5.7.1 release.
(To view the differences between the 5.6.0 release and the 5.7.0
-release, see L<perl570delta>).
+release, see L<perl570delta>.)
=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed
to continue to be supported, it may be completely removed from future
releases. In any case, suidperl should only be used by security
experts who know exactly what they are doing and why they are using
-suidperl instead of some other solution such as sudo (see
-http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/).
+suidperl instead of some other solution such as sudo
+( see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ).
=head1 Incompatible Changes
=head1 Core Enhancements
-=over 4
-
-=item *
+=head2 AUTOLOAD Is Now Lvaluable
AUTOLOAD is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute
to AUTOLOAD subroutines and you can assign to the AUTOLOAD return value.
+=head2 PerlIO is Now The Default
+
+=over 4
+
=item *
IO is now by default done via PerlIO rather than system's "stdio".
previous Perls), perlio (re-implementation of stdio buffering in a
portable manner), crlf (does CRLF <=> "\n" translation as on Win32,
but available on any platform). A mmap layer may be available if
-platform supports it (mostly UNIXes).
+platform supports it (mostly Unixes).
Layers to be applied by default may be specified via the 'open' pragma.
=item *
-The list form of C<open> is now implemented for pipes (at least on UNIX):
+The list form of C<open> is now implemented for pipes (at least on Unix):
open($fh,"-|", 'cat', '/etc/motd')
=item *
The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded
-to Unicode 3.1. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/,
+to Unicode 3.1. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ ,
and http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr27/
For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities:
=back
+=head2 Signals Are Now Safe
+
+Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments
+could corrupt Perl's internal state.
+
=head1 Modules and Pragmata
=head2 New Modules
=item *
-PerlIO::Scalar, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation of
+PerlIO::scalar, by Nick Ing-Simmons, provides the implementation of
IO to "in memory" Perl scalars as discussed above. It also serves as
an example of a loadable layer. Other future possibilities include
-PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See L<PerlIO::Scalar> for more
+PerlIO::array and PerlIO::code. See L<PerlIO::scalar> for more
information.
=item *
open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path)
This will automatically convert everything output to C<$fh>
-to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::Via> for more information.
+to Quoted-Printable. See L<PerlIO::via> for more information.
=item *
=item *
Tie::RefHash::Nestable, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash references
-(unlike the standard Tie::Refhash) The module is contained within
+(unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained within
Tie::RefHash.
=item *
Math::BigFloat has undergone much fixing, and in addition the fmod()
function now supports modulus operations.
-(The fixed Math::BigFloat module is also available in CPAN for those
-who can't upgrade their Perl: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/J/JP/JPEACOCK/)
+( The fixed Math::BigFloat module is also available in CPAN for those
+who can't upgrade their Perl: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/J/JP/JPEACOCK/ )
=item *
=item *
Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm
-(http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html). This algorithm is
+( http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html ). This algorithm is
reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than
the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by
Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of
=item *
-MacOS Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since
+Mac OS Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since
perl 5.004 but now the source code bases of standard Perl
and MacPerl have been synchronised)
If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside
of the source directory by
- mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
- cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
+ mkdir perl/build/directory
+ cd perl/build/directory
sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
-This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
+This will create in perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
make all test
-and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
+and Perl will be built and tested, all in perl/build/directory.
=back
=item *
C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift)
-now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled
+now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and eval'ed
code.
=back
Many new tests have been added. The most notable is probably the
lib/1_compile: it is very notable because running it takes quite a
-long time -- it test compiles all the Perl modules in the distribution.
+long time. It test compiles all the Perl modules in the distribution.
Please be patient.
=head1 Known Problems
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
-bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be
-information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl Home Page.
+bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ There may also be
+information at http://www.perl.com/perl/ , the Perl Home Page.
If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff