5 perl5213delta - what is new for perl v5.21.3
9 This document describes differences between the 5.21.2 release and the 5.21.3
12 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.21.1, first read
13 L<perl5212delta>, which describes differences between 5.21.1 and 5.21.2.
15 =head1 Core Enhancements
17 =head2 C<defined(@array = LIST)> is no longer fatal
19 In 5.21.1, C<defined(@array)> was made fatal. This has been relaxed
20 to not die if the argument is assigning to an array.
22 =head2 Floating point parsing has been improved
24 Parsing and printing of floating point values has been improved.
26 As a completely new feature, hexadecimal floating point literals
27 (like 0x1.23p-4) are now supported, and they can be output with
32 =head2 The L<Safe> module could allow outside packages to be replaced
34 Critical bugfix: outside packages could be replaced. L<Safe> has
35 been patched to 2.38 to address this.
37 =head1 Incompatible Changes
39 =head2 S<C<use UNIVERSAL '...'>> is now a fatal error
41 Importing functions from C<UNIVERSAL> has been deprecated since v5.12, and
42 is now a fatal error. S<C<"use UNIVERSAL">> without any arguments is still
45 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
47 =head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
53 L<B::Debug> has been upgraded from version 1.19 to 1.21.
57 L<Config::Perl::V> has been upgraded from version 0.20 to 0.22.
61 L<CPAN::Meta> has been upgraded from version 2.141520 to 2.142060.
65 L<CPAN::Meta::Requirements> has been upgraded from version 2.125 to 2.126.
69 L<ExtUtils::CBuilder> was moved from F<dist> to F<cpan>.
73 L<ExtUtils::CBuilder> has been upgraded from version 0.280216 to 0.280217.
77 L<ExtUtils::Install> was moved from F<dist> to F<cpan>.
81 L<ExtUtils::Manifest> has been upgraded from version 1.64 to 1.65.
82 It was also moved from F<dist> to F<cpan>.
86 L<HTTP::Tiny> has been upgraded from version 0.043 to 0.047.
90 L<IPC::Open3> has been upgraded from version 1.17 to 1.18.
94 L<Module::CoreList> has been upgraded from version 5.021002 to 5.021003.
98 L<Opcode> has been upgraded from version 1.27 to 1.28.
102 L<perl5db.pl> has been upgraded from version 1.45 to 1.46.
106 L<perlfaq> has been upgraded from version 5.0150044 to 5.0150045.
110 L<POSIX> has been upgraded from version 1.41 to 1.42.
114 L<Safe> has been upgraded from version 2.37 to 2.38.
118 L<Socket> has been upgraded from version 2.014 to 2.015.
122 L<Sys::Hostname> has been upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.19
126 L<UNIVERSAL> has been upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.12.
132 =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
134 =head3 L<perlexperiment>
140 Added reference to L<feature>.
150 Details on C level symbols and libperl.t added.
154 =head3 L<perlhacktips>
160 Recommended replacements for tmpfile, atoi, strtol, and strtoul added.
170 ASCII v. EBCDIC clarifications added.
180 Comments added on algorithmic complexity and tied hashes.
190 Updated documentation on environment and shell interaction in VMS.
196 The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
197 including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
198 diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
200 =head2 New Diagnostics
208 L<Hexadecimal float: internal error|perldiag/"Hexadecimal float: internal error">
210 (F) Something went horribly bad in hexadecimal float handling.
214 L<Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format|perldiag/"Hexadecimal float: unsupported long double format">
216 (F) You have configured Perl to use long doubles but
217 the internals of the long double format are unknown,
218 therefore the hexadecimal float output is impossible.
228 L<Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow|perldiag/"Hexadecimal float: exponent overflow">
230 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has larger exponent
231 than the floating point supports.
235 L<Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow|perldiag/"Hexadecimal float: exponent underflow">
237 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point has smaller exponent
238 than the floating point supports.
242 L<Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow|perldiag/"Hexadecimal float: mantissa overflow">
244 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point literal had more bits in
245 the mantissa (the part between the 0x and the exponent, also known as
246 the fraction or the significand) than the floating point supports.
