=head1 NAME
-perldelta - what's new for perl5.006 (as of 5.005_56)
+perldelta - what's new for perl v5.6 (as of v5.005_62)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
+This is an unsupported alpha release, meant for intrepid Perl developers
+only. The included sources may not even build correctly on some platforms.
+Subscribing to perl5-porters is the best way to monitor and contribute
+to the progress of development releases (see www.perl.org for info).
+
This document describes differences between the 5.005 release and this one.
=head1 Incompatible Changes
=head2 Perl Source Incompatibilities
-None known at this time.
+Beware that any new warnings that have been added or enhanced old
+warnings are B<not> considered incompatible changes.
+
+Since all new warnings must be explicitly requested via the C<-w>
+switch or the C<warnings> pragma, it is ultimately the programmer's
+responsibility to ensure that warnings are enabled judiciously.
+
+=over 4
+
+=item Treatment of list slices of undef has changed
+
+When taking a slice of a literal list (as opposed to a slice of
+an array or hash), Perl used to return an empty list if the
+result happened to be composed of all undef values.
+
+The new behavior is to produce an empty list if (and only if)
+the original list was empty. Consider the following example:
+
+ @a = (1,undef,undef,2)[2,1,2];
+
+The old behavior would have resulted in @a having no elements.
+The new behavior ensures it has three undefined elements.
+
+Note in particular that the behavior of slices of the following
+cases remains unchanged:
+
+ @a = ()[1,2];
+ @a = (getpwent)[7,0];
+ @a = (anything_returning_empty_list())[2,1,2];
+ @a = @b[2,1,2];
+ @a = @c{'a','b','c'};
+
+See L<perldata>.
+
+=item Possibly changed pseudo-random number generator
+
+In 5.005_0x and earlier, perl's rand() function used the C library
+rand(3) function. As of 5.005_52, Configure tests for drand48(),
+random(), and rand() (in that order) and picks the first one it finds.
+Perl programs that depend on reproducing a specific set of pseudo-random
+numbers will now likely produce different output. You can use
+C<sh Configure -Drandfunc=rand> to obtain the old behavior.
+
+=item Hashing function for hash keys has changed
+
+Perl hashes are not order preserving. The apparently random order
+encountered when iterating on the contents of a hash is determined
+by the hashing algorithm used. To improve the distribution of lower
+bits in the hashed value, the algorithm has changed slightly as of
+5.005_52. When iterating over hashes, this may yield a random order
+that is B<different> from that of previous versions.
+
+=item C<undef> fails on read only values
+
+Using the C<undef> operator on a readonly value (such as $1) has
+the same effect as assigning C<undef> to the readonly value--it
+throws an exception.
+
+=item Close-on-exec bit may be set on pipe() handles
+
+On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on filehandles, the
+flag will be set for any handles created by pipe(), if that is
+warranted by the value of $^F that may be in effect. Earlier
+versions neglected to set the flag for handles created with
+pipe(). See L<perlfunc/pipe> and L<perlvar/$^F>.
+
+=item Writing C<"$$1"> to mean C<"${$}1"> is unsupported
+
+Perl 5.004 deprecated the interpretation of C<$$1> and
+similar within interpolated strings to mean C<$$ . "1">,
+but still allowed it.
+
+In Perl 5.6 and later, C<"$$1"> always means C<"${$1}">.
+
+=item values(%h) and C<\(%h)> operate on aliases to values, not copies
+
+each(), values() and hashes in a list context return the actual
+values in the hash, instead of copies (as they used to in earlier
+versions). Typical idioms for using these constructs copy the
+returned values, but this can make a significant difference when
+creating references to the returned values.
+
+Keys in the hash are still returned as copies when iterating on
+a hash.
+
+=item vec(EXPR,OFFSET,BITS) enforces powers-of-two BITS
+
+vec() generates a run-time error if the BITS argument is not
+a valid power-of-two integer.
+
+=item Text of some diagnostic output has changed
+
+Most references to internal Perl operations in diagnostics
+have been changed to be more descriptive. This may be an
+issue for programs that may incorrectly rely on the exact
+text of diagnostics for proper functioning.
+
+=item C<%@> has been removed
+
+The undocumented special variable C<%@> that used to accumulate
+"background" errors (such as those that happen in DESTROY())
+has been removed, because it could potentially result in memory
+leaks.
+
+=back
=head2 C Source Incompatibilities
=item C<PERL_POLLUTE>
Release 5.005 grandfathered old global symbol names by providing preprocessor
-macros for extension source compatibility. As of release 5.006, these
+macros for extension source compatibility. As of release 5.6, these
preprocessor definitions are not available by default. You need to explicitly
-compile perl with C<-DPERL_POLLUTE> in order to get these definitions.
+compile perl with C<-DPERL_POLLUTE> to get these definitions. For
+extensions still using the old symbols, this option can be
+specified via MakeMaker:
+
+ perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
+
+=item C<PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT>
+
+This new build option provides a set of macros for all API functions
+such that an implicit interpreter/thread context argument is passed to
+every API function. As a result of this, something like C<sv_setsv(foo,bar)>
+amounts to a macro invocation that actually translates to something like
+C<Perl_sv_setsv(my_perl,foo,bar)>. While this is generally expected
+to not have any significant source compatibility issues, the difference
+between a macro and a real function call will need to be considered.
