5 perl5237delta - what is new for perl v5.23.7
9 This document describes differences between the 5.23.6 release and the 5.23.7
12 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.23.5, first read
13 L<perl5236delta>, which describes differences between 5.23.5 and 5.23.6.
15 =head1 Core Enhancements
17 =head2 New C<\b{lb}> boundary in regular expressions
19 C<lb> stands for Line Break. It is a Unicode property
20 that determines where a line of text is suitable to break (typically so
21 that it can be output without overflowing the available horizontal
22 space). This capability has long been furnished by the
23 L<Unicode::LineBreak> module, but now a light-weight, non-customizable
24 version that is suitable for many purposes is in core Perl.
28 =head2 fix out of boundary access in Win32 path handling
30 This is CVE-2015-8608. For more information see
31 L<[perl #126755]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126755>
33 =head2 fix loss of taint in canonpath
35 This is CVE-2015-8607. For more information see
36 L<[perl #126862]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126862>
38 =head2 Avoid accessing uninitialized memory in win32 C<crypt()>
40 Added validation that will detect both a short salt and invalid characters
41 in the salt. L<[perl #126922]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126922>
43 =head1 Incompatible Changes
45 =head2 C<qr/\b{wb}/> is now tailored to Perl expectations
47 This is now more suited to be a drop-in replacement for plain C<\b>, but
48 giving better results for parsing natural language. Previously it
49 strictly followed the current Unicode rules which calls for it to match
50 between each white space character. Now it doesn't generally match
51 within spans of white space, behaving like C<\b> does. See
52 L<perlrebackslash/\b{wb}>
54 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
56 =head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
62 The F<cpan/podlators/> bundle has been upgraded from version 2.28 to 4.04.
66 L<B> has been upgraded from version 1.61 to 1.62.
70 L<B::Deparse> has been upgraded from version 1.36 to 1.37.
74 L<Benchmark> has been upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.
78 L<bignum> has been upgraded from version 0.41 to 0.42.
82 L<Data::Dumper> has been upgraded from version 2.159 to 2.160.
86 L<ExtUtils::ParseXS> has been upgraded from version 3.30 to 3.31.
90 L<ExtUtils::Typemaps> has been upgraded from version 3.30 to 3.31.
94 L<File::Find> has been upgraded from version 1.32 to 1.33.
98 L<File::Spec> has been upgraded from version 3.60 to 3.62.
102 L<Math::BigInt> has been upgraded from version 1.999710 to 1.999715.
106 L<Math::BigInt::FastCalc> has been upgraded from version 0.38 to 0.40.
110 L<Math::BigRat> has been upgraded from version 0.260801 to 0.260802.
114 L<Module::CoreList> has been upgraded from version 5.20151220 to 5.20160120.
118 L<Pod::Usage> has been upgraded from version 1.67 to 1.68.
122 L<Test::Harness> has been upgraded from version 3.35 to 3.36.
126 L<Unicode::Normalize> has been upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.25.
130 L<Unicode::UCD> has been upgraded from version 0.63 to 0.64.
134 L<utf8> has been upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.19.
140 =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
148 Fixed a broken example where C<=> was used instead of
149 C<==> in conditional in do/while example.
159 Better explain meaning of negative PIDs in C<waitpid>.
160 L<[perl #127080]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=127080>
170 Move sample commands into verbatim paragraphs.
174 Improve hyperlinks for all email addresses, RT tickets
179 Consistently refer to bisect.pl as F<Porting/bisect.pl>
183 Miscellaneous grammar and POD fixes.
193 Fix some examples to be L<strict> clean.
197 =head3 L<perlrebackslash>
203 Clarify that in languages like Japanese and Thai, dictionary lookup
204 is required to determine word boundaries.
210 The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
211 including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
212 diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
214 =head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
220 Accessing the C<IO> part of a glob as C<FILEHANDLE> instead of C<IO> is no
221 longer deprecated. It is discouraged to encourage uniformity (so that, for
222 example, one can grep more easily) but it will not be removed.
223 L<[perl #127060]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=127060>
227 =head1 Configuration and Compilation
233 F<Configure> no longer probes for F<libnm> by default. Originally
234 this was the "New Math" library, but the name has been re-used by the
235 GNOME NetworkManager.
236 L<[perl #127131]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=127131>
240 No longer generate EBCDIC POSIX-BC tables. We don't believe anyone is
241 using Perl and POSIX-BC at this time, and by not generating these tables
242 it saves time during development, and makes the resulting tar ball smaller.
246 The Win32 miniperl now has a real C<getcwd> which increases build performance
247 resulting in C<getcwd()> being 605x faster in Win32 miniperl.
