4 This has been completed up to c60dbbc38, except for:
5 d9018cbe5b480ba29cc6151aba8f5102a7e009c4 (Eric Brine)
6 -- while I (use git blame to find out who) see how this change within
7 lex_read_unichar is correct, I cannot tell at a glance what visible
8 effects this bug has at the Perl level or through the lexer API.
9 a04eb69c733e84250299f12df200f10b76b0a45c (David Golden)
10 7a799f6bb3cac2e1bf9bede83579324cffa59c16 (David Golden)
11 be48bbe8d671b6841c3ec7cb734b98071afe3cd9 (Chip)
15 [ this is a template for a new perldelta file. Any text flagged as
16 XXX needs to be processed before release. ]
18 perldelta - what is new for perl v5.15.4
22 This document describes differences between the 5.15.3 release and
25 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.15.3, first read
26 L<perl5153delta>, which describes differences between 5.15.3 and
31 XXX Any important notices here
33 =head1 Core Enhancements
35 =head2 $^X converted to an absolute path on FreeBSD, OS X and Solaris
37 C<$^X> is now converted to an absolute path on OS X, FreeBSD (without
38 needing F</proc> mounted) and Solaris 10 and 11. This augments the
39 previous approach of using F</proc> on Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD
40 (in all cases, where mounted).
42 This makes relocatable perl installations more useful on these platforms.
43 (See "Relocatable @INC" in F<INSTALL>)
45 =head2 Unicode Symbol Names
47 Perl now has proper support for Unicode in symbol names. It used to be
48 that C<*{$foo}> would ignore the internal UTF8 flag and use the bytes of
49 the underlying representation to look up the symbol. That meant that
50 C<*{"\x{100}"}> and C<*{"\xc4\x80"}> would return the same thing. All
51 these parts of Perl have been fixed to account for Unicode:
57 Method names (including those passed to C<use overload>)
61 Typeglob names (including names of variables, subroutines and filehandles)
69 Constant subroutine names (not nul-clean yet)
77 Symbolic dereferencing
81 Second argument to C<bless()> and C<tie()>
85 Return value of C<ref()>
89 Package names returned by C<caller()>
101 Various warnings and error messages that mention variable names or values,
106 In addition, a parsing bug has been fixed that prevented C<*{é}> from
107 implicitly quoting the name, but instead interpreted it as C<*{+é}>, which
108 would cause a strict violation.
110 C<*{"*a::b"}> automatically strips off the * if it is followed by an ASCII
111 letter. That has been extended to all Unicode identifier characters.
113 C<$é> is now subject to "Used only once" warnings. It used to be exempt,
114 as it was treated as a punctuation variable.
116 =head2 Support for Embedded Nuls
118 Some parts of Perl did not work correctly with nuls (C<chr 0>) embedded in
119 strings. That meant that, for instance, C<< $m = "a\0b"; foo->$m >> would
120 call the "a" method, instead of the actual method name contained in $m.
121 These parts of perl have been fixed to support nuls:
131 Typeglob names (including filehandle names)
143 Return value of C<ref()>
147 Package names returned by C<caller()>
155 Typeglob elements (C<*foo{"THING\0stuff"}>)
163 Various warnings and error messages that mention variable names or values,
168 One side effect of these changes is that blessing into "\0" no longer
169 causes C<ref()> to return false.
173 XXX Any security-related notices go here. In particular, any security
174 vulnerabilities closed should be noted here rather than in the
175 L</Selected Bug Fixes> section.
177 [ List each security issue as a =head2 entry ]
179 =head1 Incompatible Changes
181 XXX For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be:
183 There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.XXX.XXX
184 If any exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
186 [ List each incompatible change as a =head2 entry ]
190 XXX Any deprecated features, syntax, modules etc. should be listed here.
191 In particular, deprecated modules should be listed here even if they are
192 listed as an updated module in the L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
194 [ List each deprecation as a =head2 entry ]
196 =head1 Performance Enhancements
198 XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There
199 may well be none in a stable release.
