5 perl5122delta - what is new for perl v5.12.2
9 This document describes differences between the 5.12.1 release and
12 If you are upgrading from an earlier major version, such as 5.10.1,
13 first read L<perl5120delta>, which describes differences between 5.10.1
14 and 5.12.0, as well as L<perl5121delta>, which describes earlier changes
15 in the 5.12 stable release series.
17 =head1 Incompatible Changes
19 There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.12.1. If any exist, they
20 are bugs and reports are welcome.
22 =head1 Core Enhancements
24 Other than the bug fixes listed below, there should be no user-visible
25 changes to the core language in this release.
27 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
29 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
31 This release does not introduce any new modules or pragmata.
33 =head2 Pragmata Changes
35 In the previous release, C<no I<VERSION>;> statements triggered a bug
36 which could cause L<feature> bundles to be loaded and L<strict> mode to
37 be enabled unintentionally.
39 =head2 Updated Modules
45 Upgraded from version 1.16 to 1.17.
47 L<Carp> now detects incomplete L<caller()|perlfunc/"caller EXPR">
48 overrides and avoids using bogus C<@DB::args>. To provide backtraces, Carp
49 relies on particular behaviour of the caller built-in. Carp now detects
50 if other code has overridden this with an incomplete implementation, and
51 modifies its backtrace accordingly. Previously incomplete overrides would
52 cause incorrect values in backtraces (best case), or obscure fatal errors
55 This fixes certain cases of C<Bizarre copy of ARRAY> caused by modules
56 overriding C<caller()> incorrectly.
60 A patch to F<cpanp-run-perl> has been backported from CPANPLUS C<0.9004>. This
61 resolves L<RT #55964|http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=55964>
62 and L<RT #57106|http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=57106>, both
63 of which related to failures to install distributions that use
64 C<Module::Install::DSL>.
68 A regression which caused a failure to find C<CORE::GLOBAL::glob> after
69 loading C<File::Glob> to crash has been fixed. Now, it correctly falls back
70 to external globbing via C<pp_glob>.
74 C<File::Copy::copy(FILE, DIR)> is now documented.
78 Upgraded from version 3.31 to 3.31_01.
80 Several portability fixes were made in C<File::Spec::VMS>: a colon is now
81 recognized as a delimiter in native filespecs; caret-escaped delimiters are
82 recognized for better handling of extended filespecs; C<catpath()> returns
83 an empty directory rather than the current directory if the input directory
84 name is empty; C<abs2rel()> properly handles Unix-style input.
88 =head1 Utility Changes
94 F<perlbug> now always gives the reporter a chance to change the email address it
99 F<perlbug> should no longer warn about uninitialized values when using the C<-d>
104 =head1 Changes to Existing Documentation
110 The existing policy on backward-compatibility and deprecation has
111 been added to L<perlpolicy>, along with definitions of terms like
116 L<perlfunc/srand>'s usage has been clarified.
120 The entry for L<perlfunc/die> was reorganized to emphasize its
121 role in the exception mechanism.
125 Perl's L<INSTALL> file has been clarified to explicitly state that Perl
126 requires a C89 compliant ANSI C Compiler.
130 L<IO::Socket>'s C<getsockopt()> and C<setsockopt()> have been documented.
134 F<alarm()>'s inability to interrupt blocking IO on Windows has been documented.
138 L<Math::TrulyRandom> hasn't been updated since 1996 and has been removed
139 as a recommended solution for random number generation.
143 L<perlrun> has been updated to clarify the behaviour of octal flags to F<perl>.
147 To ease user confusion, C<$#> and C<$*>, two special variables that were
148 removed in earlier versions of Perl have been documented.
152 The version of L<perlfaq> shipped with the Perl core has been updated from the
153 official FAQ version, which is now maintained in the C<briandfoy/perlfaq>
154 branch of the Perl repository at L<git://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git>.
158 =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
160 =head2 Configuration improvements
166 The C<d_u32align> configuration probe on ARM has been fixed.
170 =head2 Compilation improvements
176 An "C<incompatible operand types>" error in ternary expressions when building
177 with C<clang> has been fixed.
