5 [ this is a template for a new perldelta file. Any text flagged as
6 XXX needs to be processed before release. ]
8 perldelta - what is new for perl v5.13.9
12 This document describes differences between the 5.13.8 release and
15 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.13.7, first read
16 L<perl5138delta>, which describes differences between 5.13.7 and
21 XXX Any important notices here
23 =head1 Core Enhancements
25 XXX New core language features go here. Summarise user-visible core language
26 enhancements. Particularly prominent performance optimisations could go
27 here, but most should go in the L</Performance Enhancements> section.
29 [ List each enhancement as a =head2 entry ]
31 =head2 Any unsigned value can be encoded as a character
33 With this release, Perl is adopting a model that any unsigned value can
34 be treated as a code point and encoded internally (as utf8) without
35 warnings -- not just the code points that are legal in Unicode.
36 However, unless utf8 warnings have been
37 explicitly lexically turned off, outputting or performing a
38 Unicode-defined operation (such as upper-casing) on such a code point
39 will generate a warning. Attempting to input these using strict rules
40 (such as with the C<:encoding('UTF-8')> layer) will continue to fail.
41 Prior to this release the handling was very inconsistent, and incorrect
42 in places. Also, the Unicode non-characters, some of which previously were
43 erroneously considered illegal in places by Perl, contrary to the Unicode
44 standard, are now always legal internally. But inputting or outputting
45 them will work the same as for the non-legal Unicode code points, as the
46 Unicode standard says they are illegal for "open interchange".
51 XXX Any security-related notices go here. In particular, any security
52 vulnerabilities closed should be noted here rather than in the
53 L</Selected Bug Fixes> section.
55 [ List each security issue as a =head2 entry ]
57 =head1 Incompatible Changes
59 XXX For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be:
61 There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.XXX.XXX. If any
62 exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
64 [ List each incompatible change as a =head2 entry ]
68 XXX Any deprecated features, syntax, modules etc. should be listed here.
69 In particular, deprecated modules should be listed here even if they are
70 listed as an updated module in the L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
72 [ List each deprecation as a =head2 entry ]
74 =head1 Performance Enhancements
76 XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
77 may well be none in a stable release.
79 [ List each enhancement as a =item entry ]
89 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
91 XXX All changes to installed files in F<cpan/>, F<dist/>, F<ext/> and F<lib/>
92 go here. If Module::CoreList is updated, generate an initial draft of the
93 following sections using F<Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl>, which prints stub
94 entries to STDOUT. Results can be pasted in place of the '=head2' entries
95 below. A paragraph summary for important changes should then be added by hand.
96 In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a F<Changes> file that could be
99 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
101 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
107 L<CPAN::Meta::YAML> 0.002 has been added as a dual-life module. It supports a
108 subset of YAML sufficient for reading and writing META.yml and MYMETA.yml files
109 included with CPAN distributions or generated by the module installation
110 toolchain. It should not be used for any other general YAML parsing or
115 L<HTTP::Tiny> 0.008 has been added as a dual-life module. It is a very
116 small, simple HTTP/1.1 client designed for simple GET requests and file
117 mirroring. It has has been added to enable CPAN.pm and CPANPLUS to
118 "bootstrap" HTTP access to CPAN using pure Perl without relying on external
119 binaries like F<curl> or F<wget>.
123 L<Module::Metadata> 1.000003 has been added as a dual-life module. It gathers
124 package and POD information from Perl module files. It is a standalone module
125 based on Module::Build::ModuleInfo for use by other module installation
126 toolchain components. Module::Build::ModuleInfo has been deprecated in
127 favor of this module instead.
131 L<Perl::OSType> 1.002 has been added as a dual-life module. It maps Perl
132 operating system names (e.g. 'dragonfly' or 'MSWin32') to more generic types
133 with standardized names (e.g. "Unix" or "Windows"). It has been refactored
134 out of Module::Build and ExtUtils::CBuilder and consolidates such mappings into
135 a single location for easier maintenance.
139 =head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
145 C<Archive::Extract> has been upgraded from version 0.46 to 0.48
149 C<Archive::Tar> has been upgraded from version 1.74 to 1.76
153 C<CGI> has been upgraded from version 3.50 to 3.51
157 C<Compress::Raw::Bzip2> has been upgraded from version 2.031 to 2.033
161 C<Compress::Raw::Zlib> has been upgraded from version 2.030 to 2.033
165 C<CPAN> has been upgraded from version 1.94_62 to 1.94_63
169 C<CPANPLUS> has been upgraded from version 0.9010 to 0.9011
173 C<CPANPLUS::Dist::Build> has been upgraded from version 0.50 to 0.52
177 C<DB_File> has been upgraded from version 1.820 to 1.821
181 C<Encode> has been upgraded from version 2.40 to 2.42.
182 Now, all 66 Unicode non-characters are treated the same way U+FFFF has
183 always been treated; if it was disallowed, all 66 are disallowed; if it
188 C<File::Fetch> has been upgraded from version 0.28 to 0.32
192 C<IO::Compress> has been upgraded from version 2.030 to 2.033
196 C<IPC::Cmd> has been upgraded from version 0.66 to 0.68
200 C<Log::Message> has been upgraded from version 0.02 to 0.04
204 C<Module::Load::Conditional> has been upgraded from version 0.38 to 0.40
208 C<Object::Accessor> has been upgraded from version 0.36 to 0.38
212 C<Params::Check> has been upgraded from version 0.26 to 0.28
216 C<Pod::LaTeX> has been upgraded from version 0.58 to 0.59
220 C<Term::UI> has been upgraded from version 0.20 to 0.24
224 C<threads> has been upgraded from version 1.81_03 to 1.82
228 C<threads::shared> has been upgraded from version 1.35 to 1.36
232 C<Time::Local> has been upgraded from version 1.1901_01 to 1.2000.
236 C<Unicode::Collate> has been upgraded from version 0.68 to 0.70
238 This also sees the switch from using the pure-perl version of this
239 module to the XS version.
