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 v5.15.2
12 This document describes differences between the 5.15.1 release and
15 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.15.0, first read
16 L<perl5151delta>, which describes differences between 5.15.0 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 ]
33 XXX Any security-related notices go here. In particular, any security
34 vulnerabilities closed should be noted here rather than in the
35 L</Selected Bug Fixes> section.
37 [ List each security issue as a =head2 entry ]
39 =head1 Incompatible Changes
41 XXX For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be:
43 There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.XXX.XXX
44 If any exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
46 [ List each incompatible change as a =head2 entry ]
48 =head2 C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> now returns $VERSION
50 C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> now return whatever is in $VERSION, instead of
51 returning $VERSION converted to a version object and then to a string.
52 As a result, it no longer parses the version when called without arguments,
53 so it no longer dies in that case for malformed versions. This allows
54 custom version number parsers to use C<< ->VERSION >> to retrieve the
55 version number, as was the case in Perl 5.8 [perl #95544].
59 XXX Any deprecated features, syntax, modules etc. should be listed here.
60 In particular, deprecated modules should be listed here even if they are
61 listed as an updated module in the L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
63 [ List each deprecation as a =head2 entry ]
65 =head1 Performance Enhancements
67 XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
68 may well be none in a stable release.
70 [ List each enhancement as a =item entry ]
80 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
82 XXX All changes to installed files in F<cpan/>, F<dist/>, F<ext/> and F<lib/>
83 go here. If Module::CoreList is updated, generate an initial draft of the
84 following sections using F<Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl>, which prints stub
85 entries to STDOUT. Results can be pasted in place of the '=head2' entries
86 below. A paragraph summary for important changes should then be added by hand.
87 In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a F<Changes> file that could be
90 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
92 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
102 =head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
108 L<CPAN> has been upgraded from version 1.9600 to version 1.9800
112 L<CPANPLUS> has been upgraded from version 0.9108 to version 0.9109
114 Fixed support for v-strings and x.y.z versions with v5.8.4
118 L<CPAN::Meta> has been upgraded from version 2.110930_001 to version 2.112150
120 Stringify any objects encountered during conversion.
122 Clarified that file paths in the 'provides' section must be in
123 Unix-style (i.e. forward slashes)
127 L<DB_File> has been upgraded from version 1.822 to version 1.824
129 Will now croak if attempt to freeze/thaw DB_File object [RT #69985]
133 L<ExtUtils::Install> has been upgraded from version 1.56 to version 1.57.
135 There is no change to ExtUtils::Install other than the version number
136 increase, but L<ExtUtils::Installed> has been upgraded from version 1.999_001
137 to version 1.999002 and a new C<skip_cwd> attribute has been added.
141 L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> has been upgraded from version 6.58 to version 6.59
145 L<IPC::Open3> has been upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.12.
147 C<open3> with "-" for the program name works once more. This was broken in
148 version 1.06 (and hence in Perl 5.14.0) [perl #95748].
152 L<Module::Build> has been upgraded from version 0.3800 to version 0.39_01.
154 Pod to HTML internals changed to support revisions to Pod::Html in core.
155 Also fixes some minor bugs. [rt.cpan.org #68585] [rt.cpan.org #67893]
160 L<Module::Load> has been upgraded from version 0.18 to version 0.20
164 L<Module::Metadata> has been upgraded from version 1.000004 to version 1.000005
166 Added C<new_from_handle()> method.
170 L<Params::Check> has been upgraded from version 0.28 to version 0.32
174 L<PerlIO::via> has been upgraded from version 0.11 to version 0.12.
176 The only change is a correction in the documentation.
180 L<Term::ANSIColor> has been upgraded from version 3.00 to version 3.01
182 Only interpret an initial array reference as a list of colors, not any initial
183 reference, allowing the colored function to work properly on objects with
184 stringification defined.
188 L<Unicode::Collate> has been upgraded from version 0.77 to version 0.78
192 L<Unicode::Normalize> has been upgraded from version 1.12 to version 1.13
196 =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata
208 XXX Changes to files in F<pod/> go here. Consider grouping entries by
209 file and be sure to link to the appropriate page, e.g. L<perlfunc>.
211 =head2 New Documentation
213 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
217 XXX Description of the purpose of the new file here
219 =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
221 XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
222 However, any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in the L</Diagnostics>
231 XXX Description of the change here
237 The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
238 including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
239 diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
241 XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here. Also
242 include any changes in L<perldiag> that reconcile it to the C<C> code.