181 Perl now skips setuid C<File::Copy> tests on partitions it detects to be mounted
186 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
192 A possible segfault in the C<T_PRTOBJ> default typemap has been fixed.
196 A possible memory leak when using L<caller()|perlfunc/"caller EXPR"> to set
197 C<@DB::args> has been fixed.
201 Several memory leaks when loading XS modules were fixed.
205 C<unpack()> now handles scalar context correctly for C<%32H> and C<%32u>,
206 fixing a potential crash. C<split()> would crash because the third item
207 on the stack wasn't the regular expression it expected. C<unpack("%2H",
208 ...)> would return both the unpacked result and the checksum on the stack,
209 as would C<unpack("%2u", ...)>.
210 L<[perl #73814]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=73814>
214 Perl now avoids using memory after calling C<free()> in F<pp_require>
215 when there are CODEREFs in C<@INC>.
219 A bug that could cause "C<Unknown error>" messages when
220 "C<call_sv(code, G_EVAL)>" is called from an XS destructor has been fixed.
224 The implementation of the C<open $fh, 'E<gt>' \$buffer> feature
225 now supports get/set magic and thus tied buffers correctly.
229 The C<pp_getc>, C<pp_tell>, and C<pp_eof> opcodes now make room on the
230 stack for their return values in cases where no argument was passed in.
234 When matching unicode strings under some conditions inappropriate backtracking would
235 result in a C<Malformed UTF-8 character (fatal)> error. This should no longer occur.
236 See L<[perl #75680]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=75680>
240 =head1 Platform Specific Notes
248 F<README.aix> has been updated with information about the XL C/C++ V11 compiler
259 When building Perl with the mingw64 x64 cross-compiler C<incpath>,
260 C<libpth>, C<ldflags>, C<lddlflags> and C<ldflags_nolargefiles> values
261 in F<Config.pm> and F<Config_heavy.pl> were not previously being set
262 correctly because, with that compiler, the include and lib directories
263 are not immediately below C<$(CCHOME)>.
273 F<git_version.h> is now installed on VMS. This was an oversight in v5.12.0 which
274 caused some extensions to fail to build.
278 Several memory leaks in L<stat()|perlfunc/"stat FILEHANDLE"> have been fixed.
282 A memory leak in C<Perl_rename()> due to a double allocation has been
287 A memory leak in C<vms_fid_to_name()> (used by C<realpath()> and
288 C<realname()>) has been fixed.
292 =head1 Acknowledgements
294 Perl 5.12.2 represents approximately three months of development since
295 Perl 5.12.1 and contains approximately 2,000 lines of changes across
296 100 files from 36 authors.
298 Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant
299 community of users and developers. The following people are known to
300 have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.12.2:
302 Abigail, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Ben Morrow, brian d foy, Brian
303 Phillips, Chas. Owens, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Chris Williams,
304 Craig A. Berry, Curtis Jewell, Dan Dascalescu, David Golden, David
305 Mitchell, Father Chrysostomos, Florian Ragwitz, George Greer, H.Merijn
306 Brand, Jan Dubois, Jesse Vincent, Jim Cromie, Karl Williamson, Lars
307 Dɪᴇᴄᴋᴏᴡ 迪拉斯, Leon Brocard, Maik Hentsche, Matt S Trout,
308 Nicholas Clark, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, Rainer Tammer, Ricardo Signes,
309 Salvador Ortiz Garcia, Sisyphus, Slaven Rezic, Steffen Mueller, Tony Cook,
310 Vincent Pit and Yves Orton.
312 =head1 Reporting Bugs
314 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
315 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
316 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
317 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
319 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
320 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
321 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
322 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
323 analysed by the Perl porting team.
325 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
326 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
327 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
328 unarchived mailing list, which includes
329 all the core committers, who will be able
330 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
331 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
332 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
333 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
338 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
341 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
343 The F<README> file for general stuff.
345 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.