243 C<Unicode::Normalize> has been upgraded from version 1.07 to 1.10
247 =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata
259 XXX Changes to files in F<pod/> go here. Consider grouping entries by
260 file and be sure to link to the appropriate page, e.g. L<perlfunc>.
262 =head2 New Documentation
264 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
268 XXX Description of the purpose of the new file here
270 =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
272 XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
273 However, any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in the L</Diagnostics>
282 XXX Description of the change here
288 The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
289 including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
290 diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
292 XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here. Also
293 include any changes in L<perldiag> that reconcile it to the C<C> code.
295 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
297 =head2 New Diagnostics
299 XXX Newly added diagnostic messages go here
309 =head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
311 XXX Changes (i.e. rewording) of diagnostic messages go here
321 =head1 Utility Changes
323 XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go
324 here. Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
326 [ List utility changes as a =head3 entry for each utility and =item
327 entries for each change
328 Use L<XXX> with program names to get proper documentation linking. ]
340 =head1 Configuration and Compilation
342 XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
343 go here. Any other changes to the Perl build process should be listed here.
344 However, any platform-specific changes should be listed in the
345 L</Platform Support> section, instead.
347 [ List changes as a =item entry ].
359 XXX Any significant changes to the testing of a freshly built perl should be
360 listed here. Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here as do any
361 large changes to the testing harness (e.g. when parallel testing was added).
362 Changes to existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs
363 that they represent may be covered elsewhere.
365 [ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
375 =head1 Platform Support
377 XXX Any changes to platform support should be listed in the sections below.
379 [ Within the sections, list each platform as a =item entry with specific
380 changes as paragraphs below it. ]
384 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous
385 versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/>
386 directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the
391 =item XXX-some-platform
397 =head2 Discontinued Platforms
399 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl no longer compiles on.
403 =item XXX-some-platform
409 =head2 Platform-Specific Notes
411 XXX List any changes for specific platforms. This could include configuration
412 and compilation changes or changes in portability/compatibility. However,
413 changes within modules for platforms should generally be listed in the
414 L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
418 =item XXX-some-platform
424 =head1 Internal Changes
426 XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
427 Other significant internal changes for future core maintainers should
430 [ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
436 The opcode bodies for C<chop> and C<chomp> and for C<schop> and C<schomp> have
437 been merged. The implementation functions C<Perl_do_chop()> and
438 C<Perl_do_chomp()>, never part of the public API, have been merged and moved to
439 a static function in F<pp.c>. This shrinks the perl binary slightly, and should
440 not affect any code outside the core (unless it is relying on the order of side
441 effects when C<chomp> is passed a I<list> of values).
445 Some of the flags parameters to the uvuni_to_utf8_flags() and
446 utf8n_to_uvuni() have changed. This is a result of Perl now allowing
447 internal storage and manipulation of code points that are problematic
448 in some situations. Hence, the default actions for these functions has
449 been complemented to allow these code points. The new flags are
450 documented in L<perlapi>. Code that requires the problematic code
451 points to be rejected needs to change to use these flags. Some flag
452 names are retained for backward source compatibility, though they do
453 nothing, as they are now the default. However the flags
454 C<UNICODE_ALLOW_FDD0>, C<UNICODE_ALLOW_FFFF>, C<UNICODE_ILLEGAL>, and
455 C<UNICODE_IS_ILLEGAL> have been removed, as they stem from a
456 fundamentally broken model of how the Unicode non-character code points
457 should be handled, which is now described in
458 L<perlunicode/Non-character code points>. See also L</Selected Bug Fixes>.
462 Certain shared flags in the C<pmop.op_pmflags> and C<regexp.extflags>
463 structures have been removed. These are: C<Rxf_Pmf_LOCALE>,
464 C<Rxf_Pmf_UNICODE>, and C<PMf_LOCALE>. Instead there are encodes and
465 three static in-line functions for accessing the information:
466 C<get_regex_charset()>, C<set_regex_charset()>, and C<get_regex_charset_name()>,
467 which are defined in the places where the orginal flags were.
471 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
473 XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
474 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
475 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
477 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
483 The handling of Unicode non-characters has changed.
484 Previously they were mostly considered illegal, except that only one of
485 the 66 of them was known about in places. The Unicode standard
486 considers them legal, but forbids the "open interchange" of them.
487 This is part of the change to allow the internal use of any code point
488 (see L</Core Enhancements>). Together, these changes resolve
489 L<# 38722|https://rt.perl.org/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=38722>,
490 L<# 51918|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=51918>,
491 L<# 51936|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=51936>,
492 L<# 63446|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=63446>
496 =head1 Known Problems
498 XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
499 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
500 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
502 This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
503 from either 5.XXX.XXX or 5.XXX.XXX.
505 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
517 XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
520 =head1 Acknowledgements
522 XXX The list of people to thank goes here.
524 =head1 Reporting Bugs
526 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
527 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
528 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
529 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
531 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the L<perlbug>
532 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
533 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
534 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
535 analysed by the Perl porting team.
537 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
538 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
539 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
540 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
541 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
542 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
543 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
544 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
549 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
552 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
554 The F<README> file for general stuff.
556 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.