly used. |
| 337 | These changes were also made for the 5.10.1 release, and will remain in |
| 338 | subsequent 5.10 releases. |
| 339 | |
| 340 | =head3 Changes to type-based dispatch |
| 341 | |
| 342 | The smart match operator C<~~> is no longer commutative. The behaviour of |
| 343 | a smart match now depends primarily on the type of its right hand |
| 344 | argument. Moreover, its semantics have been adjusted for greater |
| 345 | consistency or usefulness in several cases. While the general backwards |
| 346 | compatibility is maintained, several changes must be noted: |
| 347 | |
| 348 | =over 4 |
| 349 | |
| 350 | =item * |
| 351 | |
| 352 | Code references with an empty prototype are no longer treated specially. |
| 353 | They are passed an argument like the other code references (even if they |
| 354 | choose to ignore it). |
| 355 | |
| 356 | =item * |
| 357 | |
| 358 | C<%hash ~~ sub {}> and C<@array ~~ sub {}> now test that the subroutine |
| 359 | returns a true value for each key of the hash (or element of the |
| 360 | array), instead of passing the whole hash or array as a reference to |
| 361 | the subroutine. |
| 362 | |
| 363 | =item * |
| 364 | |
| 365 | Due to the commutativity breakage, code references are no longer |
| 366 | treated specially when appearing on the left of the C<~~> operator, |
| 367 | but like any vulgar scalar. |
| 368 | |
| 369 | =item * |
| 370 | |
| 371 | C<undef ~~ %hash> is always false (since C<undef> can't be a key in a |
| 372 | hash). No implicit conversion to C<""> is done (as was the case in perl |
| 373 | 5.10.0). |
| 374 | |
| 375 | =item * |
| 376 | |
| 377 | C<$scalar ~~ @array> now always distributes the smart match across the |
| 378 | elements of the array. It's true if one element in @array verifies |
| 379 | C<$scalar ~~ $element>. This is a generalization of the old behaviour |
| 380 | that tested whether the array contained the scalar. |
| 381 | |
| 382 | =back |
| 383 | |
| 384 | The full dispatch table for the smart match operator is given in |
| 385 | L<perlsyn/"Smart matching in detail">. |
| 386 | |
| 387 | =head3 Smart match and overloading |
| 388 | |
| 389 | According to the rule of dispatch based on the rightmost argument type, |
| 390 | when an object overloading C<~~> appears on the right side of the |
| 391 | operator, the overload routine will always be called (with a 3rd argument |
| 392 | set to a true value, see L<overload>.) However, when the object will |
| 393 | appear on the left, the overload routine will be called only when the |
| 394 | rightmost argument is a simple scalar. This way, distributivity of smart |
| 395 | match across arrays is not broken, as well as the other behaviours with |
| 396 | complex types (coderefs, hashes, regexes). Thus, writers of overloading |
| 397 | routines for smart match mostly need to worry only with comparing |
| 398 | against a scalar, and possibly with stringification overloading; the |
| 399 | other common cases will be automatically handled consistently. |
| 400 | |
| 401 | C<~~> will now refuse to work on objects that do not overload it (in order |
| 402 | to avoid relying on the object's underlying structure). (However, if the |
| 403 | object overloads the stringification or the numification operators, and |
| 404 | if overload fallback is active, it will be used instead, as usual.) |
| 405 | |
| 406 | =head2 Other potentially incompatible changes |
| 407 | |
| 408 | =over 4 |
| 409 | |
| 410 | =item * |
| 411 | |
| 412 | The definitions of a number of Unicode properties have changed to match |
| 413 | those of the current Unicode standard. These are listed above under |
| 414 | L</Unicode overhaul>. This change may break code that expects the old |
| 415 | definitions. |
| 416 | |
| 417 | =item * |
| 418 | |
| 419 | The boolkeys op has moved to the group of hash ops. This breaks binary |
| 420 | compatibility. |
| 421 | |
| 422 | =item * |
| 423 | |
| 424 | Filehandles are now always blessed into C<IO::File>. |
| 425 | |
| 426 | The previous behaviour was to bless Filehandles into L<FileHandle> |
| 427 | (an empty proxy class) if it was loaded into memory and otherwise |
| 428 | to bless them into C<IO::Handle>. |
| 429 | |
| 430 | =item * |
| 431 | |
| 432 | The semantics of C<use feature :5.10*> have changed slightly. |
| 433 | See L<"Modules and Pragmata"> for more information. |
| 434 | |
| 435 | =item * |
| 436 | |
| 437 | Perl's developers now use git, rather than Perforce. This should be |
| 438 | a purely internal change only relevant to people actively working on |
| 439 | the core. However, you may see minor difference in perl as a consequence |
| 440 | of the change. For example in some of details of the output of C<perl |
| 441 | -V>. See L<perlrepository> for more information. |
| 442 | |
| 443 | =item * |
| 444 | |
| 445 | As part of the C<Test::Harness> 2.x to 3.x upgrade, the experimental |
| 446 | C<Test::Harness::Straps> module has been removed. |
| 447 | See L</"Modules and Pragmata"> for more details. |
| 448 | |
| 449 | =item * |
| 450 | |
| 451 | As part of the C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> upgrade, the |
| 452 | C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> and C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> modules |
| 453 | have been removed from this distribution. |
| 454 | |
| 455 | =item * |
| 456 | |
| 457 | C<Module::CoreList> no longer contains the C<%:patchlevel> hash. |
| 458 | |
| 459 | |
| 460 | =item * |
| 461 | |
| 462 | C<length undef> now returns undef. |
| 463 | |
| 464 | =item * |
| 465 | |
| 466 | Unsupported private C API functions are now declared "static" to prevent |
| 467 | leakage to Perl's public API. |
| 468 | |
| 469 | =item * |
| 470 | |
| 471 | To support the bootstrapping process, F<miniperl> no longer builds with |
| 472 | UTF-8 support in the regexp engine. |
| 473 | |
| 474 | This allows a build to complete with PERL_UNICODE set and a UTF-8 locale. |
| 475 | Without this there's a bootstrapping problem, as miniperl can't load |
| 476 | the UTF-8 components of the regexp engine, because they're not yet built. |
| 477 | |
| 478 | =item * |
| 479 | |
| 480 | F<miniperl>'s @INC is now restricted to just C<-I...>, the split of |
| 481 | C<$ENV{PERL5LIB}>, and "C<.>" |
| 482 | |
| 483 | =item * |
| 484 | |
| 485 | A space or a newline is now required after a C<"#line XXX"> directive. |
| 486 | |
| 487 | =item * |
| 488 | |
| 489 | Tied filehandles now have an additional method EOF which provides the |
| 490 | EOF type. |
| 491 | |
| 492 | =item * |
| 493 | |
| 494 | To better match all other flow control statements, C<foreach> may no |
| 495 | longer be used as an attribute. |
| 496 | |
| 497 | =item * |
| 498 | |
| 499 | Perl's command-line switch "-P", which was deprecated in version 5.10.0, has |
| 500 | now been removed. |
| 501 | |
| 502 | =back |
| 503 | |
| 504 | |
| 505 | =head1 Deprecations |
| 506 | |
| 507 | From time to time, Perl's developers find it necessary to deprecate |
| 508 | features or modules we've previously shipped as part of the core |
| 509 | distribution. We are well aware of the pain and frustration that a |
| 510 | backwards-incompatible change to Perl can cause for developers building |
| 511 | or maintaining software in Perl. You can be sure that when we deprecate |
| 512 | a functionality or syntax, it isn't a choice we make lightly. Sometimes, |
| 513 | we choose to deprecate functionality or syntax because it was found to |
| 514 | be poorly designed or implemented. Sometimes, this is because they're |
| 515 | holding back other features or causing performance problems. Sometimes, |
| 516 | the reasons are more complex. Wherever possible, we try to keep deprecated |
| 517 | functionality available to developers in its previous form for at least |
| 518 | one major release. So long as a deprecated feature isn't actively |
| 519 | disrupting our ability to maintain and extend Perl, we'll try to leave |
| 520 | it in place as long as possible. |
| 521 | |
| 522 | The following items are now deprecated: |
| 523 | |
| 524 | =over |
| 525 | |
| 526 | =item suidperl |
| 527 | |
| 528 | C<suidperl> is no longer part of Perl. It used to provide a mechanism to |
| 529 | emulate setuid permission bits on systems that don't support it properly. |
| 530 | |
| 531 | |
| 532 | =item Use of C<:=> to mean an empty attribute list |
| 533 | |
| 534 | An accident of Perl's parser meant that these constructions were all |
| 535 | equivalent: |
| 536 | |
| 537 | my $pi := 4; |
| 538 | my $pi : = 4; |
| 539 | my $pi : = 4; |
| 540 | |
| 541 | with the C<:> being treated as the start of an attribute list, which |
| 542 | ends before the C<=>. As whitespace is not significant here, all are |
| 543 | parsed as an empty attribute list, hence all the above are equivalent |
| 544 | to, and better written as |
| 545 | |
| 546 | my $pi = 4; |
| 547 | |
| 548 | because no attribute processing is done for an empty list. |
| 549 | |
| 550 | As is, this meant that C<:=> cannot be used as a new token, without |
| 551 | silently changing the meaning of existing code. Hence that particular |
| 552 | form is now deprecated, and will become a syntax error. If it is |
| 553 | absolutely necessary to have empty attribute lists (for example, |
| 554 | because of a code generator) then avoid the warning by adding a space |
| 555 | before the C<=>. |
| 556 | |
| 557 | =item C<< UNIVERSAL->import() >> |
| 558 | |
| 559 | The method C<< UNIVERSAL->import() >> is now deprecated. Attempting to |
| 560 | pass import arguments to a C<use UNIVERSAL> statement will result in a |
| 561 | deprecation warning. |
| 562 | |
| 563 | |
| 564 | =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct |
| 565 | |
| 566 | Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner scope is now |
| 567 | deprecated. This rare use case was causing problems in the |
| 568 | implementation of scopes. |
| 569 | |
| 570 | =item Custom character names in \N{name} that don't look like names |
| 571 | |
| 572 | In C<\N{I<name>}>, I<name> can be just about anything. The standard |
| 573 | Unicode names have a very limited domain, but a custom name translator |
| 574 | could create names that are, for example, made up entirely of punctuation |
| 575 | symbols. It is now deprecated to make names that don't begin with an |
| 576 | alphabetic character, and aren't alphanumeric or contain other than |
| 577 | a very few other characters, namely spaces, dashes, parentheses |
| 578 | and colons. Because of the added meaning of C<\N> (See L</C<\N> |
| 579 | experimental regex escape>), names that look like curly brace -enclosed |
| 580 | quantifiers won't work. For example, C<\N{3,4}> now means to match 3 to |
| 581 | 4 non-newlines; before a custom name C<3,4> could have been created. |
| 582 | |
| 583 | =item Deprecated Modules |
| 584 | |
| 585 | The following modules will be removed from the core distribution in a |
| 586 | future release, and should be installed from CPAN instead. Distributions |
| 587 | on CPAN which require these should add them to their prerequisites. The |
| 588 | core versions of these modules warnings will issue a deprecation warning. |
| 589 | |
| 590 | If you ship a packaged version of Perl, either alone or as part of a |
| 591 | larger system, then you should carefully consider the reprecussions of |
| 592 | core module deprecations. You may want to consider shipping your default |
| 593 | build of Perl with packages for some or all deprecated modules which |
| 594 | install into C<vendor> or C<site> perl library directories. This will |
| 595 | inhibit the deprecation warnings. |
| 596 | |
| 597 | Alternatively, you may want to consider patching F<lib/deprecate.pm> |
| 598 | to provide deprecation warnings specific to your packaging system |
| 599 | or distribution of Perl, consistent with how your packaging system |
| 600 | or distribution manages a staged transition from a release where the |
| 601 | installation of a single package provides the given functionality, to |
| 602 | a later release where the system administrator needs to know to install |
| 603 | multiple packages to get that same functionality. |
| 604 | |
| 605 | You can silence these deprecation warnings by installing the modules |
| 606 | in question from CPAN. To install the latest version of all of them, |
| 607 | just install C<Task::Deprecations::5_12>. |
| 608 | |
| 609 | =over |
| 610 | |
| 611 | =item L<Class::ISA> |
| 612 | |
| 613 | =item L<Pod::Plainer> |
| 614 | |
| 615 | =item L<Shell> |
| 616 | |
| 617 | =item L<Switch> |
| 618 | |
| 619 | Switch is buggy and should be avoided. You may find Perl's new |
| 620 | C<given>/C<when> feature a suitable replacement. See L<perlsyn/"Switch |
| 621 | statements"> for more information. |
| 622 | |
| 623 | =back |
| 624 | |
| 625 | =item Assignment to $[ |
| 626 | |
| 627 | =item Use of the attribute :locked on subroutines |
| 628 | |
| 629 | =item Use of "locked" with the attributes pragma |
| 630 | |
| 631 | =item Use of "unique" with the attributes pragma |
| 632 | |
| 633 | =item Perl_pmflag |
| 634 | |
| 635 | C<Perl_pmflag> is no longer part of Perl's public API. Calling it now |
| 636 | generates a deprecation warning, and it will be removed in a future |
| 637 | release. Although listed as part of the API, it was never documented, |