244 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry that links to perldiag,
249 L<Invalid version object|perldiag/"Invalid version object">
252 =head2 New Diagnostics
254 XXX Newly added diagnostic messages go here
262 XXX L<message|perldiag/"message">
272 XXX L<message|perldiag/"message">
276 =head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
278 XXX Changes (i.e. rewording) of diagnostic messages go here
284 XXX Describe change here
288 =head1 Utility Changes
290 XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go
291 here. Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
293 [ List utility changes as a =head3 entry for each utility and =item
294 entries for each change
295 Use L<XXX> with program names to get proper documentation linking. ]
303 Fixed a bug whereby other perls under the current directory could cause
304 false positive failures.
308 Tests for .ph files have been removed, as these test have been optional since
309 2005 and .ph files are no longer generated during installation.
313 =head1 Configuration and Compilation
315 XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
316 go here. Any other changes to the Perl build process should be listed here.
317 However, any platform-specific changes should be listed in the
318 L</Platform Support> section, instead.
320 [ List changes as a =item entry ].
326 F<makedef.pl> has been refactored. This should have no noticeable affect on
327 any of the platforms that use it as part of their build (AIX, VMS, Win32).
333 XXX Any significant changes to the testing of a freshly built perl should be
334 listed here. Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here as do any
335 large changes to the testing harness (e.g. when parallel testing was added).
336 Changes to existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs
337 that they represent may be covered elsewhere.
339 [ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
349 =head1 Platform Support
351 XXX Any changes to platform support should be listed in the sections below.
353 [ Within the sections, list each platform as a =item entry with specific
354 changes as paragraphs below it. ]
358 =item HP-UX PA-RISC/64 now supports gcc-4.x
360 A fix to correct the socketsize now makes the test suite pass on HP-UX
361 PA-RISC for 64bitall builds.
367 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous
368 versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/>
369 directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the
374 =item XXX-some-platform
380 =head2 Discontinued Platforms
382 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl no longer compiles on.
386 =item XXX-some-platform
392 =head2 Platform-Specific Notes
394 XXX List any changes for specific platforms. This could include configuration
395 and compilation changes or changes in portability/compatibility. However,
396 changes within modules for platforms should generally be listed in the
397 L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
401 =item XXX-some-platform
407 =head1 Internal Changes
409 XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
410 Other significant internal changes for future core maintainers should
413 [ List each change as a =item entry ]
423 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
425 XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
426 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
427 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
429 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
435 Locking an lvalue subroutine (via C<lock &lvsub>) now locks the return
436 value, instead of trying to lock the sub (which has no effect). It also no
437 longer tries to return the sub as a scalar, resulting in strange side
438 effects like C<ref \$_> returning "CODE" in some instances.
442 C<lock>'s prototype has been corrected to C<(\[$@%*])> from C<(\$)>, which
447 The prototypes for the core functions C<stat> and C<lstat> have been
448 removed, as they were incorrect, because their syntax cannot be replicated
453 Most dereferencing operators (C<${}>, etc.) used to call C<FETCH> twice on
454 a tied operand when doing a symbolic dereference (looking up a variable by
455 name, which is not permitted under C<use strict 'refs'>). Only C<&{}> did
456 not have this problem. This has been fixed.
460 A minor regression introduced in 5.15.0 has been fixed. Dereferencing a
461 magical mortal (e.g., the return value of C<delete> on a tied hash element)
462 explicitly returned from a subroutine called recursively was not calling
463 C<FETCH>. This would affect code like C<@{ foo() }> where the C<foo> sub
464 contains C<return delete $hash{elem}> and is calling itself.
468 A panic involving the combination of the regular expression modifiers
469 C</aa> and the C<\b> escape sequence introduced in 5.14.0 has been
474 stat() would always return the inode number as an IV, even when the
475 original was unsigned, or too large to fit in an IV. stat() now
476 returns the inode number as the type that would best preserve the
477 original value. [perl #84590]
481 =head1 Known Problems
483 XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
484 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
485 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
487 This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
488 from either 5.XXX.XXX or 5.XXX.XXX.
490 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
502 XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
505 =head1 Acknowledgements
507 XXX Generate this with:
509 perl Porting/acknowledgements.pl v5.15.1..HEAD
511 =head1 Reporting Bugs
513 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
514 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
515 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
516 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
518 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the L<perlbug>
519 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
520 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
521 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
522 analysed by the Perl porting team.
524 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
525 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
526 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
527 unarchived mailing list, which includes
528 all the core committers, who will be able
529 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
530 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
531 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
532 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
537 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
540 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
542 The F<README> file for general stuff.
544 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.