201 [ List each enhancement as a =item entry ]
211 =head1 Modules and Pragmata
213 XXX All changes to installed files in F<cpan/>, F<dist/>, F<ext/> and F<lib/>
214 go here. If Module::CoreList is updated, generate an initial draft of the
215 following sections using F<Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl>, which prints stub
216 entries to STDOUT. Results can be pasted in place of the '=head2' entries
217 below. A paragraph summary for important changes should then be added by hand.
218 In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a F<Changes> file that could be
221 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
223 =head2 New Modules and Pragmata
233 =head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
239 L<perlfaq> has been upgraded from version 5.0150034 to version 5.0150035.
243 L<Digest> has been upgraded from version 1.16 to version 1.17.
247 L<DynaLoader> has been upgraded from version 1.13 to 1.14.
249 It stopped exporting its symbols with the ExtUtils::ParseXS changes in
250 5.15.2. Now it exports them once more.
254 L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> has been upgraded from version 6.59 to version 6.61_01.
258 L<ExtUtils::ParseXS> has been upgraded from version 3.04_04 to version 3.05.
262 L<Module::Load> has been upgraded from version 0.20 to version 0.22.
264 Resolve possible security problem [http://goo.gl/YzHRU] where a '::' prefixed
265 module can 'jump' out of @INC
269 L<Unicode::Collate> has been upgraded from version 0.78 to version 0.79.
273 =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata
285 XXX Changes to files in F<pod/> go here. Consider grouping entries by
286 file and be sure to link to the appropriate page, e.g. L<perlfunc>.
288 =head2 New Documentation
290 XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
294 XXX Description of the purpose of the new file here
296 =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
298 XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
299 However, any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in the L</Diagnostics>
302 =head3 L<perlfunc>, L<open>
308 As an accident of history, C<open $fh, "<:", ...> applies the default
309 layers for the platform (C<:raw> on Unix, C<:crlf> on Windows), ignoring
310 whatever is declared by L<open.pm|open>. This seems such a useful feature
311 it has been documented in L<perlfunc|perlfunc/open> and L<open>.
317 The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
318 including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
319 diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
321 XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here. Also
322 include any changes in L<perldiag> that reconcile it to the C<C> code.
324 [ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry that links to perldiag,
329 L<Invalid version object|perldiag/"Invalid version object">
332 =head2 New Diagnostics
334 XXX Newly added diagnostic messages go here
342 XXX L<message|perldiag/"message">
352 XXX L<message|perldiag/"message">
356 =head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
358 XXX Changes (i.e. rewording) of diagnostic messages go here
365 "Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, no properties match it; all inverse
366 prop erties do" has been changed to "Code point 0x%X is not Unicode, all
367 \p{} matches fail; all \P{} matches succeed"
372 =head1 Utility Changes
374 XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go
375 here. Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
377 [ List utility changes as a =head3 entry for each utility and =item
378 entries for each change
379 Use L<XXX> with program names to get proper documentation linking. ]
391 =head1 Configuration and Compilation
393 XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
394 go here. Any other changes to the Perl build process should be listed here.
395 However, any platform-specific changes should be listed in the
396 L</Platform Support> section, instead.
398 [ List changes as a =item entry ].
410 XXX Any significant changes to the testing of a freshly built perl should be
411 listed here. Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here as do any
412 large changes to the testing harness (e.g. when parallel testing was added).
413 Changes to existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarising, although the bugs
414 that they represent may be covered elsewhere.