| 638 | and only ever used in F<toke.c>, and prior to 5.10, F<regcomp.c>. In |
| 639 | core, it has been replaced by a static function. |
| 640 | |
| 641 | =item Numerous Perl 4-era libraries |
| 642 | |
| 643 | F<termcap.pl>, F<tainted.pl>, F<stat.pl>, F<shellwords.pl>, F<pwd.pl>, |
| 644 | F<open3.pl>, F<open2.pl>, F<newgetopt.pl>, F<look.pl>, F<find.pl>, |
| 645 | F<finddepth.pl>, F<importenv.pl>, F<hostname.pl>, F<getopts.pl>, |
| 646 | F<getopt.pl>, F<getcwd.pl>, F<flush.pl>, F<fastcwd.pl>, F<exceptions.pl>, |
| 647 | F<ctime.pl>, F<complete.pl>, F<cacheout.pl>, F<bigrat.pl>, F<bigint.pl>, |
| 648 | F<bigfloat.pl>, F<assert.pl>, F<abbrev.pl>, F<dotsh.pl>, and |
| 649 | F<timelocal.pl> are all now deprecated. Earlier, Perl's developers |
| 650 | intended to remove these libraries from Perl's core for the 5.14.0 release. |
| 651 | |
| 652 | During final testing before the release of 5.12.0, several developers |
| 653 | discovered current production code using these ancient libraries, some |
| 654 | inside the Perl core itself. Accordingly, the pumpking granted them |
| 655 | a stay of execution. They will begin to warn about their deprecation |
| 656 | in the 5.14.0 release and will be removed in the 5.16.0 release. |
| 657 | |
| 658 | |
| 659 | =back |
| 660 | |
| 661 | =head1 Unicode overhaul |
| 662 | |
| 663 | Perl's developers have made a concerted effort to update Perl to be in |
| 664 | sync with the latest Unicode standard. Changes for this include: |
| 665 | |
| 666 | Perl can now handle every Unicode character property. New documentation, |
| 667 | L<perluniprops>, lists all available non-Unihan character properties. By |
| 668 | default, perl does not expose Unihan, deprecated or Unicode-internal |
| 669 | properties. See below for more details on these; there is also a section |
| 670 | in the pod listing them, and explaining why they are not exposed. |
| 671 | |
| 672 | Perl now fully supports the Unicode compound-style of using C<=> |
| 673 | and C<:> in writing regular expressions: C<\p{property=value}> and |
| 674 | C<\p{property:value}> (both of which mean the same thing). |
| 675 | |
| 676 | Perl now fully supports the Unicode loose matching rules for text between |
| 677 | the braces in C<\p{...}> constructs. In addition, Perl allows underscores |
| 678 | between digits of numbers. |
| 679 | |
| 680 | Perl now accepts all the Unicode-defined synonyms for properties and |
| 681 | property values. |
| 682 | |
| 683 | C<qr/\X/>, which matches a Unicode logical character, has |
| 684 | been expanded to work better with various Asian languages. It |
| 685 | now is defined as an I<extended grapheme cluster>. (See |
| 686 | L<http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29/>). Anything matched previously |
| 687 | and that made sense will continue to be accepted. Additionally: |
| 688 | |
| 689 | =over |
| 690 | |
| 691 | =item * |
| 692 | |
| 693 | C<\X> will not break apart a C<S<CR LF>> sequence. |
| 694 | |
| 695 | =item * |
| 696 | |
| 697 | C<\X> will now match a sequence which includes the C<ZWJ> and C<ZWNJ> |
| 698 | characters. |
| 699 | |
| 700 | =item * |
| 701 | |
| 702 | C<\X> will now always match at least one character, including an initial |
| 703 | mark. Marks generally come after a base character, but it is possible in |
| 704 | Unicode to have them in isolation, and C<\X> will now handle that case, |
| 705 | for example at the beginning of a line, or after a C<ZWSP>. And this is |
| 706 | the part where C<\X> doesn't match the things that it used to that don't |
| 707 | make sense. Formerly, for example, you could have the nonsensical case |
| 708 | of an accented LF. |
| 709 | |
| 710 | =item * |
| 711 | |
| 712 | C<\X> will now match a (Korean) Hangul syllable sequence, and the Thai |
| 713 | and Lao exception cases. |
| 714 | |
| 715 | =back |
| 716 | |
| 717 | Otherwise, this change should be transparent for the non-affected |
| 718 | languages. |
| 719 | |
| 720 | C<\p{...}> matches using the Canonical_Combining_Class property were |
| 721 | completely broken in previous releases of Perl. They should now work |
| 722 | correctly. |
| 723 | |
| 724 | Before Perl 5.12, the Unicode C<Decomposition_Type=Compat> property |
| 725 | and a Perl extension had the same name, which led to neither matching |
| 726 | all the correct values (with more than 100 mistakes in one, and several |
| 727 | thousand in the other). The Perl extension has now been renamed to be |
| 728 | C<Decomposition_Type=Noncanonical> (short: C<dt=noncanon>). It has the |
| 729 | same meaning as was previously intended, namely the union of all the |
| 730 | non-canonical Decomposition types, with Unicode C<Compat> being just |
| 731 | one of those. |
| 732 | |
| 733 | C<\p{Decomposition_Type=Canonical}> now includes the Hangul syllables. |
| 734 | |
| 735 | C<\p{Uppercase}> and C<\p{Lowercase}> now work as the Unicode standard |
| 736 | says they should. This means they each match a few more characters than |
| 737 | they used to. |
| 738 | |
| 739 | C<\p{Cntrl}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Control}>. This |
| 740 | means it no longer will match Private Use (gc=co), Surrogates (gc=cs), |
| 741 | nor Format (gc=cf) code points. The Format code points represent the |
| 742 | biggest possible problem. All but 36 of them are either officially |
| 743 | deprecated or strongly discouraged from being used. Of those 36, likely |
| 744 | the most widely used are the soft hyphen (U+00AD), and BOM, ZWSP, ZWNJ, |
| 745 | WJ, and similar characters, plus bidirectional controls. |
| 746 | |
| 747 | C<\p{Alpha}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Alphabetic}>. Before |
| 748 | 5.12, Perl's definition definition included a number of things that aren't |
| 749 | really alpha (all marks) while omitting many that were. The definitions |
| 750 | of C<\p{Alnum}> and C<\p{Word}> depend on Alpha's definition and have |
| 751 | changed accordingly. |
| 752 | |
| 753 | C<\p{Word}> no longer incorrectly matches non-word characters such |
| 754 | as fractions. |
| 755 | |
| 756 | C<\p{Print}> no longer matches the line control characters: Tab, LF, |
| 757 | CR, FF, VT, and NEL. This brings it in line with standards and the |
| 758 | documentation. |
| 759 | |
| 760 | C<\p{XDigit}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Hex_Digit}>. This |
| 761 | means that in addition to the characters it currently matches, |
| 762 | C<[A-Fa-f0-9]>, it will also match the 22 fullwidth equivalents, for |
| 763 | example U+FF10: FULLWIDTH DIGIT ZERO. |
| 764 | |
| 765 | The Numeric type property has been extended to include the Unihan |
| 766 | characters. |
| 767 | |
| 768 | There is a new Perl extension, the 'Present_In', or simply 'In', |
| 769 | property. This is an extension of the Unicode Age property, but |
| 770 | C<\p{In=5.0}> matches any code point whose usage has been determined |
| 771 | I<as of> Unicode version 5.0. The C<\p{Age=5.0}> only matches code points |
| 772 | added in I<precisely> version 5.0. |
| 773 | |
| 774 | A number of properties now have the correct values for unassigned |
| 775 | code points. The affected properties are Bidi_Class, East_Asian_Width, |
| 776 | Joining_Type, Decomposition_Type, Hangul_Syllable_Type, Numeric_Type, |
| 777 | and Line_Break. |
| 778 | |
| 779 | The Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, ID_Continue, and ID_Start properties |
| 780 | are now up to date with current Unicode definitions. |
| 781 | |
| 782 | Earlier versions of Perl erroneously exposed certain properties that |
| 783 | are supposed to be Unicode internal-only. Use of these in regular |
| 784 | expressions will now generate, if enabled, a deprecation warning message. |
| 785 | The properties are: Other_Alphabetic, Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, |
| 786 | Other_Grapheme_Extend, Other_ID_Continue, Other_ID_Start, Other_Lowercase, |
| 787 | Other_Math, and Other_Uppercase. |
| 788 | |
| 789 | It is now possible to change which Unicode properties Perl understands |
| 790 | on a per-installation basis. As mentioned above, certain properties |
| 791 | are turned off by default. These include all the Unihan properties |
| 792 | (which should be accessible via the CPAN module Unicode::Unihan) and any |
| 793 | deprecated or Unicode internal-only property that Perl has never exposed. |
| 794 | |
| 795 | The generated files in the C<lib/unicore/To> directory are now more |
| 796 | clearly marked as being stable, directly usable by applications. New hash |
| 797 | entries in them give the format of the normal entries, which allows for |
| 798 | easier machine parsing. Perl can generate files in this directory for |
| 799 | any property, though most are suppressed. You can find instructions |
| 800 | for changing which are written in L<perluniprops>. |
| 801 | |
| 802 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
| 803 | |
| 804 | =head2 New Modules and Pragmata |
| 805 | |
| 806 | =over 4 |
| 807 | |
| 808 | =item C<autodie> |
| 809 | |
| 810 | C<autodie> is a new lexically-scoped alternative for the C<Fatal> module. |
| 811 | The bundled version is 2.06_01. Note that in this release, using a string |
| 812 | eval when C<autodie> is in effect can cause the autodie behaviour to leak |
| 813 | into the surrounding scope. See L<autodie/"BUGS"> for more details. |
| 814 | |
| 815 | Version 2.06_01 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 816 | |
| 817 | =item C<Compress::Raw::Bzip2> |
| 818 | |
| 819 | Version 2.024 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 820 | |
| 821 | =item C<overloading> |
| 822 | |
| 823 | C<overloading> allows you to lexically disable or enable overloading |
| 824 | for some or all operations. |
| 825 | |
| 826 | Version 0.001 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 827 | |
| 828 | =item C<parent> |
| 829 | |
| 830 | C<parent> establishes an ISA relationship with base classes at compile |
| 831 | time. It provides the key feature of C<base> without further unwanted |
| 832 | behaviors. |
| 833 | |
| 834 | Version 0.223 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 835 | |
| 836 | =item C<Parse::CPAN::Meta> |
| 837 | |
| 838 | Version 1.40 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 839 | |
| 840 | =item C<VMS::DCLsym> |
| 841 | |
| 842 | Version 1.03 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 843 | |
| 844 | =item C<VMS::Stdio> |
| 845 | |
| 846 | Version 2.4 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 847 | |
| 848 | =item C<XS::APItest::KeywordRPN> |
| 849 | |
| 850 | Version 0.003 has been added to the Perl core. |
| 851 | |
| 852 | =back |
| 853 | |
| 854 | =head2 Updated Pragmata |
| 855 | |
| 856 | =over 4 |
| 857 | |
| 858 | =item C<base> |
| 859 | |
| 860 | Upgraded from version 2.13 to 2.15. |
| 861 | |
| 862 | =item C<bignum> |
| 863 | |
| 864 | Upgraded from version 0.22 to 0.23. |
| 865 | |
| 866 | =item C<charnames> |
| 867 | |
| 868 | C<charnames> now contains the Unicode F<NameAliases.txt> database file. |
| 869 | This has the effect of adding some extra C<\N> character names that |
| 870 | formerly wouldn't have been recognised; for example, C<"\N{LATIN CAPITAL |
| 871 | LETTER GHA}">. |
| 872 | |
| 873 | Upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.07. |
| 874 | |
| 875 | =item C<constant> |
| 876 | |
| 877 | Upgraded from version 1.13 to 1.20. |
| 878 | |
| 879 | =item C<diagnostics> |
| 880 | |
| 881 | C<diagnostics> now supports %.0f formatting internally. |
| 882 | |
| 883 | C<diagnostics> no longer suppresses C<Use of uninitialized value in range |
| 884 | (or flip)> warnings. [perl #71204] |
| 885 | |
| 886 | Upgraded from version 1.17 to 1.19. |
| 887 | |
| 888 | =item C<feature> |
| 889 | |
| 890 | In C<feature>, the meaning of the C<:5.10> and C<:5.10.X> feature |
| 891 | bundles has changed slightly. The last component, if any (i.e. C<X>) is |
| 892 | simply ignored. This is predicated on the assumption that new features |
| 893 | will not, in general, be added to maintenance releases. So C<:5.10> |
| 894 | and C<:5.10.X> have identical effect. This is a change to the behaviour |
| 895 | documented for 5.10.0. |
| 896 | |
| 897 | C<feature> now includes the C<unicode_strings> feature: |
| 898 | |
| 899 | use feature "unicode_strings"; |
| 900 | |
| 901 | This pragma turns on Unicode semantics for the case-changing operations |
| 902 | (C<uc>, C<lc>, C<ucfirst>, C<lcfirst>) on strings that don't have the |
| 903 | internal UTF-8 flag set, but that contain single-byte characters between |
| 904 | 128 and 255. |
| 905 | |
| 906 | Upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.16. |
| 907 | |
| 908 | =item C<less> |
| 909 | |
| 910 | C<less> now includes the C<stash_name> method to allow subclasses of |
| 911 | C<less> to pick where in %^H to store their stash. |
| 912 | |
| 913 | Upgraded from version 0.02 to 0.03. |
| 914 | |
| 915 | =item C<lib> |
| 916 | |
| 917 | Upgraded from version 0.5565 to 0.62. |
| 918 | |
| 919 | =item C<mro> |
| 920 | |
| 921 | C<mro> is now implemented as an XS extension. The documented interface has |
| 922 | not changed. Code relying on the implementation detail that some C<mro::> |
| 923 | methods happened to be available at all times gets to "keep both pieces". |