250 L<Hexadecimal float: precision loss|perldiag/"Hexadecimal float: precision loss">
252 (W overflow) The hexadecimal floating point had internally more
253 digits than could be output. This can be caused by unsupported
254 long double formats, or by 64-bit integers not being available
255 (needed to retrieve the digits under some configurations).
259 =head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
265 C<require> with no argument or undef used to warn about a Null filename; now
266 it dies with C<Missing or undefined argument to require>.
270 =head1 Configuration and Compilation
276 MurmurHash64A and MurmurHash64B can now be configured as the internal hash
281 =head1 Platform Support
283 =head2 Platform-Specific Notes
289 Build support has been improved for cross-compiling in general and for
290 Android in particular.
294 C<c99> options have been cleaned up, hints look for C<solstudio>
295 as well as C<SUNWspro>, and support for native C<setenv> has been added.
299 C<finite>, C<finitel>, and C<isfinite> detection has been added to
300 C<configure.com>, environment handling has had some minor changes, and
301 a fix for legacy feature checking status.
305 C<%I64d> is now being used instead of C<%lld> for MinGW.
309 =head1 Internal Changes
315 Added L<perlapi/sync_locale>.
316 Changing the program's locale should be avoided by XS code. Nevertheless,
317 certain non-Perl libraries called from XS, such as C<Gtk> do so. When this
318 happens, Perl needs to be told that the locale has changed. Use this function
319 to do so, before returning to Perl.
323 Added L<perlapi/grok_atou> as a safer replacement for atoi and strtol.
327 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
333 Failing to compile C<use Foo> in an eval could leave a spurious
334 C<BEGIN> subroutine definition, which would produce a "Subroutine
335 BEGIN redefined" warning on the next use of C<use>, or other C<BEGIN>
336 block. [perl #122107]
340 C<method { BLOCK } ARGS> syntax now correctly parses the arguments if they
341 begin with an opening brace. [perl #46947]
345 External libraries and Perl may have different ideas of what the locale is.
346 This is problematic when parsing version strings if the locale's numeric
347 separator has been changed. Version parsing has been patched to ensure
348 it handles the locales correctly. [perl #121930]
352 A bug has been fixed where zero-length assertions and code blocks inside of a
353 regex could cause C<pos> to see an incorrect value. [perl #122460]
357 =head1 Acknowledgements
359 Perl 5.21.3 represents approximately 4 weeks of development since Perl 5.21.2
360 and contains approximately 21,000 lines of changes across 250 files from 25
363 Excluding auto-generated files, documentation and release tools, there were
364 approximately 18,000 lines of changes to 160 .pm, .t, .c and .h files.
366 Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant community
367 of users and developers. The following people are known to have contributed the
368 improvements that became Perl 5.21.3:
370 Aaron Crane, Abigail, Alberto Simões, Andy Dougherty, Brian Fraser, Chad
371 Granum, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Craig A. Berry, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker,
372 Daniel Dragan, David Mitchell, Father Chrysostomos, H.Merijn Brand, James E
373 Keenan, Jan Dubois, Jarkko Hietaniemi, Karen Etheridge, Karl Williamson, Lukas
374 Mai, Peter Martini, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, syber, Tony Cook, Vladimir Marek,
377 The list above is almost certainly incomplete as it is automatically generated
378 from version control history. In particular, it does not include the names of
379 the (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues to the Perl bug
382 Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN modules
383 included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN community for
384 helping Perl to flourish.
386 For a more complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please see
387 the F<AUTHORS> file in the Perl source distribution.
389 =head1 Reporting Bugs
391 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles recently
392 posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug database at
393 https://rt.perl.org/ . There may also be information at
394 http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
396 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the L<perlbug> program
397 included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down to a tiny but
398 sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the output of C<perl -V>,
399 will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by the Perl porting team.
401 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
402 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send it
403 to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
404 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who will be
405 able to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
406 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
407 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
408 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on
413 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details on
416 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
418 The F<README> file for general stuff.
420 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.