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 v5.13.7
12 This document describes differences between the 5.13.6 release and
15 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.13.5, first read
16 L<perl5136delta>, which describes differences between 5.13.5 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 Single term prototype
33 The C<+> prototype is a special alternative to C<$> that will act like
34 C<\[@%]> when given a literal array or hash variable, but will otherwise
35 force scalar context on the argument. This is useful for functions which
36 should accept either a literal array or an array reference as the argument:
40 die "Not an array or arrayref" unless ref $aref eq 'ARRAY';
44 When using the C<+> prototype, your function must check that the argument
45 is of an acceptable type.
47 =head2 C<use re '/flags';>
49 The C<re> pragma now has the ability to turn on regular expression flags
50 till the end of the lexical scope:
53 "foo" =~ / (.+) /; # /x implied
55 See L<re/'/flags' mode> for details.
59 XXX Any security-related notices go here. In particular, any security
60 vulnerabilities closed should be noted here rather than in the
61 L</Selected Bug Fixes> section.
63 [ List each security issue as a =head2 entry ]
65 =head1 Incompatible Changes
67 XXX For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be:
69 There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.XXX.XXX. If any
70 exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
72 [ List each incompatible change as a =head2 entry ]
76 XXX Any deprecated features, syntax, modules etc. should be listed here.
77 In particular, deprecated modules should be listed here even if they are
78 listed as an updated module in the L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
80 [ List each deprecation as a =head2 entry ]
82 =head1 Performance Enhancements
84 XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
85 may well be none in a stable release.
87 [ List each enhancement as a =item entry ]
97 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
99 XXX All changes to installed files in F<cpan/>, F<dist/>, F<ext/> and F<lib/>
100 go here. If Module::CoreList is updated, generate an initial draft of the
101 following sections using F<Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl>, which prints stub
102 entries to STDOUT. Results can be pasted in place of the '=head2' entries
103 below. A paragraph summary for important changes should then be added by hand.
104 In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a F<Changes> file that could be
107 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
109 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
119 =head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
125 XXX What should the version be?
127 C<B::Deparse> has been upgraded from 0.99 to ???.
129 It fixes deparsing of C<our> followed by a variable with funny characters
130 (as permitted under the C<utf8> pragma)
131 L<[perl #33752]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=33752>.
135 C<charnames> has been upgraded from 1.16 to 1.17.
137 The algorithm used by C<charnames::viacode> to look up names has been
138 rewritten to run faster
139 L<[perl #75448]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=75448>.
143 C<Locale::Maketext> has been upgraded from 1.16 to 1.17
147 C<re> has been upgraded from 0.13 to 0.14, for the sake of the new
148 C<use re "/flags"> pragma.
152 =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata
164 XXX Changes to files in F<pod/> go here. Consider grouping entries by
165 file and be sure to link to the appropriate page, e.g. L<perlfunc>.
167 =head2 New Documentation
169 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
173 XXX Description of the purpose of the new file here
175 =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
177 XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
178 However, any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in the L</Diagnostics>
187 XXX Description of the change here
193 The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
194 including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
195 diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
197 XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here. Also
198 include any changes in L<perldiag> that reconcile it to the C<C> code.
200 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
202 =head2 New Diagnostics
204 XXX Newly added diagnostic messages go here
214 =head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
216 XXX Changes (i.e. rewording) of diagnostic messages go here
226 =head1 Utility Changes
228 XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go
229 here. Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
231 [ List utility changes as a =head3 entry for each utility and =item
232 entries for each change
233 Use L<XXX> with program names to get proper documentation linking. ]
245 =head1 Configuration and Compilation
247 XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
248 go here. Any other changes to the Perl build process should be listed here.
249 However, any platform-specific changes should be listed in the
250 L</Platform Support> section, instead.
252 [ List changes as a =item entry ].
264 XXX Any significant changes to the testing of a freshly built perl should be
265 listed here. Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here as do any
266 large changes to the testing harness (e.g. when parallel testing was added).
267 Changes to existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs
268 that they represent may be covered elsewhere.
270 [ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
280 =head1 Platform Support
282 XXX Any changes to platform support should be listed in the sections below.
284 [ Within the sections, list each platform as a =item entry with specific
285 changes as paragraphs below it. ]
289 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous
290 versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/>
291 directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the
296 =item XXX-some-platform
302 =head2 Discontinued Platforms
304 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl no longer compiles on.
308 =item XXX-some-platform
314 =head2 Platform-Specific Notes
316 XXX List any changes for specific platforms. This could include configuration
317 and compilation changes or changes in portability/compatibility. However,
318 changes within modules for platforms should generally be listed in the
319 L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
323 =item XXX-some-platform
329 =head1 Internal Changes
331 XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
332 Other significant internal changes for future core maintainers should
335 [ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
341 C<lex_start> has been added to the API, but is considered experimental.
345 A new C<parse_block> function has been added to the API
346 L<[perl #78222]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=78222>.
350 A new, experimental API has been added for accessing the internal
351 structure that Perl uses for C<%^H>. See the functions beginning with
352 C<cophh_> in L<perlapi>.
356 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
358 XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
359 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
360 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
362 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
368 The C<parse_stmt> C function added in earlier in the 5.13.x series has been
369 fixed to work with statements ending with C<}>
370 L<[perl #78222]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=78222>.
374 The C<parse_fullstmt> C function added in 5.13.5 has been fixed to work
375 when called while an expression is being parsed.
379 Characters in the Latin-1 non-ASCII range (0x80 to 0xFF) used not to match
380 themselves if the string happened to be UTF8-encoded internally, the
381 regular expression was not, and the character in the regular expression was
382 inside a repeated group (e.g.,
383 C<Encode::decode_utf8("\303\200") =~ /(\xc0)+/>)
384 L<[perl #78464]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=78464>.
388 The C<(?d)> regular expression construct now overrides a previous C<(?u)>
389 or C<use feature "unicode_string">
390 L<[perl #78508]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=78508>.
394 A memory leak in C<do "file">, introduced in perl 5.13.6, has been fixed
395 L<[perl #78488]|http://rt.perl.org/rt3/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=78488>.
399 =head1 Known Problems
401 XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
402 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
403 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
405 This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
406 from either 5.XXX.XXX or 5.XXX.XXX.
408 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
420 XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
423 =head1 Acknowledgements
425 XXX The list of people to thank goes here.
427 =head1 Reporting Bugs
429 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
430 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
431 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
432 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
434 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
435 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
436 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
437 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
438 analysed by the Perl porting team.
440 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
441 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
442 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
443 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
444 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
445 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
446 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
447 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
452 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
455 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
457 The F<README> file for general stuff.
459 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.