| 924 | |
| 925 | Upgraded from version 1.00 to 1.02. |
| 926 | |
| 927 | =item C<overload> |
| 928 | |
| 929 | C<overload> now allow overloading of 'qr'. |
| 930 | |
| 931 | Upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.10. |
| 932 | |
| 933 | =item C<threads> |
| 934 | |
| 935 | Upgraded from version 1.67 to 1.75. |
| 936 | |
| 937 | =item C<threads::shared> |
| 938 | |
| 939 | Upgraded from version 1.14 to 1.32. |
| 940 | |
| 941 | =item C<version> |
| 942 | |
| 943 | C<version> now has support for L</Version number formats> as described |
| 944 | earlier in this document and in its own documentation. |
| 945 | |
| 946 | Upgraded from version 0.74 to 0.82. |
| 947 | |
| 948 | =item C<warnings> |
| 949 | |
| 950 | C<warnings> has a new C<warnings::fatal_enabled()> function. It also |
| 951 | includes a new C<illegalproto> warning category. See also L</New or |
| 952 | Changed Diagnostics> for this change. |
| 953 | |
| 954 | Upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.09. |
| 955 | |
| 956 | =back |
| 957 | |
| 958 | =head2 Updated Modules |
| 959 | |
| 960 | =over 4 |
| 961 | |
| 962 | =item C<Archive::Extract> |
| 963 | |
| 964 | Upgraded from version 0.24 to 0.38. |
| 965 | |
| 966 | =item C<Archive::Tar> |
| 967 | |
| 968 | Upgraded from version 1.38 to 1.54. |
| 969 | |
| 970 | =item C<Attribute::Handlers> |
| 971 | |
| 972 | Upgraded from version 0.79 to 0.87. |
| 973 | |
| 974 | =item C<AutoLoader> |
| 975 | |
| 976 | Upgraded from version 5.63 to 5.70. |
| 977 | |
| 978 | =item C<B::Concise> |
| 979 | |
| 980 | Upgraded from version 0.74 to 0.78. |
| 981 | |
| 982 | =item C<B::Debug> |
| 983 | |
| 984 | Upgraded from version 1.05 to 1.12. |
| 985 | |
| 986 | =item C<B::Deparse> |
| 987 | |
| 988 | Upgraded from version 0.83 to 0.96. |
| 989 | |
| 990 | =item C<B::Lint> |
| 991 | |
| 992 | Upgraded from version 1.09 to 1.11_01. |
| 993 | |
| 994 | =item C<CGI> |
| 995 | |
| 996 | Upgraded from version 3.29 to 3.48. |
| 997 | |
| 998 | =item C<Class::ISA> |
| 999 | |
| 1000 | Upgraded from version 0.33 to 0.36. |
| 1001 | |
| 1002 | NOTE: C<Class::ISA> is deprecated and may be removed from a future |
| 1003 | version of Perl. |
| 1004 | |
| 1005 | =item C<Compress::Raw::Zlib> |
| 1006 | |
| 1007 | Upgraded from version 2.008 to 2.024. |
| 1008 | |
| 1009 | =item C<CPAN> |
| 1010 | |
| 1011 | Upgraded from version 1.9205 to 1.94_56. |
| 1012 | |
| 1013 | =item C<CPANPLUS> |
| 1014 | |
| 1015 | Upgraded from version 0.84 to 0.90. |
| 1016 | |
| 1017 | =item C<CPANPLUS::Dist::Build> |
| 1018 | |
| 1019 | Upgraded from version 0.06_02 to 0.46. |
| 1020 | |
| 1021 | =item C<Data::Dumper> |
| 1022 | |
| 1023 | Upgraded from version 2.121_14 to 2.125. |
| 1024 | |
| 1025 | =item C<DB_File> |
| 1026 | |
| 1027 | Upgraded from version 1.816_1 to 1.820. |
| 1028 | |
| 1029 | =item C<Devel::PPPort> |
| 1030 | |
| 1031 | Upgraded from version 3.13 to 3.19. |
| 1032 | |
| 1033 | =item C<Digest> |
| 1034 | |
| 1035 | Upgraded from version 1.15 to 1.16. |
| 1036 | |
| 1037 | =item C<Digest::MD5> |
| 1038 | |
| 1039 | Upgraded from version 2.36_01 to 2.39. |
| 1040 | |
| 1041 | =item C<Digest::SHA> |
| 1042 | |
| 1043 | Upgraded from version 5.45 to 5.47. |
| 1044 | |
| 1045 | =item C<Encode> |
| 1046 | |
| 1047 | Upgraded from version 2.23 to 2.39. |
| 1048 | |
| 1049 | =item C<Exporter> |
| 1050 | |
| 1051 | Upgraded from version 5.62 to 5.64_01. |
| 1052 | |
| 1053 | =item C<ExtUtils::CBuilder> |
| 1054 | |
| 1055 | Upgraded from version 0.21 to 0.27. |
| 1056 | |
| 1057 | =item C<ExtUtils::Command> |
| 1058 | |
| 1059 | Upgraded from version 1.13 to 1.16. |
| 1060 | |
| 1061 | =item C<ExtUtils::Constant> |
| 1062 | |
| 1063 | Upgraded from version 0.2 to 0.22. |
| 1064 | |
| 1065 | =item C<ExtUtils::Install> |
| 1066 | |
| 1067 | Upgraded from version 1.44 to 1.55. |
| 1068 | |
| 1069 | =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> |
| 1070 | |
| 1071 | Upgraded from version 6.42 to 6.56. |
| 1072 | |
| 1073 | =item C<ExtUtils::Manifest> |
| 1074 | |
| 1075 | Upgraded from version 1.51_01 to 1.57. |
| 1076 | |
| 1077 | =item C<ExtUtils::ParseXS> |
| 1078 | |
| 1079 | Upgraded from version 2.18_02 to 2.21. |
| 1080 | |
| 1081 | =item C<File::Fetch> |
| 1082 | |
| 1083 | Upgraded from version 0.14 to 0.24. |
| 1084 | |
| 1085 | =item C<File::Path> |
| 1086 | |
| 1087 | Upgraded from version 2.04 to 2.08_01. |
| 1088 | |
| 1089 | =item C<File::Temp> |
| 1090 | |
| 1091 | Upgraded from version 0.18 to 0.22. |
| 1092 | |
| 1093 | =item C<Filter::Simple> |
| 1094 | |
| 1095 | Upgraded from version 0.82 to 0.84. |
| 1096 | |
| 1097 | =item C<Filter::Util::Call> |
| 1098 | |
| 1099 | Upgraded from version 1.07 to 1.08. |
| 1100 | |
| 1101 | =item C<Getopt::Long> |
| 1102 | |
| 1103 | Upgraded from version 2.37 to 2.38. |
| 1104 | |
| 1105 | =item C<IO> |
| 1106 | |
| 1107 | Upgraded from version 1.23_01 to 1.25_02. |
| 1108 | |
| 1109 | =item C<IO::Zlib> |
| 1110 | |
| 1111 | Upgraded from version 1.07 to 1.10. |
| 1112 | |
| 1113 | =item C<IPC::Cmd> |
| 1114 | |
| 1115 | Upgraded from version 0.40_1 to 0.54. |
| 1116 | |
| 1117 | =item C<IPC::SysV> |
| 1118 | |
| 1119 | Upgraded from version 1.05 to 2.01. |
| 1120 | |
| 1121 | =item C<Locale::Maketext> |
| 1122 | |
| 1123 | Upgraded from version 1.12 to 1.14. |
| 1124 | |
| 1125 | =item C<Locale::Maketext::Simple> |
| 1126 | |
| 1127 | Upgraded from version 0.18 to 0.21. |
| 1128 | |
| 1129 | =item C<Log::Message> |
| 1130 | |
| 1131 | Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.02. |
| 1132 | |
| 1133 | =item C<Log::Message::Simple> |
| 1134 | |
| 1135 | Upgraded from version 0.04 to 0.06. |
| 1136 | |
| 1137 | =item C<Math::BigInt> |
| 1138 | |
| 1139 | Upgraded from version 1.88 to 1.89_01. |
| 1140 | |
| 1141 | =item C<Math::BigInt::FastCalc> |
| 1142 | |
| 1143 | Upgraded from version 0.16 to 0.19. |
| 1144 | |
| 1145 | =item C<Math::BigRat> |
| 1146 | |
| 1147 | Upgraded from version 0.21 to 0.24. |
| 1148 | |
| 1149 | =item C<Math::Complex> |
| 1150 | |
| 1151 | Upgraded from version 1.37 to 1.56. |
| 1152 | |
| 1153 | =item C<Memoize> |
| 1154 | |
| 1155 | Upgraded from version 1.01_02 to 1.01_03. |
| 1156 | |
| 1157 | =item C<MIME::Base64> |
| 1158 | |
| 1159 | Upgraded from version 3.07_01 to 3.08. |
| 1160 | |
| 1161 | =item C<Module::Build> |
| 1162 | |
| 1163 | Upgraded from version 0.2808_01 to 0.3603. |
| 1164 | |
| 1165 | =item C<Module::CoreList> |
| 1166 | |
| 1167 | Upgraded from version 2.12 to 2.29. |
| 1168 | |
| 1169 | =item C<Module::Load> |
| 1170 | |
| 1171 | Upgraded from version 0.12 to 0.16. |
| 1172 | |
| 1173 | =item C<Module::Load::Conditional> |
| 1174 | |
| 1175 | Upgraded from version 0.22 to 0.34. |
| 1176 | |
| 1177 | =item C<Module::Loaded> |
| 1178 | |
| 1179 | Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.06. |
| 1180 | |
| 1181 | =item C<Module::Pluggable> |
| 1182 | |
| 1183 | Upgraded from version 3.6 to 3.9. |
| 1184 | |
| 1185 | =item C<Net::Ping> |
| 1186 | |
| 1187 | Upgraded from version 2.33 to 2.36. |
| 1188 | |
| 1189 | =item C<NEXT> |
| 1190 | |
| 1191 | Upgraded from version 0.60_01 to 0.64. |
| 1192 | |
| 1193 | =item C<Object::Accessor> |
| 1194 | |
| 1195 | Upgraded from version 0.32 to 0.36. |
| 1196 | |
| 1197 | =item C<Package::Constants> |
| 1198 | |
| 1199 | Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.02. |
| 1200 | |
| 1201 | =item C<PerlIO> |
| 1202 | |
| 1203 | Upgraded from version 1.04 to 1.06. |
| 1204 | |
| 1205 | =item C<Pod::Parser> |
| 1206 | |
| 1207 | Upgraded from version 1.35 to 1.37. |
| 1208 | |
| 1209 | =item C<Pod::Perldoc> |
| 1210 | |
| 1211 | Upgraded from version 3.14_02 to 3.15_02. |
| 1212 | |
| 1213 | =item C<Pod::Plainer> |
| 1214 | |
| 1215 | Upgraded from version 0.01 to 1.02. |
| 1216 | |
| 1217 | NOTE: C<Pod::Plainer> is deprecated and may be removed from a future |
| 1218 | version of Perl. |
| 1219 | |
| 1220 | =item C<Pod::Simple> |
| 1221 | |
| 1222 | Upgraded from version 3.05 to 3.13. |
| 1223 | |
| 1224 | =item C<Safe> |
| 1225 | |
| 1226 | Upgraded from version 2.12 to 2.22. |
| 1227 | |
| 1228 | =item C<SelfLoader> |
| 1229 | |
| 1230 | Upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.17. |
| 1231 | |
| 1232 | =item C<Storable> |
| 1233 | |
| 1234 | Upgraded from version 2.18 to 2.22. |
| 1235 | |
| 1236 | =item C<Switch> |
| 1237 | |
| 1238 | Upgraded from version 2.13 to 2.16. |
| 1239 | |
| 1240 | NOTE: C<Switch> is deprecated and may be removed from a future version |
| 1241 | of Perl. |
| 1242 | |
| 1243 | =item C<Sys::Syslog> |
| 1244 | |
| 1245 | Upgraded from version 0.22 to 0.27. |
| 1246 | |
| 1247 | =item C<Term::ANSIColor> |
| 1248 | |
| 1249 | Upgraded from version 1.12 to 2.02. |
| 1250 | |
| 1251 | =item C<Term::UI> |
| 1252 | |
| 1253 | Upgraded from version 0.18 to 0.20. |
| 1254 | |
| 1255 | =item C<Test> |
| 1256 | |
| 1257 | Upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25_02. |
| 1258 | |
| 1259 | =item C<Test::Harness> |
| 1260 | |
| 1261 | Upgraded from version 2.64 to 3.17. |
| 1262 | |
| 1263 | =item C<Test::Simple> |
| 1264 | |
| 1265 | Upgraded from version 0.72 to 0.94. |
| 1266 | |
| 1267 | =item C<Text::Balanced> |
| 1268 | |
| 1269 | Upgraded from version 2.0.0 to 2.02. |
| 1270 | |
| 1271 | =item C<Text::ParseWords> |
| 1272 | |
| 1273 | Upgraded from version 3.26 to 3.27. |
| 1274 | |
| 1275 | =item C<Text::Soundex> |
| 1276 | |
| 1277 | Upgraded from version 3.03 to 3.03_01. |
| 1278 | |
| 1279 | =item C<Thread::Queue> |
| 1280 | |
| 1281 | Upgraded from version 2.00 to 2.11. |
| 1282 | |
| 1283 | =item C<Thread::Semaphore> |
| 1284 | |
| 1285 | Upgraded from version 2.01 to 2.09. |
| 1286 | |
| 1287 | =item C<Tie::RefHash> |
| 1288 | |
| 1289 | Upgraded from version 1.37 to 1.38. |
| 1290 | |
| 1291 | =item C<Time::HiRes> |
| 1292 | |
| 1293 | Upgraded from version 1.9711 to 1.9719. |
| 1294 | |
| 1295 | =item C<Time::Local> |
| 1296 | |
| 1297 | Upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.1901_01. |
| 1298 | |
| 1299 | =item C<Time::Piece> |
| 1300 | |
| 1301 | Upgraded from version 1.12 to 1.15. |
| 1302 | |
| 1303 | =item C<Unicode::Collate> |
| 1304 | |
| 1305 | Upgraded from version 0.52 to 0.52_01. |
| 1306 | |
| 1307 | =item C<Unicode::Normalize> |
| 1308 | |
| 1309 | Upgraded from version 1.02 to 1.03. |
| 1310 | |
| 1311 | =item C<Win32> |
| 1312 | |
| 1313 | Upgraded from version 0.34 to 0.39. |
| 1314 | |
| 1315 | =item C<Win32API::File> |
| 1316 | |
| 1317 | Upgraded from version 0.1001_01 to 0.1101. |
| 1318 | |
| 1319 | =item C<XSLoader> |
| 1320 | |
| 1321 | Upgraded from version 0.08 to 0.10. |
| 1322 | |
| 1323 | =back |
| 1324 | |
| 1325 | =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata |
| 1326 | |
| 1327 | =over 4 |
| 1328 | |
| 1329 | =item C<attrs> |
| 1330 | |
| 1331 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 1.02. |
| 1332 | |
| 1333 | =item C<CPAN::API::HOWTO> |
| 1334 | |
| 1335 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 'undef'. |
| 1336 | |
| 1337 | =item C<CPAN::DeferedCode> |
| 1338 | |
| 1339 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 5.50. |
| 1340 | |
| 1341 | =item C<CPANPLUS::inc> |
| 1342 | |
| 1343 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 'undef'. |
| 1344 | |
| 1345 | =item C<DCLsym> |
| 1346 | |
| 1347 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 1.03. |
| 1348 | |
| 1349 | =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> |
| 1350 | |
| 1351 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 6.42. |
| 1352 | |
| 1353 | =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> |
| 1354 | |
| 1355 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 6.42. |
| 1356 | |
| 1357 | =item C<Stdio> |
| 1358 | |
| 1359 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 2.3. |
| 1360 | |
| 1361 | =item C<Test::Harness::Assert> |
| 1362 | |
| 1363 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.02. |
| 1364 | |
| 1365 | =item C<Test::Harness::Iterator> |
| 1366 | |
| 1367 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.02. |
| 1368 | |
| 1369 | =item C<Test::Harness::Point> |
| 1370 | |
| 1371 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.01. |
| 1372 | |
| 1373 | =item C<Test::Harness::Results> |
| 1374 | |
| 1375 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.01. |
| 1376 | |
| 1377 | =item C<Test::Harness::Straps> |
| 1378 | |
| 1379 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.26_01. |
| 1380 | |
| 1381 | =item C<Test::Harness::Util> |
| 1382 | |
| 1383 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.01. |
| 1384 | |
| 1385 | =item C<XSSymSet> |
| 1386 | |
| 1387 | Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 1.1. |
| 1388 | |
| 1389 | =back |
| 1390 | |
| 1391 | =head2 Deprecated Modules and Pragmata |
| 1392 | |
| 1393 | See L</Deprecated Modules> above. |
| 1394 | |
| 1395 | |
| 1396 | =head1 Documentation |
| 1397 | |
| 1398 | =head2 New Documentation |
| 1399 | |
| 1400 | =over 4 |
| 1401 | |
| 1402 | =item * |
| 1403 | |
| 1404 | L<perlhaiku> contains instructions on how to build perl for the Haiku |
| 1405 | platform. |
| 1406 | |
| 1407 | =item * |
| 1408 | |
| 1409 | L<perlmroapi> describes the new interface for pluggable Method Resolution |
| 1410 | Orders. |
| 1411 | |
| 1412 | =item * |
| 1413 | |