251 =head1 Platform Support
253 =head2 Platform-Specific Notes
259 On VMS, the math function prototypes in C<math.h> are now visible under C++.
260 Now building the POSIX extension with C++ will no longer crash.
264 VMS has had C<setenv/unsetenv> since v7.0 (released in 1996), C<Perl_vmssetenv>
265 now always uses C<setenv/unsetenv>.
269 Try more crypt algorithms in the tests, for OpenBSD. OpenBSD implements the
270 Blowfish algorithm, but not the MD5 one used by C<glibc>. Enhance the crypt and
271 taint tests to try both algorithms. If neither works, fall back to no algorithm.
272 The Blowfish salt is taken from the OpenBSD C<crypt(3)> page.
276 Use the C<fdclose()> function from FreeBSD if it is available.
277 L<[perl #126847]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126847>
281 =head1 Internal Changes
287 The obscure C<PL_timesbuf> variable, effectively a vestige of Perl 1, has
288 been removed. It was documented as deprecated in Perl 5.20, with a statement
289 that it would be removed early in the 5.21.x series; that has now finally
291 L<[perl #121351]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=121351>
295 Remove unwarranted assertion in C<Perl_newATTRSUB_x()>. If a stub subroutine
296 definition with a prototype has been seen, then any subsequent stub (or
297 definition) of the same subroutine with an attribute was causing an assertion
298 failure because of a null pointer.
299 L<[perl #126845]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126845>
303 Replace C<::> with C<__> in C<ExtUtils::ParseXS> like it's done for
304 parameters/return values. This is more consistent, and simplifies writing XS
305 code wrapping C++ classes into a nested Perl namespace (it requires only
306 a typedef for C<Foo__Bar> rather than two, one for C<Foo_Bar> and the other
311 Deprecate the C<to_utf8_case()> function, see
312 L<http://nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/233287>.
316 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
322 A regression that allowed undeclared barewords in hash keys to work despite
323 strictures has been fixed.
324 L<[perl #126981]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126981>
328 Calls to the placeholder C<&PL_sv_yes> used internally when an C<import()>
329 or C<unimport()> method isn't found now correctly handle scalar context.
330 L<[perl #126042]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126042>
334 Fixed some problems introduced in 5.23.2 with list assignment dealing
335 with magic and XS functions returning their arguments.
336 L<[perl #126633]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126633>
340 Report more context when we see an array where we expect to see an
341 operator and avoid an assertion failure.
342 L<[perl #123737]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=123737>
346 Modifying an array that was previously a package C<@ISA> no longer
347 causes assertion failures or crashes.
348 L<[perl #123788]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=123788>
352 Retain binary compatibility across plain and DEBUGGING perl builds.
353 L<[perl #127212]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=127212>
357 Avoid leaking memory when setting C<$ENV{foo}> on darwin.
358 L<[perl #126240]|https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=126240>
362 =head1 Known Problems
368 Statically building perl is not currently working due to a problem
369 related to multiple definitions of the C<cp1252_encoding> in the
374 =head1 Acknowledgements
376 Perl 5.23.7 represents approximately 4 weeks of development since Perl 5.23.6
377 and contains approximately 87,000 lines of changes across 450 files from 21
380 Excluding auto-generated files, documentation and release tools, there were
381 approximately 67,000 lines of changes to 320 .pm, .t, .c and .h files.
383 Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant community
384 of users and developers. The following people are known to have contributed the
385 improvements that became Perl 5.23.7:
387 Aaron Crane, Andreas König, Andy Dougherty, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Craig A.
388 Berry, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker, Daniel Dragan, David Golden, David Mitchell,
389 James E Keenan, Jarkko Hietaniemi, Karen Etheridge, Karl Williamson, Lukas Mai,
390 Mattia Barbon, Ricardo Signes, Stevan Little, Steve Hay, Todd Rinaldo, Tom
393 The list above is almost certainly incomplete as it is automatically generated
394 from version control history. In particular, it does not include the names of
395 the (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues to the Perl bug
398 Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN modules
399 included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN community for
400 helping Perl to flourish.
402 For a more complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please see
403 the F<AUTHORS> file in the Perl source distribution.
405 =head1 Reporting Bugs
407 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles recently
408 posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug database at
409 L<https://rt.perl.org/> . There may also be information at
410 L<http://www.perl.org/> , the Perl Home Page.
412 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the L<perlbug> program
413 included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down to a tiny but
414 sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the output of C<perl -V>,
415 will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by the Perl porting team.
417 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
418 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send it
419 to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
420 unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who will be
421 able to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
422 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
423 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
424 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on
429 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details on
432 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
434 The F<README> file for general stuff.
436 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.