416 [ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
422 F<t/porting/checkcfgvar.t> now tests that all config.sh-style files are
423 complete. These are used by the various non-*nix to generate their
424 F<config.h>, and an incomplete input file will generate invalid output.
428 =head1 Platform Support
430 XXX Any changes to platform support should be listed in the sections below.
432 [ Within the sections, list each platform as a =item entry with specific
433 changes as paragraphs below it. ]
437 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous
438 versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/>
439 directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the
444 =item XXX-some-platform
450 =head2 Discontinued Platforms
452 XXX List any platforms that this version of perl no longer compiles on.
456 =item XXX-some-platform
462 =head2 Platform-Specific Notes
464 XXX List any changes for specific platforms. This could include configuration
465 and compilation changes or changes in portability/compatibility. However,
466 changes within modules for platforms should generally be listed in the
467 L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
471 =item XXX-some-platform
477 =head1 Internal Changes
479 XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here.
480 Other significant internal changes for future core maintainers should
483 [ List each change as a =item entry ]
489 These new functions have been added as part of the work on Unicode symbols:
501 gv_fetchmeth_pv_autoload
502 gv_fetchmeth_pvn_autoload
503 gv_fetchmeth_sv_autoload
504 gv_fetchmethod_pv_flags
505 gv_fetchmethod_pvn_flags
506 gv_fetchmethod_sv_flags
521 The gv_fetchmethod_*_flags functions, like gv_fetchmethod_flags, are
522 experimental and may change in a future release.
526 The following functions were added. These are I<not> part of the API:
539 C<sv_catpvn_flags> takes a couple of new internal-only flags,
540 C<SV_CATBYTES> and C<SV_CATUTF8>, which tell it whether the char array to
541 be concatenated is UTF8. This allows for more efficient concatenation than
542 creating temporary SVs to pass to C<sv_catsv>.
546 =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
548 XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here.
549 Bug fixes in files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarised in
550 L</Modules and Pragmata>.
552 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
558 In Perl 5.14.0, C<$tainted ~~ @array> stopped working properly. Sometimes
559 it would erroneously fail (when C<$tainted> contained a string that occurs
560 in the array I<after> the first element) or erroneously succeed (when
561 C<undef> occurred after the first element) [perl #93590].
565 Perl 5.15.0 introduced a minor regression, in that an object referenced by
566 a deleted hash element would be able to access the freed element from its
567 DESTROY method, causing panic errors [perl #99660].
571 Functions in the CORE package can now be called as methods. That used to
572 work only when they had been called or referenced already. So
573 C<< "foo"->CORE::ucfirst >> returns Foo.
577 C<use> and C<require> are no longer affected by the I/O layers active in
578 the caller's scope (enabled by L<open.pm|open>) [perl #96008].
582 Errors that occur when methods cannot be found during overloading now
583 mention the correct package name, as they did in 5.8.x, instead of
584 erroneously mentioning the "overload" package, as they have since 5.10.0.
588 Undefining C<%overload::> no longer causes a crash.
592 C<our $::é; $é> (which is invalid) no longer produces the "Compilation
593 error at lib/utf8_heavy.pl..." error message, which it started emitting in
594 5.10.0 [perl #99984].
598 A minor regression, introduced Perl 5.15.0, has been fixed in which some
599 regular expression Unicode property matches (C<\p{...}>) matched
600 non-Unicode code points.
604 =head1 Known Problems
606 XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
607 tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here, unless
608 they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
610 This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
611 from either 5.XXX.XXX or 5.XXX.XXX.
613 [ List each fix as a =item entry ]
619 XXX A couple of modules were broken by stdbool.h changes, or was that in
626 XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
629 =head1 Acknowledgements
631 XXX Generate this with:
633 perl Porting/acknowledgements.pl v5.15.3..HEAD
635 =head1 Reporting Bugs
637 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
638 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
639 bug database at http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be
640 information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
642 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the L<perlbug>
643 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
644 to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
645 output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
646 analysed by the Perl porting team.
648 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
649 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
650 it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
651 unarchived mailing list, which includes
652 all the core committers, who will be able
653 to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
654 co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
655 platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for
656 security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently
661 The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details
664 The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
666 The F<README> file for general stuff.
668 The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.