| 1414 | L<perlperf>, by Richard Foley, provides an introduction to the use of |
| 1415 | performance and optimization techniques which can be used with particular |
| 1416 | reference to perl programs. |
| 1417 | |
| 1418 | =item * |
| 1419 | |
| 1420 | L<perlrepository> describes how to access the perl source using the I<git> |
| 1421 | version control system. |
| 1422 | |
| 1423 | =item * |
| 1424 | |
| 1425 | L<perlpolicy> extends the "Social contract about contributed modules" into |
| 1426 | the beginnings of a document on Perl porting policies. |
| 1427 | |
| 1428 | =back |
| 1429 | |
| 1430 | =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation |
| 1431 | |
| 1432 | |
| 1433 | =over |
| 1434 | |
| 1435 | |
| 1436 | =item * |
| 1437 | |
| 1438 | The various large F<Changes*> files (which listed every change made |
| 1439 | to perl over the last 18 years) have been removed, and replaced by a |
| 1440 | small file, also called F<Changes>, which just explains how that same |
| 1441 | information may be extracted from the git version control system. |
| 1442 | |
| 1443 | =item * |
| 1444 | |
| 1445 | F<Porting/patching.pod> has been deleted, as it mainly described |
| 1446 | interacting with the old Perforce-based repository, which is now obsolete. |
| 1447 | Information still relevant has been moved to L<perlrepository>. |
| 1448 | |
| 1449 | |
| 1450 | =item * |
| 1451 | |
| 1452 | The syntax C<unless (EXPR) BLOCK else BLOCK> is now documented as valid, |
| 1453 | as is the syntax C<unless (EXPR) BLOCK elsif (EXPR) BLOCK ... else |
| 1454 | BLOCK>, although actually using the latter may not be the best idea for |
| 1455 | the readability of your source code. |
| 1456 | |
| 1457 | |
| 1458 | =item * |
| 1459 | |
| 1460 | Documented -X overloading. |
| 1461 | |
| 1462 | =item * |
| 1463 | |
| 1464 | Documented that C<when()> treats specially most of the filetest operators |
| 1465 | |
| 1466 | =item * |
| 1467 | |
| 1468 | Documented C<when> as a syntax modifier. |
| 1469 | |
| 1470 | =item * |
| 1471 | |
| 1472 | Eliminated "Old Perl threads tutorial", which described 5005 threads. |
| 1473 | |
| 1474 | F<pod/perlthrtut.pod> is the same material reworked for ithreads. |
| 1475 | |
| 1476 | =item * |
| 1477 | |
| 1478 | Correct previous documentation: v-strings are not deprecated |
| 1479 | |
| 1480 | With version objects, we need them to use MODULE VERSION syntax. This |
| 1481 | patch removes the deprecation notice. |
| 1482 | |
| 1483 | =item * |
| 1484 | |
| 1485 | Security contact information is now part of L<perlsec>. |
| 1486 | |
| 1487 | =item * |
| 1488 | |
| 1489 | A significant fraction of the core documentation has been updated to |
| 1490 | clarify the behavior of Perl's Unicode handling. |
| 1491 | |
| 1492 | Much of the remaining core documentation has been reviewed and edited |
| 1493 | for clarity, consistent use of language, and to fix the spelling of Tom |
| 1494 | Christiansen's name. |
| 1495 | |
| 1496 | =item * |
| 1497 | |
| 1498 | The Pod specification (L<perlpodspec>) has been updated to bring the |
| 1499 | specification in line with modern usage already supported by most Pod |
| 1500 | systems. A parameter string may now follow the format name in a |
| 1501 | "begin/end" region. Links to URIs with a text description are now |
| 1502 | allowed. The usage of C<LE<lt>"section"E<gt>> has been marked as |
| 1503 | deprecated. |
| 1504 | |
| 1505 | =item * |
| 1506 | |
| 1507 | L<if.pm|if> has been documented in L<perlfunc/use> as a means to get |
| 1508 | conditional loading of modules despite the implicit BEGIN block around |
| 1509 | C<use>. |
| 1510 | |
| 1511 | =item * |
| 1512 | |
| 1513 | The documentation for C<$1> in perlvar.pod has been clarified. |
| 1514 | |
| 1515 | =item * |
| 1516 | |
| 1517 | C<\N{U+I<wide hex char>}> is now documented. |
| 1518 | |
| 1519 | =back |
| 1520 | |
| 1521 | =head1 Selected Performance Enhancements |
| 1522 | |
| 1523 | =over 4 |
| 1524 | |
| 1525 | =item * |
| 1526 | |
| 1527 | A new internal cache means that C<isa()> will often be faster. |
| 1528 | |
| 1529 | =item * |
| 1530 | |
| 1531 | The implementation of C<C3> Method Resolution Order has been |
| 1532 | optimised - linearisation for classes with single inheritance is 40% |
| 1533 | faster. Performance for multiple inheritance is unchanged. |
| 1534 | |
| 1535 | =item * |
| 1536 | |
| 1537 | Under C<use locale>, the locale-relevant information is now cached on |
| 1538 | read-only values, such as the list returned by C<keys %hash>. This makes |
| 1539 | operations such as C<sort keys %hash> in the scope of C<use locale> |
| 1540 | much faster. |
| 1541 | |
| 1542 | =item * |
| 1543 | |
| 1544 | Empty C<DESTROY> methods are no longer called. |
| 1545 | |
| 1546 | =item * |
| 1547 | |
| 1548 | C<Perl_sv_utf8_upgrade()> is now faster. |
| 1549 | |
| 1550 | =item * |
| 1551 | |
| 1552 | C<keys> on empty hash is now faster. |
| 1553 | |
| 1554 | =item * |
| 1555 | |
| 1556 | C<if (%foo)> has been optimized to be faster than C<if (keys %foo)>. |
| 1557 | |
| 1558 | =item * |
| 1559 | |
| 1560 | The string repetition operator (C<$str x $num>) is now several times |
| 1561 | faster when C<$str> has length one or C<$num> is large. |
| 1562 | |
| 1563 | =item * |
| 1564 | |
| 1565 | Reversing an array to itself (as in C<@a = reverse @a>) in void context |
| 1566 | now happens in-place and is several orders of magnitude faster than |
| 1567 | it used to be. It will also preserve non-existent elements whenever |
| 1568 | possible, i.e. for non magical arrays or tied arrays with C<EXISTS> |
| 1569 | and C<DELETE> methods. |
| 1570 | |
| 1571 | =back |
| 1572 | |
| 1573 | =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
| 1574 | |
| 1575 | =over 4 |
| 1576 | |
| 1577 | =item * |
| 1578 | |
| 1579 | L<perlapi>, L<perlintern>, L<perlmodlib> and L<perltoc> are now all |
| 1580 | generated at build time, rather than being shipped as part of the release. |
| 1581 | |
| 1582 | =item * |
| 1583 | |
| 1584 | If C<vendorlib> and C<vendorarch> are the same, then they are only added |
| 1585 | to C<@INC> once. |
| 1586 | |
| 1587 | =item * |
| 1588 | |
| 1589 | C<$Config{usedevel}> and the C-level C<PERL_USE_DEVEL> are now defined if |
| 1590 | perl is built with C<-Dusedevel>. |
| 1591 | |
| 1592 | =item * |
| 1593 | |
| 1594 | F<Configure> will enable use of C<-fstack-protector>, to provide protection |
| 1595 | against stack-smashing attacks, if the compiler supports it. |
| 1596 | |
| 1597 | =item * |
| 1598 | |
| 1599 | F<Configure> will now determine the correct prototypes for re-entrant |
| 1600 | functions and for C<gconvert> if you are using a C++ compiler rather |
| 1601 | than a C compiler. |
| 1602 | |
| 1603 | =item * |
| 1604 | |
| 1605 | On Unix, if you build from a tree containing a git repository, the |
| 1606 | configuration process will note the commit hash you have checked out, for |
| 1607 | display in the output of C<perl -v> and C<perl -V>. Unpushed local commits |
| 1608 | are automatically added to the list of local patches displayed by |
| 1609 | C<perl -V>. |
| 1610 | |
| 1611 | =item * |
| 1612 | |
| 1613 | Perl now supports SystemTap's C<dtrace> compatibility layer and an |
| 1614 | issue with linking C<miniperl> has been fixed in the process. |
| 1615 | |
| 1616 | =item * |
| 1617 | |
| 1618 | perldoc now uses C<less -R> instead of C<less> for improved behaviour |
| 1619 | in the face of C<groff>'s new usage of ANSI escape codes. |
| 1620 | |
| 1621 | =item * |
| 1622 | |
| 1623 | |
| 1624 | C<perl -V> now reports use of the compile-time options C<USE_PERL_ATOF> and |
| 1625 | C<USE_ATTRIBUTES_FOR_PERLIO>. |
| 1626 | |
| 1627 | =item * |
| 1628 | |
| 1629 | As part of the flattening of F<ext>, all extensions on all platforms are |
| 1630 | built by F<make_ext.pl>. This replaces the Unix-specific |
| 1631 | F<ext/util/make_ext>, VMS-specific F<make_ext.com> and Win32-specific |
| 1632 | F<win32/buildext.pl>. |
| 1633 | |
| 1634 | =back |
| 1635 | |
| 1636 | =head1 Internal Changes |
| 1637 | |
| 1638 | Each release of Perl sees numerous internal changes which shouldn't |
| 1639 | affect day to day usage but may still be notable for developers working |
| 1640 | with Perl's source code. |
| 1641 | |
| 1642 | =over |
| 1643 | |
| 1644 | =item * |
| 1645 | |
| 1646 | The J.R.R. Tolkien quotes at the head of C source file have been checked |
| 1647 | and proper citations added, thanks to a patch from Tom Christiansen. |
| 1648 | |
| 1649 | =item * |
| 1650 | |
| 1651 | The internal structure of the dual-life modules traditionally found in |
| 1652 | the F<lib/> and F<ext/> directories in the perl source has changed |
| 1653 | significantly. Where possible, dual-lifed modules have been extracted |
| 1654 | from F<lib/> and F<ext/>. |
| 1655 | |
| 1656 | Dual-lifed modules maintained by Perl's developers as part of the Perl |
| 1657 | core now live in F<dist/>. Dual-lifed modules maintained primarily on |
| 1658 | CPAN now live in F<cpan/>. When reporting a bug in a module located |
| 1659 | under F<cpan/>, please send your bug report directly to the module's |
| 1660 | bug tracker or author, rather than Perl's bug tracker. |
| 1661 | |
| 1662 | =item * |
| 1663 | |
| 1664 | C<\N{...}> now compiles better, always forces UTF-8 internal representation |
| 1665 | |
| 1666 | Perl's developers have fixed several problems with the recognition of |
| 1667 | C<\N{...}> constructs. As part of this, perl will store any scalar |
| 1668 | or regex containing C<\N{I<name>}> or C<\N{U+I<wide hex char>}> in its |
| 1669 | definition in UTF-8 format. (This was true previously for all occurences |
| 1670 | of C<\N{I<name>}> that did not use a custom translator, but now it's |
| 1671 | always true.) |
| 1672 | |
| 1673 | =item * |
| 1674 | |
| 1675 | Perl_magic_setmglob now knows about globs, fixing RT #71254. |
| 1676 | |
| 1677 | =item * |
| 1678 | |
| 1679 | C<SVt_RV> no longer exists. RVs are now stored in IVs. |
| 1680 | |
| 1681 | =item * |
| 1682 | |
| 1683 | C<Perl_vcroak()> now accepts a null first argument. In addition, a full |
| 1684 | audit was made of the "not NULL" compiler annotations, and those for |
| 1685 | several other internal functions were corrected. |
| 1686 | |
| 1687 | =item * |
| 1688 | |
| 1689 | New macros C<dSAVEDERRNO>, C<dSAVE_ERRNO>, C<SAVE_ERRNO>, C<RESTORE_ERRNO> |
| 1690 | have been added to formalise the temporary saving of the C<errno> |
| 1691 | variable. |
| 1692 | |
| 1693 | =item * |
| 1694 | |
| 1695 | The function C<Perl_sv_insert_flags> has been added to augment |
| 1696 | C<Perl_sv_insert>. |
| 1697 | |
| 1698 | =item * |
| 1699 | |
| 1700 | The function C<Perl_newSV_type(type)> has been added, equivalent to |
| 1701 | C<Perl_newSV()> followed by C<Perl_sv_upgrade(type)>. |
| 1702 | |
| 1703 | =item * |
| 1704 | |
| 1705 | The function C<Perl_newSVpvn_flags()> has been added, equivalent to |
| 1706 | C<Perl_newSVpvn()> and then performing the action relevant to the flag. |
| 1707 | |
| 1708 | Two flag bits are currently supported. |
| 1709 | |
| 1710 | =over 4 |
| 1711 | |
| 1712 | =item * |
| 1713 | |
| 1714 | C<SVf_UTF8> will call C<SvUTF8_on()> for you. (Note that this does |
| 1715 | not convert an sequence of ISO 8859-1 characters to UTF-8). A wrapper, |
| 1716 | C<newSVpvn_utf8()> is available for this. |
| 1717 | |
| 1718 | =item * |
| 1719 | |
| 1720 | C<SVs_TEMP> now calls C<Perl_sv_2mortal()> on the new SV. |
| 1721 | |
| 1722 | =back |
| 1723 | |
| 1724 | There is also a wrapper that takes constant strings, C<newSVpvs_flags()>. |
| 1725 | |
| 1726 | =item * |
| 1727 | |
| 1728 | The function C<Perl_croak_xs_usage> has been added as a wrapper to |
| 1729 | C<Perl_croak>. |
| 1730 | |
| 1731 | =item * |
| 1732 | |
| 1733 | Perl now exports the functions C<PerlIO_find_layer> and C<PerlIO_list_alloc>. |
| 1734 | |
| 1735 | =item * |
| 1736 | |
| 1737 | C<PL_na> has been exterminated from the core code, replaced by local |
| 1738 | STRLEN temporaries, or C<*_nolen()> calls. Either approach is faster than |
| 1739 | C<PL_na>, which is a pointer dereference into the interpreter structure |
| 1740 | under ithreads, and a global variable otherwise. |
| 1741 | |
| 1742 | =item * |
| 1743 | |
| 1744 | C<Perl_mg_free()> used to leave freed memory accessible via C<SvMAGIC()> |
| 1745 | on the scalar. It now updates the linked list to remove each piece of |
| 1746 | magic as it is freed. |
| 1747 | |
| 1748 | =item * |
| 1749 | |
| 1750 | Under ithreads, the regex in C<PL_reg_curpm> is now reference |
| 1751 | counted. This eliminates a lot of hackish workarounds to cope with it |
| 1752 | not being reference counted. |
| 1753 | |
| 1754 | =item * |
| 1755 | |
| 1756 | C<Perl_mg_magical()> would sometimes incorrectly turn on C<SvRMAGICAL()>. |
| 1757 | This has been fixed. |
| 1758 | |
| 1759 | =item * |
| 1760 | |
| 1761 | The I<public> IV and NV flags are now not set if the string value has |
| 1762 | trailing "garbage". This behaviour is consistent with not setting the |
| 1763 | public IV or NV flags if the value is out of range for the type. |
| 1764 | |
| 1765 | =item * |
| 1766 | |
| 1767 | Uses of C<Nullav>, C<Nullcv>, C<Nullhv>, C<Nullop>, C<Nullsv> etc have |
| 1768 | been replaced by C<NULL> in the core code, and non-dual-life modules, |
| 1769 | as C<NULL> is clearer to those unfamiliar with the core code. |
| 1770 | |
| 1771 | =item * |
| 1772 | |
| 1773 | A macro C<MUTABLE_PTR(p)> has been added, which on (non-pedantic) gcc will |
| 1774 | not cast away C<const>, returning a C<void *>. Macros C<MUTABLE_SV(av)>, |
| 1775 | C<MUTABLE_SV(cv)> etc build on this, casting to C<AV *> etc without |
| 1776 | casting away C<const>. This allows proper compile-time auditing of |
| 1777 | C<const> correctness in the core, and helped picked up some errors |
| 1778 | (now fixed). |
| 1779 | |
| 1780 | =item * |
| 1781 | |
| 1782 | Macros C<mPUSHs()> and C<mXPUSHs()> have been added, for pushing SVs on the |
| 1783 | stack and mortalizing them. |
| 1784 | |
| 1785 | =item * |
| 1786 | |
| 1787 | Use of the private structure C<mro_meta> has changed slightly. Nothing |
| 1788 | outside the core should be accessing this directly anyway. |
| 1789 | |
| 1790 | =item * |
| 1791 | |
| 1792 | A new tool, F<Porting/expand-macro.pl> has been added, that allows you |
| 1793 | to view how a C preprocessor macro would be expanded when compiled. |
| 1794 | This is handy when trying to decode the macro hell that is the perl |
| 1795 | guts. |
| 1796 | |
| 1797 | =back |
| 1798 | |
| 1799 | =head1 Testing |
| 1800 | |
| 1801 | =head2 Testing improvements |
| 1802 | |
| 1803 | =over 4 |
| 1804 | |
| 1805 | =item Parallel tests |
| 1806 | |
| 1807 | The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on |
| 1808 | Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in |
| 1809 | your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run |
| 1810 | C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as |
| 1811 | |
| 1812 | TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel |
| 1813 | |
| 1814 | An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because |
| 1815 | L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test |
| 1816 | scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to |
| 1817 | interact with their job schedulers. |
| 1818 | |
| 1819 | Note that currently some test scripts may fail when run in parallel (most |
| 1820 | notably C<ext/IO/t/io_dir.t>). If necessary run just the failing scripts |
| 1821 | again sequentially and see if the failures go away. |
| 1822 | |
| 1823 | =item Test harness flexibility |
| 1824 | |
| 1825 | It's now possible to override C<PERL5OPT> and friends in F<t/TEST> |
| 1826 | |
| 1827 | =item Test watchdog |
| 1828 | |
| 1829 | Several tests that have the potential to hang forever if they fail now |
| 1830 | incorporate a "watchdog" functionality that will kill them after a timeout, |
| 1831 | which helps ensure that C<make test> and C<make test_harness> run to |
| 1832 | completion automatically. |
| 1833 | |
| 1834 | |
| 1835 | =back |
| 1836 | |
| 1837 | =head2 New Tests |
| 1838 | |
| 1839 | Perl's developers have added a number of new tests to the core. |
| 1840 | In addition to the items listed below, many modules updated from CPAN |
| 1841 | incorporate new tests. |
| 1842 | |
| 1843 | =over 4 |
| 1844 | |
| 1845 | =item * |
| 1846 | |
| 1847 | Significant cleanups to core tests to ensure that language and |
| 1848 | interpreter features are not used before they're tested. |
| 1849 | |
| 1850 | =item * |
| 1851 | |
| 1852 | C<make test_porting> now runs a number of important pre-commit checks |
| 1853 | which might be of use to anyone working on the Perl core. |
| 1854 | |
| 1855 | =item * |
| 1856 | |
| 1857 | F<t/porting/podcheck.t> automatically checks the well-formedness of |
| 1858 | POD found in all .pl, .pm and .pod files in the F<MANIFEST>, other than in |
| 1859 | dual-lifed modules which are primarily maintained outside the Perl core. |
| 1860 | |
| 1861 | =item * |
| 1862 | |
| 1863 | F<t/porting/manifest.t> now tests that all files listed in MANIFEST |
| 1864 | are present. |
| 1865 | |
| 1866 | =item * |
| 1867 | |
| 1868 | F<t/op/while_readdir.t> tests that a bare readdir in while loop sets $_. |
| 1869 | |
| 1870 | =item * |
| 1871 | |
| 1872 | F<t/comp/retainedlines.t> checks that the debugger can retain source |
| 1873 | lines from C<eval>. |
| 1874 | |
| 1875 | =item * |
| 1876 | |
| 1877 | F<t/io/perlio_fail.t> checks that bad layers fail. |
| 1878 | |
| 1879 | =item * |
| 1880 | |
| 1881 | F<t/io/perlio_leaks.t> checks that PerlIO layers are not leaking. |
| 1882 | |
| 1883 | =item * |
| 1884 | |
| 1885 | F<t/io/perlio_open.t> checks that certain special forms of open work. |
| 1886 | |
| 1887 | =item * |
| 1888 | |
| 1889 | F<t/io/perlio.t> includes general PerlIO tests. |
| 1890 | |
| 1891 | =item * |
| 1892 | |
| 1893 | F<t/io/pvbm.t> checks that there is no unexpected interaction between |
| 1894 | the internal types C<PVBM> and C<PVGV>. |
| 1895 | |
| 1896 | =item * |
| 1897 | |
| 1898 | F<t/mro/package_aliases.t> checks that mro works properly in the presence |
| 1899 | of aliased packages. |
| 1900 | |
| 1901 | =item * |
| 1902 | |
| 1903 | F<t/op/dbm.t> tests C<dbmopen> and C<dbmclose>. |
| 1904 | |
| 1905 | =item * |
| 1906 | |
| 1907 | F<t/op/index_thr.t> tests the interaction of C<index> and threads. |
| 1908 | |
| 1909 | =item * |
| 1910 | |
| 1911 | F<t/op/pat_thr.t> tests the interaction of esoteric patterns and threads. |
| 1912 | |
| 1913 | =item * |
| 1914 | |
| 1915 | F<t/op/qr_gc.t> tests that C<qr> doesn't leak. |
| 1916 | |
| 1917 | =item * |
| 1918 | |
| 1919 | F<t/op/reg_email_thr.t> tests the interaction of regex recursion and threads. |
| 1920 | |
| 1921 | =item * |
| 1922 | |
| 1923 | F<t/op/regexp_qr_embed_thr.t> tests the interaction of patterns with |
| 1924 | embedded C<qr//> and threads. |
| 1925 | |
| 1926 | =item * |
| 1927 | |
| 1928 | F<t/op/regexp_unicode_prop.t> tests Unicode properties in regular |
| 1929 | expressions. |
| 1930 | |
| 1931 | =item * |
| 1932 | |
| 1933 | F<t/op/regexp_unicode_prop_thr.t> tests the interaction of Unicode |
| 1934 | properties and threads. |
| 1935 | |
| 1936 | =item * |
| 1937 | |
| 1938 | F<t/op/reg_nc_tie.t> tests the tied methods of C<Tie::Hash::NamedCapture>. |
| 1939 | |
| 1940 | =item * |
| 1941 | |
| 1942 | F<t/op/reg_posixcc.t> checks that POSIX character classes behave |
| 1943 | consistently. |
| 1944 | |
| 1945 | =item * |
| 1946 | |
| 1947 | F<t/op/re.t> checks that exportable C<re> functions in F<universal.c> work. |
| 1948 | |
| 1949 | =item * |
| 1950 | |
| 1951 | F<t/op/setpgrpstack.t> checks that C<setpgrp> works. |
| 1952 | |
| 1953 | =item * |
| 1954 | |
| 1955 | F<t/op/substr_thr.t> tests the interaction of C<substr> and threads. |
| 1956 | |
| 1957 | =item * |
| 1958 | |
| 1959 | F<t/op/upgrade.t> checks that upgrading and assigning scalars works. |
| 1960 | |
| 1961 | =item * |
| 1962 | |
| 1963 | F<t/uni/lex_utf8.t> checks that Unicode in the lexer works. |
| 1964 | |
| 1965 | =item * |
| 1966 | |
| 1967 | F<t/uni/tie.t> checks that Unicode and C<tie> work. |
| 1968 | |
| 1969 | =item * |
| 1970 | |
| 1971 | F<t/comp/final_line_num.t> tests whether line numbers are correct at EOF |
| 1972 | |
| 1973 | =item * |
| 1974 | |
| 1975 | F<t/comp/form_scope.t> tests format scoping. |
| 1976 | |
| 1977 | =item * |
| 1978 | |
| 1979 | F<t/comp/line_debug.t> tests whether C<< @{"_<$file"} >> works. |
| 1980 | |
| 1981 | =item * |
| 1982 | |
| 1983 | F<t/op/filetest_t.t> tests if -t file test works. |
| 1984 | |
| 1985 | =item * |
| 1986 | |
| 1987 | F<t/op/qr.t> tests C<qr>. |
| 1988 | |
| 1989 | =item * |
| 1990 | |
| 1991 | F<t/op/utf8cache.t> tests malfunctions of the utf8 cache. |
| 1992 | |
| 1993 | =item * |
| 1994 | |
| 1995 | F<t/re/uniprops.t> test unicodes C<\p{}> regex constructs. |
| 1996 | |
| 1997 | =item * |
| 1998 | |
| 1999 | F<t/op/filehandle.t> tests some suitably portable filetest operators |
| 2000 | to check that they work as expected, particularly in the light of some |
| 2001 | internal changes made in how filehandles are blessed. |
| 2002 | |
| 2003 | =item * |
| 2004 | |
| 2005 | F<t/op/time_loop.t> tests that unix times greater than C<2**63>, which |
| 2006 | can now be handed to C<gmtime> and C<localtime>, do not cause an internal |
| 2007 | overflow or an excessively long loop. |
| 2008 | |
| 2009 | =back |
| 2010 | |
| 2011 | |
| 2012 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
| 2013 | |
| 2014 | =head2 New Diagnostics |
| 2015 | |
| 2016 | =over |
| 2017 | |
| 2018 | =item * |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | SV allocation tracing has been added to the diagnostics enabled by C<-Dm>. |
| 2021 | The tracing can alternatively output via the C<PERL_MEM_LOG> mechanism, if |
| 2022 | that was enabled when the F<perl> binary was compiled. |
| 2023 | |
| 2024 | =item * |
| 2025 | |
| 2026 | Smartmatch resolution tracing has been added as a new diagnostic. Use |
| 2027 | C<-DM> to enable it. |
| 2028 | |
| 2029 | =item * |
| 2030 | |
| 2031 | A new debugging flag C<-DB> now dumps subroutine definitions, leaving |
| 2032 | C<-Dx> for its original purpose of dumping syntax trees. |
| 2033 | |
| 2034 | =item * |
| 2035 | |
| 2036 | Perl 5.12 provides a number of new diagnostic messages to help you write |
| 2037 | better code. See L<perldiag> for details of these new messages. |
| 2038 | |
| 2039 | =over 4 |
| 2040 | |
| 2041 | =item * |
| 2042 | |
| 2043 | C<Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'> |
| 2044 | |
| 2045 | =item * |
| 2046 | |
| 2047 | C<gmtime(%.0f) too large> |
| 2048 | |
| 2049 | =item * |
| 2050 | |
| 2051 | C<Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input> |
| 2052 | |
| 2053 | =item * |
| 2054 | |
| 2055 | C<Lexing code internal error (%s)> |
| 2056 | |
| 2057 | =item * |
| 2058 | |
| 2059 | C<localtime(%.0f) too large> |
| 2060 | |
| 2061 | =item * |
| 2062 | |
| 2063 | C<Overloaded dereference did not return a reference> |
| 2064 | |
| 2065 | =item * |
| 2066 | |
| 2067 | C<Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP> |
| 2068 | |
| 2069 | =item * |
| 2070 | |
| 2071 | C<Perl_pmflag() is deprecated, and will be removed from the XS API> |
| 2072 | |
| 2073 | =item * |
| 2074 | |
| 2075 | C<lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined> |
| 2076 | |
| 2077 | This new warning is issued when one attempts to mark a subroutine as |
| 2078 | lvalue after it has been defined. |
| 2079 | |
| 2080 | =item * |
| 2081 | |
| 2082 | Perl now warns you if C<++> or C<--> are unable to change the value |
| 2083 | because it's beyond the limit of representation. |
| 2084 | |
| 2085 | This uses a new warnings category: "imprecision". |
| 2086 | |
| 2087 | =item * |
| 2088 | |
| 2089 | C<lc>, C<uc>, C<lcfirst>, and C<ucfirst> warn when passed undef. |
| 2090 | |
| 2091 | =item * |
| 2092 | |
| 2093 | C<Show constant in "Useless use of a constant in void context"> |
| 2094 | |
| 2095 | =item * |
| 2096 | |
| 2097 | C<Prototype after '%s'> |
| 2098 | |
| 2099 | =item * |
| 2100 | |
| 2101 | C<panic: sv_chop %s> |
| 2102 | |
| 2103 | This new fatal error occurs when the C routine C<Perl_sv_chop()> was |
| 2104 | passed a position that is not within the scalar's string buffer. This |
| 2105 | could be caused by buggy XS code, and at this point recovery is not |
| 2106 | possible. |
| 2107 | |
| 2108 | |
| 2109 | =item * |
| 2110 | |
| 2111 | The fatal error C<Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N> is now produced if the |
| 2112 | C<charnames> handler returns malformed UTF-8. |
| 2113 | |
| 2114 | =item * |
| 2115 | |
| 2116 | If an unresolved named character or sequence was encountered when |
| 2117 | compiling a regex pattern then the fatal error C<\N{NAME} must be resolved |
| 2118 | by the lexer> is now produced. This can happen, for example, when using a |
| 2119 | single-quotish context like C<$re = '\N{SPACE}'; /$re/;>. See L<perldiag> |
| 2120 | for more examples of how the lexer can get bypassed. |
| 2121 | |
| 2122 | =item * |
| 2123 | |
| 2124 | C<Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}> is a new fatal error |
| 2125 | triggered when the character constant represented by C<...> is not a |
| 2126 | valid hexadecimal number. |
| 2127 | |
| 2128 | =item * |
| 2129 | |
| 2130 | The new meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed character |
| 2131 | class, just like C<.> in a character class loses its special meaning, |
| 2132 | and will cause the fatal error C<\N in a character class must be a named |
| 2133 | character: \N{...}>. |
| 2134 | |
| 2135 | =item * |
| 2136 | |
| 2137 | The rules on what is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}> have been |
| 2138 | tightened up so that unless the C<...> begins with an alphabetic |
| 2139 | character and continues with a combination of alphanumerics, dashes, |
| 2140 | spaces, parentheses or colons then the warning C<Deprecated character(s) |
| 2141 | in \N{...} starting at '%s'> is now issued. |
| 2142 | |
| 2143 | =item * |
| 2144 | |
| 2145 | The warning C<Using just the first characters returned by \N{}> will |
| 2146 | be issued if the C<charnames> handler returns a sequence of characters |
| 2147 | which exceeds the limit of the number of characters that can be used. The |
| 2148 | message will indicate which characters were used and which were discarded. |
| 2149 | |
| 2150 | =back |
| 2151 | |
| 2152 | =back |
| 2153 | |
| 2154 | =head2 Changed Diagnostics |
| 2155 | |
| 2156 | A number of existing diagnostic messages have been improved or corrected: |
| 2157 | |
| 2158 | =over |
| 2159 | |
| 2160 | =item * |
| 2161 | |
| 2162 | A new warning category C<illegalproto> allows finer-grained control of |
| 2163 | warnings around function prototypes. |
| 2164 | |
| 2165 | The two warnings: |
| 2166 | |
| 2167 | =over |
| 2168 | |
| 2169 | =item C<Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s> |
| 2170 | |
| 2171 | =item C<Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s> |
| 2172 | |
| 2173 | =back |
| 2174 | |
| 2175 | have been moved from the C<syntax> top-level warnings category into a new |
| 2176 | first-level category, C<illegalproto>. These two warnings are currently |
| 2177 | the only ones emitted during parsing of an invalid/illegal prototype, |
| 2178 | so one can now use |
| 2179 | |
| 2180 | no warnings 'illegalproto'; |
| 2181 | |
| 2182 | to suppress only those, but not other syntax-related warnings. Warnings |
| 2183 | where prototypes are changed, ignored, or not met are still in the |
| 2184 | C<prototype> category as before. |
| 2185 | |
| 2186 | =item * |
| 2187 | |
| 2188 | C<Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"> |
| 2189 | |
| 2190 | It is now possible to change the depth threshold for this warning from the |
| 2191 | default of 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary, setting the C |
| 2192 | pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value. |
| 2193 | |
| 2194 | =item * |
| 2195 | |
| 2196 | C<Illegal character in prototype> warning is now more precise |
| 2197 | when reporting illegal characters after _ |
| 2198 | |
| 2199 | =item * |
| 2200 | |
| 2201 | mro merging error messages are now very similar to those produced by |
| 2202 | L<Algorithm::C3>. |
| 2203 | |
| 2204 | =item * |
| 2205 | |
| 2206 | Amelioration of the error message "Unrecognized character %s in column %d" |
| 2207 | |
| 2208 | Changes the error message to "Unrecognized character %s; marked by E<lt>-- |
| 2209 | HERE after %sE<lt>-- HERE near column %d". This should make it a little |
| 2210 | simpler to spot and correct the suspicious character. |
| 2211 | |
| 2212 | =item * |
| 2213 | |
| 2214 | Perl now explicitly points to C<$.> when it causes an uninitialized |
| 2215 | warning for ranges in scalar context. |
| 2216 | |
| 2217 | =item * |
| 2218 | |
| 2219 | C<split> now warns when called in void context. |
| 2220 | |
| 2221 | =item * |
| 2222 | |
| 2223 | C<printf>-style functions called with too few arguments will now issue the |
| 2224 | warning C<"Missing argument in %s"> [perl #71000] |
| 2225 | |
| 2226 | =item * |
| 2227 | |
| 2228 | Perl now properly returns a syntax error instead of segfaulting |
| 2229 | if C<each>, C<keys>, or C<values> is used without an argument. |
| 2230 | |
| 2231 | =item * |
| 2232 | |
| 2233 | C<tell()> now fails properly if called without an argument and when no |
| 2234 | previous file was read. |
| 2235 | |
| 2236 | C<tell()> now returns C<-1>, and sets errno to C<EBADF>, thus restoring |
| 2237 | the 5.8.x behaviour. |
| 2238 | |
| 2239 | =item * |
| 2240 | |
| 2241 | C<overload> no longer implicitly unsets fallback on repeated 'use |
| 2242 | overload' lines. |
| 2243 | |
| 2244 | =item * |
| 2245 | |
| 2246 | POSIX::strftime() can now handle Unicode characters in the format string. |
| 2247 | |
| 2248 | =item * |
| 2249 | |
| 2250 | The C<syntax> category was removed from 5 warnings that should only be in |
| 2251 | C<deprecated>. |
| 2252 | |
| 2253 | =item * |
| 2254 | |
| 2255 | Three fatal C<pack>/C<unpack> error messages have been normalized to |
| 2256 | C<panic: %s> |
| 2257 | |
| 2258 | =item * |
| 2259 | |
| 2260 | C<Unicode character is illegal> has been rephrased to be more accurate |
| 2261 | |
| 2262 | It now reads C<Unicode non-character is illegal in interchange> and the |
| 2263 | perldiag documentation has been expanded a bit. |
| 2264 | |
| 2265 | =item * |
| 2266 | |
| 2267 | Currently, all but the first of the several characters that the |
| 2268 | C<charnames> handler may return are discarded when used in a regular |
| 2269 | expression pattern bracketed character class. If this happens then the |
| 2270 | warning C<Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character |
| 2271 | class> will be issued. |
| 2272 | |
| 2273 | =item * |
| 2274 | |
| 2275 | The warning C<Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after |
| 2276 | \N. Assuming the latter> will be issued if Perl encounters a C<\N{> |
| 2277 | but doesn't find a matching C<}>. In this case Perl doesn't know if it |
| 2278 | was mistakenly omitted, or if "match non-newline" followed by "match |
| 2279 | a C<{>" was desired. It assumes the latter because that is actually a |
| 2280 | valid interpretation as written, unlike the other case. If you meant |
| 2281 | the former, you need to add the matching right brace. If you did mean |
| 2282 | the latter, you can silence this warning by writing instead C<\N\{>. |
| 2283 | |
| 2284 | =item * |
| 2285 | |
| 2286 | C<gmtime> and C<localtime> called with numbers smaller than they can |
| 2287 | reliably handle will now issue the warnings C<gmtime(%.0f) too small> |
| 2288 | and C<localtime(%.0f) too small>. |
| 2289 | |
| 2290 | =back |
| 2291 | |
| 2292 | The following diagnostic messages have been removed: |
| 2293 | |
| 2294 | =over 4 |
| 2295 | |
| 2296 | =item * |
| 2297 | |
| 2298 | C<Runaway format> |
| 2299 | |
| 2300 | =item * |
| 2301 | |
| 2302 | C<Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s> |
| 2303 | |
| 2304 | In general this warning it only got produced in |
| 2305 | conjunction with other warnings, and removing it allowed an ISA lookup |
| 2306 | optimisation to be added. |
| 2307 | |
| 2308 | =item * |
| 2309 | |
| 2310 | C<v-string in use/require is non-portable> |
| 2311 | |
| 2312 | =back |
| 2313 | |
| 2314 | =head1 Utility Changes |
| 2315 | |
| 2316 | =over 4 |
| 2317 | |
| 2318 | =item * |
| 2319 | |
| 2320 | F<h2ph> now looks in C<include-fixed> too, which is a recent addition |
| 2321 | to gcc's search path. |
| 2322 | |
| 2323 | =item * |
| 2324 | |
| 2325 | F<h2xs> no longer incorrectly treats enum values like macros. |
| 2326 | It also now handles C++ style comments (C<//>) properly in enums. |
| 2327 | |
| 2328 | =item * |
| 2329 | |
| 2330 | F<perl5db.pl> now supports C<LVALUE> subroutines. Additionally, the |
| 2331 | debugger now correctly handles proxy constant subroutines, and |
| 2332 | subroutine stubs. |
| 2333 | |
| 2334 | =item * |
| 2335 | |
| 2336 | F<perlbug> now uses C<%Module::CoreList::bug_tracker> to print out |
| 2337 | upstream bug tracker URLs. If a user identifies a particular module |
| 2338 | as the topic of their bug report and we're able to divine the URL for |
| 2339 | its upstream bug tracker, perlbug now provide a message to the user |
| 2340 | explaining that the core copies the CPAN version directly, and provide |
| 2341 | the URL for reporting the bug directly to the upstream author. |
| 2342 | |
| 2343 | F<perlbug> no longer reports "Message sent" when it hasn't actually sent |
| 2344 | the message |
| 2345 | |
| 2346 | =item * |
| 2347 | |
| 2348 | F<perlthanks> is a new utility for sending non-bug-reports to the |
| 2349 | authors and maintainers of Perl. Getting nothing but bug reports can |
| 2350 | become a bit demoralising. If Perl 5.12 works well for you, please try |
| 2351 | out F<perlthanks>. It will make the developers smile. |
| 2352 | |
| 2353 | =item * |
| 2354 | |
| 2355 | Perl's developers have fixed bugs in F<a2p> having to do with the |
| 2356 | C<match()> operator in list context. Additionally, F<a2p> no longer |
| 2357 | generates code that uses the C<$[> variable. |
| 2358 | |
| 2359 | =back |
| 2360 | |
| 2361 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
| 2362 | |
| 2363 | =over 4 |
| 2364 | |
| 2365 | =item * |
| 2366 | |
| 2367 | U+0FFFF is now a legal character in regular expressions. |
| 2368 | |
| 2369 | =item * |
| 2370 | |
| 2371 | pp_qr now always returns a new regexp SV. Resolves RT #69852. |
| 2372 | |
| 2373 | Instead of returning a(nother) reference to the (pre-compiled) regexp |
| 2374 | in the optree, use reg_temp_copy() to create a copy of it, and return a |
| 2375 | reference to that. This resolves issues about Regexp::DESTROY not being |
| 2376 | called in a timely fashion (the original bug tracked by RT #69852), as |
| 2377 | well as bugs related to blessing regexps, and of assigning to regexps, |
| 2378 | as described in correspondence added to the ticket. |
| 2379 | |
| 2380 | It transpires that we also need to undo the SvPVX() sharing when ithreads |
| 2381 | cloning a Regexp SV, because mother_re is set to NULL, instead of a |
| 2382 | cloned copy of the mother_re. This change might fix bugs with regexps |
| 2383 | and threads in certain other situations, but as yet neither tests nor |
| 2384 | bug reports have indicated any problems, so it might not actually be an |
| 2385 | edge case that it's possible to reach. |
| 2386 | |
| 2387 | =item * |
| 2388 | |
| 2389 | Several compilation errors and segfaults when perl was built with C<-Dmad> |
| 2390 | were fixed. |
| 2391 | |
| 2392 | =item * |
| 2393 | |
| 2394 | Fixes for lexer API changes in 5.11.2 which broke NYTProf's savesrc option. |
| 2395 | |
| 2396 | =item * |
| 2397 | |
| 2398 | C<-t> should only return TRUE for file handles connected to a TTY |
| 2399 | |
| 2400 | The Microsoft C version of C<isatty()> returns TRUE for all character mode |
| 2401 | devices, including the F</dev/null>-style "nul" device and printers like |
| 2402 | "lpt1". |
| 2403 | |
| 2404 | =item * |
| 2405 | |
| 2406 | Fixed a regression caused by commit fafafbaf which caused a panic during |
| 2407 | parameter passing [perl #70171] |
| 2408 | |
| 2409 | =item * |
| 2410 | |
| 2411 | On systems which in-place edits without backup files, -i'*' now works as |
| 2412 | the documentation says it does [perl #70802] |
| 2413 | |
| 2414 | =item * |
| 2415 | |
| 2416 | Saving and restoring magic flags no longer loses readonly flag. |
| 2417 | |
| 2418 | =item * |
| 2419 | |
| 2420 | The malformed syntax C<grep EXPR LIST> (note the missing comma) no longer |
| 2421 | causes abrupt and total failure. |
| 2422 | |
| 2423 | =item * |
| 2424 | |
| 2425 | Regular expressions compiled with C<qr{}> literals properly set C<$'> when |
| 2426 | matching again. |
| 2427 | |
| 2428 | =item * |
| 2429 | |
| 2430 | Using named subroutines with C<sort> should no longer lead to bus errors |
| 2431 | [perl #71076] |
| 2432 | |
| 2433 | =item * |
| 2434 | |
| 2435 | Numerous bugfixes catch small issues caused by the recently-added Lexer API. |
| 2436 | |
| 2437 | =item * |
| 2438 | |
| 2439 | Smart match against C<@_> sometimes gave false negatives. [perl #71078] |
| 2440 | |
| 2441 | =item * |
| 2442 | |
| 2443 | C<$@> may now be assigned a read-only value (without error or busting |
| 2444 | the stack). |
| 2445 | |
| 2446 | =item * |
| 2447 | |
| 2448 | C<sort> called recursively from within an active comparison subroutine no |
| 2449 | longer causes a bus error if run multiple times. [perl #71076] |
| 2450 | |
| 2451 | =item * |
| 2452 | |
| 2453 | Tie::Hash::NamedCapture::* will not abort if passed bad input (RT #71828) |
| 2454 | |
| 2455 | =item * |
| 2456 | |
| 2457 | @_ and $_ no longer leak under threads (RT #34342 and #41138, also |
| 2458 | #70602, #70974) |
| 2459 | |
| 2460 | =item * |
| 2461 | |
| 2462 | C<-I> on shebang line now adds directories in front of @INC |
| 2463 | as documented, and as does C<-I> when specified on the command-line. |
| 2464 | |
| 2465 | =item * |
| 2466 | |
| 2467 | C<kill> is now fatal when called on non-numeric process identifiers. |
| 2468 | Previously, an C<undef> process identifier would be interpreted as a |
| 2469 | request to kill process 0, which would terminate the current process |
| 2470 | group on POSIX systems. Since process identifiers are always integers, |
| 2471 | killing a non-numeric process is now fatal. |
| 2472 | |
| 2473 | =item * |
| 2474 | |
| 2475 | 5.10.0 inadvertently disabled an optimisation, which caused a measurable |
| 2476 | performance drop in list assignment, such as is often used to assign |
| 2477 | function parameters from C<@_>. The optimisation has been re-instated, and |
| 2478 | the performance regression fixed. (This fix is also present in 5.10.1) |
| 2479 | |
| 2480 | =item * |
| 2481 | |
| 2482 | Fixed memory leak on C<while (1) { map 1, 1 }> [RT #53038]. |
| 2483 | |
| 2484 | =item * |
| 2485 | |
| 2486 | Some potential coredumps in PerlIO fixed [RT #57322,54828]. |
| 2487 | |
| 2488 | =item * |
| 2489 | |
| 2490 | The debugger now works with lvalue subroutines. |
| 2491 | |
| 2492 | =item * |
| 2493 | |
| 2494 | The debugger's C<m> command was broken on modules that defined constants |
| 2495 | [RT #61222]. |
| 2496 | |
| 2497 | =item * |
| 2498 | |
| 2499 | C<crypt> and string complement could return tainted values for untainted |
| 2500 | arguments [RT #59998]. |
| 2501 | |
| 2502 | =item * |
| 2503 | |
| 2504 | The C<-i>I<.suffix> command-line switch now recreates the file using |
| 2505 | restricted permissions, before changing its mode to match the original |
| 2506 | file. This eliminates a potential race condition [RT #60904]. |
| 2507 | |
| 2508 | =item * |
| 2509 | |
| 2510 | On some Unix systems, the value in C<$?> would not have the top bit set |
| 2511 | (C<$? & 128>) even if the child core dumped. |
| 2512 | |
| 2513 | =item * |
| 2514 | |
| 2515 | Under some circumstances, C<$^R> could incorrectly become undefined |
| 2516 | [RT #57042]. |
| 2517 | |
| 2518 | =item * |
| 2519 | |
| 2520 | In the XS API, various hash functions, when passed a pre-computed hash where |
| 2521 | the key is UTF-8, might result in an incorrect lookup. |
| 2522 | |
| 2523 | =item * |
| 2524 | |
| 2525 | XS code including F<XSUB.h> before F<perl.h> gave a compile-time error |
| 2526 | [RT #57176]. |
| 2527 | |
| 2528 | =item * |
| 2529 | |
| 2530 | C<< $object-E<gt>isa('Foo') >> would report false if the package C<Foo> |
| 2531 | didn't exist, even if the object's C<@ISA> contained C<Foo>. |
| 2532 | |
| 2533 | =item * |
| 2534 | |
| 2535 | Various bugs in the new-to 5.10.0 mro code, triggered by manipulating |
| 2536 | C<@ISA>, have been found and fixed. |
| 2537 | |
| 2538 | =item * |
| 2539 | |
| 2540 | Bitwise operations on references could crash the interpreter, e.g. |
| 2541 | C<$x=\$y; $x |= "foo"> [RT #54956]. |
| 2542 | |
| 2543 | =item * |
| 2544 | |
| 2545 | Patterns including alternation might be sensitive to the internal UTF-8 |
| 2546 | representation, e.g. |
| 2547 | |
| 2548 | my $byte = chr(192); |
| 2549 | my $utf8 = chr(192); utf8::upgrade($utf8); |
| 2550 | $utf8 =~ /$byte|X}/i; # failed in 5.10.0 |
| 2551 | |
| 2552 | =item * |
| 2553 | |
| 2554 | Within UTF8-encoded Perl source files (i.e. where C<use utf8> is in |
| 2555 | effect), double-quoted literal strings could be corrupted where a C<\xNN>, |
| 2556 | C<\0NNN> or C<\N{}> is followed by a literal character with ordinal value |
| 2557 | greater than 255 [RT #59908]. |
| 2558 | |
| 2559 | =item * |
| 2560 | |
| 2561 | C<B::Deparse> failed to correctly deparse various constructs: |
| 2562 | C<readpipe STRING> [RT #62428], C<CORE::require(STRING)> [RT #62488], |
| 2563 | C<sub foo(_)> [RT #62484]. |
| 2564 | |
| 2565 | =item * |
| 2566 | |
| 2567 | Using C<setpgrp> with no arguments could corrupt the perl stack. |
| 2568 | |
| 2569 | =item * |
| 2570 | |
| 2571 | The block form of C<eval> is now specifically trappable by C<Safe> and |
| 2572 | C<ops>. Previously it was erroneously treated like string C<eval>. |
| 2573 | |
| 2574 | =item * |
| 2575 | |
| 2576 | In 5.10.0, the two characters C<[~> were sometimes parsed as the smart |
| 2577 | match operator (C<~~>) [RT #63854]. |
| 2578 | |
| 2579 | =item * |
| 2580 | |
| 2581 | In 5.10.0, the C<*> quantifier in patterns was sometimes treated as |
| 2582 | C<{0,32767}> [RT #60034, #60464]. For example, this match would fail: |
| 2583 | |
| 2584 | ("ab" x 32768) =~ /^(ab)*$/ |
| 2585 | |
| 2586 | =item * |
| 2587 | |
| 2588 | C<shmget> was limited to a 32 bit segment size on a 64 bit OS [RT #63924]. |
| 2589 | |
| 2590 | =item * |
| 2591 | |
| 2592 | Using C<next> or C<last> to exit a C<given> block no longer produces a |
| 2593 | spurious warning like the following: |
| 2594 | |
| 2595 | Exiting given via last at foo.pl line 123 |
| 2596 | |
| 2597 | =item * |
| 2598 | |
| 2599 | Assigning a format to a glob could corrupt the format; e.g.: |
| 2600 | |
| 2601 | *bar=*foo{FORMAT}; # foo format now bad |
| 2602 | |
| 2603 | =item * |
| 2604 | |
| 2605 | Attempting to coerce a typeglob to a string or number could cause an |
| 2606 | assertion failure. The correct error message is now generated, |
| 2607 | C<Can't coerce GLOB to I<$type>>. |
| 2608 | |
| 2609 | =item * |
| 2610 | |
| 2611 | Under C<use filetest 'access'>, C<-x> was using the wrong access |
| 2612 | mode. This has been fixed [RT #49003]. |
| 2613 | |
| 2614 | =item * |
| 2615 | |
| 2616 | C<length> on a tied scalar that returned a Unicode value would not be |
| 2617 | correct the first time. This has been fixed. |
| 2618 | |
| 2619 | =item * |
| 2620 | |
| 2621 | Using an array C<tie> inside in array C<tie> could SEGV. This has been |
| 2622 | fixed. [RT #51636] |
| 2623 | |
| 2624 | =item * |
| 2625 | |
| 2626 | A race condition inside C<PerlIOStdio_close()> has been identified and |
| 2627 | fixed. This used to cause various threading issues, including SEGVs. |
| 2628 | |
| 2629 | =item * |
| 2630 | |
| 2631 | In C<unpack>, the use of C<()> groups in scalar context was internally |
| 2632 | placing a list on the interpreter's stack, which manifested in various |
| 2633 | ways, including SEGVs. This is now fixed [RT #50256]. |
| 2634 | |
| 2635 | =item * |
| 2636 | |
| 2637 | Magic was called twice in C<substr>, C<\&$x>, C<tie $x, $m> and C<chop>. |
| 2638 | These have all been fixed. |
| 2639 | |
| 2640 | =item * |
| 2641 | |
| 2642 | A 5.10.0 optimisation to clear the temporary stack within the implicit |
| 2643 | loop of C<s///ge> has been reverted, as it turned out to be the cause of |
| 2644 | obscure bugs in seemingly unrelated parts of the interpreter [commit |
| 2645 | ef0d4e17921ee3de]. |
| 2646 | |
| 2647 | =item * |
| 2648 | |
| 2649 | The line numbers for warnings inside C<elsif> are now correct. |
| 2650 | |
| 2651 | =item * |
| 2652 | |
| 2653 | The C<..> operator now works correctly with ranges whose ends are at or |
| 2654 | close to the values of the smallest and largest integers. |
| 2655 | |
| 2656 | =item * |
| 2657 | |
| 2658 | C<binmode STDIN, ':raw'> could lead to segmentation faults on some platforms. |
| 2659 | This has been fixed [RT #54828]. |
| 2660 | |
| 2661 | =item * |
| 2662 | |
| 2663 | An off-by-one error meant that C<index $str, ...> was effectively being |
| 2664 | executed as C<index "$str\0", ...>. This has been fixed [RT #53746]. |
| 2665 | |
| 2666 | =item * |
| 2667 | |
| 2668 | Various leaks associated with named captures in regexes have been fixed |
| 2669 | [RT #57024]. |
| 2670 | |
| 2671 | =item * |
| 2672 | |
| 2673 | A weak reference to a hash would leak. This was affecting C<DBI> |
| 2674 | [RT #56908]. |
| 2675 | |
| 2676 | =item * |
| 2677 | |
| 2678 | Using (?|) in a regex could cause a segfault [RT #59734]. |
| 2679 | |
| 2680 | =item * |
| 2681 | |
| 2682 | Use of a UTF-8 C<tr//> within a closure could cause a segfault [RT #61520]. |
| 2683 | |
| 2684 | =item * |
| 2685 | |
| 2686 | Calling C<Perl_sv_chop()> or otherwise upgrading an SV could result in an |
| 2687 | unaligned 64-bit access on the SPARC architecture [RT #60574]. |
| 2688 | |
| 2689 | =item * |
| 2690 | |
| 2691 | In the 5.10.0 release, C<inc_version_list> would incorrectly list |
| 2692 | C<5.10.*> after C<5.8.*>; this affected the C<@INC> search order |
| 2693 | [RT #67628]. |
| 2694 | |
| 2695 | =item * |
| 2696 | |
| 2697 | In 5.10.0, C<pack "a*", $tainted_value> returned a non-tainted value |
| 2698 | [RT #52552]. |
| 2699 | |
| 2700 | =item * |
| 2701 | |
| 2702 | In 5.10.0, C<printf> and C<sprintf> could produce the fatal error |
| 2703 | C<panic: utf8_mg_pos_cache_update> when printing UTF-8 strings |
| 2704 | [RT #62666]. |
| 2705 | |
| 2706 | =item * |
| 2707 | |
| 2708 | In the 5.10.0 release, a dynamically created C<AUTOLOAD> method might be |
| 2709 | missed (method cache issue) [RT #60220,60232]. |
| 2710 | |
| 2711 | =item * |
| 2712 | |
| 2713 | In the 5.10.0 release, a combination of C<use feature> and C<//ee> could |
| 2714 | cause a memory leak [RT #63110]. |
| 2715 | |
| 2716 | =item * |
| 2717 | |
| 2718 | C<-C> on the shebang (C<#!>) line is once more permitted if it is also |
| 2719 | specified on the command line. C<-C> on the shebang line used to be a |
| 2720 | silent no-op I<if> it was not also on the command line, so perl 5.10.0 |
| 2721 | disallowed it, which broke some scripts. Now perl checks whether it is |
| 2722 | also on the command line and only dies if it is not [RT #67880]. |
| 2723 | |
| 2724 | =item * |
| 2725 | |
| 2726 | In 5.10.0, certain types of re-entrant regular expression could crash, |
| 2727 | or cause the following assertion failure [RT #60508]: |
| 2728 | |
| 2729 | Assertion rx->sublen >= (s - rx->subbeg) + i failed |
| 2730 | |
| 2731 | =item * |
| 2732 | |
| 2733 | Perl now includes previously missing files from the Unicode Character |
| 2734 | Database. |
| 2735 | |
| 2736 | =item * |
| 2737 | |
| 2738 | Perl now honors C<TMPDIR> when opening an anonymous temporary file. |
| 2739 | |
| 2740 | =back |
| 2741 | |
| 2742 | |
| 2743 | =head1 Platform Specific Changes |
| 2744 | |
| 2745 | Perl is incredibly portable. In general, if a platform has a C compiler, |
| 2746 | someone has ported Perl to it (or will soon). We're happy to announce |
| 2747 | that Perl 5.12 includes support for several new platforms. At the same |
| 2748 | time, it's time to bid farewell to some (very) old friends. |
| 2749 | |
| 2750 | =head2 New Platforms |
| 2751 | |
| 2752 | =over |
| 2753 | |
| 2754 | =item Haiku |
| 2755 | |
| 2756 | Perl's developers have merged patches from Haiku's maintainers. Perl |
| 2757 | should now build on Haiku. |
| 2758 | |
| 2759 | =item MirOS BSD |
| 2760 | |
| 2761 | Perl should now build on MirOS BSD. |
| 2762 | |
| 2763 | =back |
| 2764 | |
| 2765 | =head2 Discontinued Platforms |
| 2766 | |
| 2767 | =over |
| 2768 | |
| 2769 | =item Domain/OS |
| 2770 | |
| 2771 | =item MiNT |
| 2772 | |
| 2773 | =item Tenon MachTen |
| 2774 | |
| 2775 | =back |
| 2776 | |
| 2777 | =head2 Updated Platforms |
| 2778 | |
| 2779 | =over 4 |
| 2780 | |
| 2781 | =item AIX |
| 2782 | |
| 2783 | =over 4 |
| 2784 | |
| 2785 | =item * |
| 2786 | |
| 2787 | Removed F<libbsd> for AIX 5L and 6.1. Only C<flock()> was used from |
| 2788 | F<libbsd>. |
| 2789 | |
| 2790 | =item * |
| 2791 | |
| 2792 | Removed F<libgdbm> for AIX 5L and 6.1 if F<libgdbm> < 1.8.3-5 is |
| 2793 | installed. The F<libgdbm> is delivered as an optional package with the |
| 2794 | AIX Toolbox. Unfortunately the versions below 1.8.3-5 are broken. |
| 2795 | |
| 2796 | =item * |
| 2797 | |
| 2798 | Hints changes mean that AIX 4.2 should work again. |
| 2799 | |
| 2800 | =back |
| 2801 | |
| 2802 | =item Cygwin |
| 2803 | |
| 2804 | =over 4 |
| 2805 | |
| 2806 | =item * |
| 2807 | |
| 2808 | Perl now supports IPv6 on Cygwin 1.7 and newer. |
| 2809 | |
| 2810 | =item * |
| 2811 | |
| 2812 | On Cygwin we now strip the last number from the DLL. This has been the |
| 2813 | behaviour in the cygwin.com build for years. The hints files have been |
| 2814 | updated. |
| 2815 | |
| 2816 | =back |
| 2817 | |
| 2818 | =item Darwin (Mac OS X) |
| 2819 | |
| 2820 | =over 4 |
| 2821 | |
| 2822 | =item * |
| 2823 | |
| 2824 | Skip testing the be_BY.CP1131 locale on Darwin 10 (Mac OS X 10.6), |
| 2825 | as it's still buggy. |
| 2826 | |
| 2827 | =item * |
| 2828 | |
| 2829 | Correct infelicities in the regexp used to identify buggy locales |
| 2830 | on Darwin 8 and 9 (Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, respectively). |
| 2831 | |
| 2832 | =back |
| 2833 | |
| 2834 | =item DragonFly BSD |
| 2835 | |
| 2836 | =over 4 |
| 2837 | |
| 2838 | =item * |
| 2839 | |
| 2840 | Fix thread library selection [perl #69686] |
| 2841 | |
| 2842 | =back |
| 2843 | |
| 2844 | =item FreeBSD |
| 2845 | |
| 2846 | =over 4 |
| 2847 | |
| 2848 | =item * |
| 2849 | |
| 2850 | The hints files now identify the correct threading libraries on FreeBSD 7 |
| 2851 | and later. |
| 2852 | |
| 2853 | =back |
| 2854 | |
| 2855 | =item Irix |
| 2856 | |
| 2857 | =over 4 |
| 2858 | |
| 2859 | =item * |
| 2860 | |
| 2861 | We now work around a bizarre preprocessor bug in the Irix 6.5 compiler: |
| 2862 | C<cc -E -> unfortunately goes into K&R mode, but C<cc -E file.c> doesn't. |
| 2863 | |
| 2864 | =back |
| 2865 | |
| 2866 | =item NetBSD |
| 2867 | |
| 2868 | =over 4 |
| 2869 | |
| 2870 | =item * |
| 2871 | |
| 2872 | Hints now supports versions 5.*. |
| 2873 | |
| 2874 | =back |
| 2875 | |
| 2876 | =item OpenVMS |
| 2877 | |
| 2878 | =over 4 |
| 2879 | |
| 2880 | =item * |
| 2881 | |
| 2882 | C<-UDEBUGGING> is now the default on VMS. |
| 2883 | |
| 2884 | Like it has been everywhere else for ages and ages. Also make command-line |
| 2885 | selection of -UDEBUGGING and -DDEBUGGING work in configure.com; before |
| 2886 | the only way to turn it off was by saying no in answer to the interactive |
| 2887 | question. |
| 2888 | |
| 2889 | =item * |
| 2890 | |
| 2891 | The default pipe buffer size on VMS has been updated to 8192 on 64-bit |
| 2892 | systems. |
| 2893 | |
| 2894 | =item * |
| 2895 | |
| 2896 | Reads from the in-memory temporary files of C<PerlIO::scalar> used to fail |
| 2897 | if C<$/> was set to a numeric reference (to indicate record-style reads). |
| 2898 | This is now fixed. |
| 2899 | |
| 2900 | =item * |
| 2901 | |
| 2902 | VMS now supports C<getgrgid>. |
| 2903 | |
| 2904 | =item * |
| 2905 | |
| 2906 | Many improvements and cleanups have been made to the VMS file name handling |
| 2907 | and conversion code. |
| 2908 | |
| 2909 | =item * |
| 2910 | |
| 2911 | Enabling the C<PERL_VMS_POSIX_EXIT> logical name now encodes a POSIX exit |
| 2912 | status in a VMS condition value for better interaction with GNV's bash |
| 2913 | shell and other utilities that depend on POSIX exit values. See |
| 2914 | L<perlvms/"$?"> for details. |
| 2915 | |
| 2916 | =item * |
| 2917 | |
| 2918 | C<File::Copy> now detects Unix compatibility mode on VMS. |
| 2919 | |
| 2920 | =back |
| 2921 | |
| 2922 | =item Stratus VOS |
| 2923 | |
| 2924 | =over 4 |
| 2925 | |
| 2926 | =item * |
| 2927 | |
| 2928 | Various changes from Stratus have been merged in. |
| 2929 | |
| 2930 | =back |
| 2931 | |
| 2932 | =item Symbian |
| 2933 | |
| 2934 | =over 4 |
| 2935 | |
| 2936 | =item * |
| 2937 | |
| 2938 | There is now support for Symbian S60 3.2 SDK and S60 5.0 SDK. |
| 2939 | |
| 2940 | =back |
| 2941 | |
| 2942 | =item Windows |
| 2943 | |
| 2944 | =over 4 |
| 2945 | |
| 2946 | =item * |
| 2947 | |
| 2948 | Perl 5.12 supports Windows 2000 and later. The supporting code for |
| 2949 | legacy versions of Windows is still included, but will be removed |
| 2950 | during the next development cycle. |
| 2951 | |
| 2952 | =item * |
| 2953 | |
| 2954 | Initial support for building Perl with MinGW-w64 is now available. |
| 2955 | |
| 2956 | =item * |
| 2957 | |
| 2958 | F<perl.exe> now includes a manifest resource to specify the C<trustInfo> |
| 2959 | settings for Windows Vista and later. Without this setting Windows |
| 2960 | would treat F<perl.exe> as a legacy application and apply various |
| 2961 | heuristics like redirecting access to protected file system areas |
| 2962 | (like the "Program Files" folder) to the users "VirtualStore" |
| 2963 | instead of generating a proper "permission denied" error. |
| 2964 | |
| 2965 | The manifest resource also requests the Microsoft Common-Controls |
| 2966 | version 6.0 (themed controls introduced in Windows XP). Check out the |
| 2967 | Win32::VisualStyles module on CPAN to switch back to old style |
| 2968 | unthemed controls for legacy applications. |
| 2969 | |
| 2970 | =item * |
| 2971 | |
| 2972 | The C<-t> filetest operator now only returns true if the filehandle |
| 2973 | is connected to a console window. In previous versions of Perl it |
| 2974 | would return true for all character mode devices, including F<NUL> |
| 2975 | and F<LPT1>. |
| 2976 | |
| 2977 | =item * |
| 2978 | |
| 2979 | The C<-p> filetest operator now works correctly, and the |
| 2980 | Fcntl::S_IFIFO constant is defined when Perl is compiled with |
| 2981 | Microsoft Visual C. In previous Perl versions C<-p> always |
| 2982 | returned a false value, and the Fcntl::S_IFIFO constant |
| 2983 | was not defined. |
| 2984 | |
| 2985 | This bug is specific to Microsoft Visual C and never affected |
| 2986 | Perl binaries built with MinGW. |
| 2987 | |
| 2988 | =item * |
| 2989 | |
| 2990 | The socket error codes are now more widely supported: The POSIX |
| 2991 | module will define the symbolic names, like POSIX::EWOULDBLOCK, |
| 2992 | and stringification of socket error codes in $! works as well |
| 2993 | now; |
| 2994 | |
| 2995 | C:\>perl -MPOSIX -E "$!=POSIX::EWOULDBLOCK; say $!" |
| 2996 | A non-blocking socket operation could not be completed immediately. |
| 2997 | |
| 2998 | =item * |
| 2999 | |
| 3000 | flock() will now set sensible error codes in $!. Previous Perl versions |
| 3001 | copied the value of $^E into $!, which caused much confusion. |
| 3002 | |
| 3003 | =item * |
| 3004 | |
| 3005 | select() now supports all empty C<fd_set>s more correctly. |
| 3006 | |
| 3007 | =item * |
| 3008 | |
| 3009 | C<'.\foo'> and C<'..\foo'> were treated differently than |
| 3010 | C<'./foo'> and C<'../foo'> by C<do> and C<require> [RT #63492]. |
| 3011 | |
| 3012 | =item * |
| 3013 | |
| 3014 | Improved message window handling means that C<alarm> and C<kill> messages |
| 3015 | will no longer be dropped under race conditions. |
| 3016 | |
| 3017 | =item * |
| 3018 | |
| 3019 | Various bits of Perl's build infrastructure are no longer converted to |
| 3020 | win32 line endings at release time. If this hurts you, please report the |
| 3021 | problem with the L<perlbug> program included with perl. |
| 3022 | |
| 3023 | =back |
| 3024 | |
| 3025 | =back |
| 3026 | |
| 3027 | |
| 3028 | =head1 Known Problems |
| 3029 | |
| 3030 | This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions |
| 3031 | from either 5.10.x or 5.8.x. |
| 3032 | |
| 3033 | =over 4 |
| 3034 | |
| 3035 | =item * |
| 3036 | |
| 3037 | Some CPANPLUS tests may fail if there is a functioning file |
| 3038 | F<../../cpanp-run-perl> outside your build directory. The failure |
| 3039 | shouldn't imply there's a problem with the actual functional |
| 3040 | software. The bug is already fixed in [RT #74188] and is scheduled for |
| 3041 | inclusion in perl-v5.12.1. |
| 3042 | |
| 3043 | =item * |
| 3044 | |
| 3045 | C<List::Util::first> misbehaves in the presence of a lexical C<$_> |
| 3046 | (typically introduced by C<my $_> or implicitly by C<given>). The variable |
| 3047 | which gets set for each iteration is the package variable C<$_>, not the |
| 3048 | lexical C<$_> [RT #67694]. |
| 3049 | |
| 3050 | A similar issue may occur in other modules that provide functions which |
| 3051 | take a block as their first argument, like |
| 3052 | |
| 3053 | foo { ... $_ ...} list |
| 3054 | |
| 3055 | =item * |
| 3056 | |
| 3057 | Some regexes may run much more slowly when run in a child thread compared |
| 3058 | with the thread the pattern was compiled into [RT #55600]. |
| 3059 | |
| 3060 | =item * |
| 3061 | |
| 3062 | Things like C<"\N{LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF}" =~ /\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER F}+/> |
| 3063 | will appear to hang as they get into a very long running loop [RT #72998]. |
| 3064 | |
| 3065 | =item * |
| 3066 | |
| 3067 | Several porters have reported mysterious crashes when Perl's entire |
| 3068 | test suite is run after a build on certain Windows 2000 systems. When |
| 3069 | run by hand, the individual tests reportedly work fine. |
| 3070 | |
| 3071 | =back |
| 3072 | |
| 3073 | =head1 Errata |
| 3074 | |
| 3075 | =over |
| 3076 | |
| 3077 | =item * |
| 3078 | |
| 3079 | This one is actually a change introduced in 5.10.0, but it was missed |
| 3080 | from that release's perldelta, so it is mentioned here instead. |
| 3081 | |
| 3082 | A bugfix related to the handling of the C</m> modifier and C<qr> resulted |
| 3083 | in a change of behaviour between 5.8.x and 5.10.0: |
| 3084 | |
| 3085 | # matches in 5.8.x, doesn't match in 5.10.0 |
| 3086 | $re = qr/^bar/; "foo\nbar" =~ /$re/m; |
| 3087 | |
| 3088 | =back |
| 3089 | |
| 3090 | =head1 Acknowledgements |
| 3091 | |
| 3092 | Perl 5.12.0 represents approximately two years of development since |
| 3093 | Perl 5.10.0 and contains over 750,000 lines of changes across over |
| 3094 | 3,000 files from over 200 authors and committers. |
| 3095 | |
| 3096 | Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant |
| 3097 | community of users and developers. The following people are known to |
| 3098 | have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.12.0: |
| 3099 | |
| 3100 | Aaron Crane, Abe Timmerman, Abhijit Menon-Sen, Abigail, Adam Russell, |
| 3101 | Adriano Ferreira, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Alan Grover, Alexandr |
| 3102 | Ciornii, Alex Davies, Alex Vandiver, Andreas Koenig, Andrew Rodland, |
| 3103 | andrew@sundale.net, Andy Armstrong, Andy Dougherty, Jose AUGUSTE-ETIENNE, |
| 3104 | Benjamin Smith, Ben Morrow, bharanee rathna, Bo Borgerson, Bo Lindbergh, |
| 3105 | Brad Gilbert, Bram, Brendan O'Dea, brian d foy, Charles Bailey, |
| 3106 | Chip Salzenberg, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Christoph Lamprecht, Chris |
| 3107 | Williams, chromatic, Claes Jakobsson, Craig A. Berry, Dan Dascalescu, |
| 3108 | Daniel Frederick Crisman, Daniel M. Quinlan, Dan Jacobson, Dan Kogai, |
| 3109 | Dave Mitchell, Dave Rolsky, David Cantrell, David Dick, David Golden, |
| 3110 | David Mitchell, David M. Syzdek, David Nicol, David Wheeler, Dennis |
| 3111 | Kaarsemaker, Dintelmann, Peter, Dominic Dunlop, Dr.Ruud, Duke Leto, |
| 3112 | Enrico Sorcinelli, Eric Brine, Father Chrysostomos, Florian Ragwitz, |
| 3113 | Frank Wiegand, Gabor Szabo, Gene Sullivan, Geoffrey T. Dairiki, George |
| 3114 | Greer, Gerard Goossen, Gisle Aas, Goro Fuji, Graham Barr, Green, Paul, |
| 3115 | Hans Dieter Pearcey, Harmen, H. Merijn Brand, Hugo van der Sanden, |
| 3116 | Ian Goodacre, Igor Sutton, Ingo Weinhold, James Bence, James Mastros, |
| 3117 | Jan Dubois, Jari Aalto, Jarkko Hietaniemi, Jay Hannah, Jerry Hedden, |
| 3118 | Jesse Vincent, Jim Cromie, Jody Belka, John E. Malmberg, John Malmberg, |
| 3119 | John Peacock, John Peacock via RT, John P. Linderman, John Wright, |
| 3120 | Josh ben Jore, Jos I. Boumans, Karl Williamson, Kenichi Ishigaki, Ken |
| 3121 | Williams, Kevin Brintnall, Kevin Ryde, Kurt Starsinic, Leon Brocard, |
| 3122 | Lubomir Rintel, Luke Ross, Marcel Grünauer, Marcus Holland-Moritz, Mark |
| 3123 | Jason Dominus, Marko Asplund, Martin Hasch, Mashrab Kuvatov, Matt Kraai, |
| 3124 | Matt S Trout, Max Maischein, Michael Breen, Michael Cartmell, Michael |
| 3125 | G Schwern, Michael Witten, Mike Giroux, Milosz Tanski, Moritz Lenz, |
| 3126 | Nicholas Clark, Nick Cleaton, Niko Tyni, Offer Kaye, Osvaldo Villalon, |
| 3127 | Paul Fenwick, Paul Gaborit, Paul Green, Paul Johnson, Paul Marquess, |
| 3128 | Philip Hazel, Philippe Bruhat, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, Rainer Tammer, |
| 3129 | Rajesh Mandalemula, Reini Urban, Renée Bäcker, Ricardo Signes, |
| 3130 | Ricardo SIGNES, Richard Foley, Rich Rauenzahn, Rick Delaney, Risto |
| 3131 | Kankkunen, Robert May, Roberto C. Sanchez, Robin Barker, SADAHIRO |
| 3132 | Tomoyuki, Salvador Ortiz Garcia, Sam Vilain, Scott Lanning, Sébastien |
| 3133 | Aperghis-Tramoni, Sérgio Durigan Júnior, Shlomi Fish, Simon 'corecode' |
| 3134 | Schubert, Sisyphus, Slaven Rezic, Smylers, Steffen Müller, Steffen |
| 3135 | Ullrich, Stepan Kasal, Steve Hay, Steven Schubiger, Steve Peters, Tels, |
| 3136 | The Doctor, Tim Bunce, Tim Jenness, Todd Rinaldo, Tom Christiansen, |
| 3137 | Tom Hukins, Tom Wyant, Tony Cook, Torsten Schoenfeld, Tye McQueen, |
| 3138 | Vadim Konovalov, Vincent Pit, Hio YAMASHINA, Yasuhiro Matsumoto, |
| 3139 | Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes, Yuval Kogman, Yves Orton, Zefram, Zsban Ambrus |
| 3140 | |
| 3141 | This is woefully incomplete as it's automatically generated from version |
| 3142 | control history. In particular, it doesn't include the names of the |
| 3143 | (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues in previous |
| 3144 | versions of Perl that helped make Perl 5.12.0 better. For a more complete |
| 3145 | list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please see the C<AUTHORS> |
| 3146 | file in the Perl 5.12.0 distribution. |
| 3147 | |
| 3148 | Our "retired" pumpkings Nicholas Clark and Rafael Garcia-Suarez |
| 3149 | deserve special thanks for their brilliant and substantive ongoing |
| 3150 | contributions. Nicholas personally authored over 30% of the patches |
| 3151 | since 5.10.0. Rafael comes in second in patch authorship with 11%, |
| 3152 | but is first by a long shot in committing patches authored by others, |
| 3153 | pushing 44% of the commits since 5.10.0 in this category, often after |
| 3154 | providing considerable coaching to the patch authors. These statistics |
| 3155 | in no way comprise all of their contributions, but express in shorthand |
| 3156 | that we couldn't have done it without them. |
| 3157 | |
| 3158 | Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN |
| 3159 | modules included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN |
| 3160 | community for helping Perl to flourish. |
| 3161 | |
| 3162 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
| 3163 | |
| 3164 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
| 3165 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
| 3166 | bug database at L<http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/>. There may also be |
| 3167 | information at L<http://www.perl.org/>, the Perl Home Page. |
| 3168 | |
| 3169 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
| 3170 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
| 3171 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
| 3172 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
| 3173 | analyzed by the Perl porting team. |
| 3174 | |
| 3175 | If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it |
| 3176 | inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send |
| 3177 | it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription |
| 3178 | unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able |
| 3179 | to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help |
| 3180 | co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all |
| 3181 | platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for |
| 3182 | security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently |
| 3183 | distributed on CPAN. |
| 3184 | |
| 3185 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
| 3186 | |
| 3187 | The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details |
| 3188 | on what changed. |
| 3189 | |
| 3190 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
| 3191 | |
| 3192 | The F<README> file for general stuff. |
| 3193 | |
| 3194 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
| 3195 | |
| 3196 | L<http://dev.perl.org/perl5/errata.html> for a list of issues |
| 3197 | found after this release, as well as a list of CPAN modules known |
| 3198 | to be incompatible with this release. |
| 3199 | |
| 3200 | =cut |