+
+This means that there B<is> a source compatibility issue as a result of
+this if your extensions attempt to use pointers to any of the Perl API
+functions.
+
+Note that the above issue is not relevant to the default build of
+Perl, whose interfaces continue to match those of prior versions
+(but subject to the other options described here).
+
+PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT is automatically enabled whenever Perl is built
+with one of -Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, or both.
+
+See L<perlguts/"The Perl API"> for detailed information on the
+ramifications of building Perl using this option.
=item C<PERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC>
-Enabling the use of Perl's malloc in release 5.005 and earlier caused
+Enabling Perl's malloc in release 5.005 and earlier caused
the namespace of system versions of the malloc family of functions to
-be usurped by the Perl versions of these functions, since they used the
-same names by default.
+be usurped by the Perl versions, since by default they used the
+same names.
Besides causing problems on platforms that do not allow these functions to
be cleanly replaced, this also meant that the system versions could not
be called in programs that used Perl's malloc. Previous versions of Perl
-have allowed this behavior to be suppressed with the HIDEMYMALLOC and
+have allowed this behaviour to be suppressed with the HIDEMYMALLOC and
EMBEDMYMALLOC preprocessor definitions.
-As of release 5.006, Perl's malloc family of functions have default names
+As of release 5.6, Perl's malloc family of functions have default names
distinct from the system versions. You need to explicitly compile perl with
-C<-DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC> in order to get the older behavior. HIDEMYMALLOC
-and EMBEDMYMALLOC have no effect, since the behavior they enabled is now
+C<-DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC> to get the older behaviour. HIDEMYMALLOC
+and EMBEDMYMALLOC have no effect, since the behaviour they enabled is now
the default.
Note that these functions do B<not> constitute Perl's memory allocation API.
See L<perlguts/"Memory Allocation"> for further information about that.
-=item C<PL_na> and C<dTHR> Issues
-
-The C<PL_na> global is now thread local, so a C<dTHR> declaration is needed
-in the scope in which it appears. XSUBs should handle this automatically,
-but if you have used C<PL_na> in support functions, you either need to
-change the C<PL_na> to a local variable (which is recommended), or put in
-a C<dTHR>.
-
=back
=head2 Compatible C Source API Changes
=item C<PATCHLEVEL> is now C<PERL_VERSION>
-The cpp macros C<PERL_REVISION>, C<PERL_VERSION> and C<PERL_SUBVERSION>
+The cpp macros C<PERL_REVISION>, C<PERL_VERSION>
, and C<PERL_SUBVERSION>
are now available by default from perl.h, and reflect the base revision,
-patchlevel and subversion respectively. C<PERL_REVISION> had no
+patchlevel
, and subversion respectively. C<PERL_REVISION> had no
prior equivalent, while C<PERL_VERSION> and C<PERL_SUBVERSION> were
previously available as C<PATCHLEVEL> and C<SUBVERSION>.
-The new names cause less pollution of the cpp namespace, and reflect what
+The new names cause less pollution of the B<cpp> namespace and reflect what
the numbers have come to stand for in common practice. For compatibility,
-the old names are still supported when patchlevel.h is explicitly
+the old names are still supported when F<patchlevel.h> is explicitly
included (as required before), so there is no source incompatibility
-due to the change.
+from the change.
+
+=item Support for C++ exceptions
+
+change#3386, also needs perlguts documentation
+[TODO - Chip Salzenberg <chip@perlsupport.com>]
=back
=head2 Binary Incompatibilities
-This release is not binary compatible with the 5.005 release and its
-maintenance versions.
+The default build of this release is binary compatible with the 5.005
+release or its maintenance versions.
+
+The usethreads or usemultiplicity builds are B<not> binary compatible
+with the corresponding builds in 5.005.
+
+=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
+
+=head2 New Configure flags
+
+The following new flags may be enabled on the Configure command line
+by running Configure with C<-Dflag>.
+
+ usemultiplicity
+
+ uselongdouble
+ usemorebits
+ uselargefiles
+
+=head2 -Dusethreads and -Duse64bits now more daring
+
+The Configure options enabling the use of threads and the use of
+64-bitness are now more daring in the sense that they no more have
+an explicit list of operating systems of known threads/64-bit
+capabilities. In other words: if your operating system has the
+necessary APIs, you should be able just to go ahead and use them.
+See also L<"64-bit support">.
+
+=head2 Long Doubles
+
+Some platforms have "long doubles", floating point numbers of even
+larger range than ordinary "doubles". To enable using long doubles for
+Perl's scalars, use -Duselongdouble.
+
+=head2 -Dusemorebits
+
+You can enable both -Duse64bits and -Dlongdouble by -Dusemorebits.
+See also L<"64-bit support">.
+
+=head2 -Duselargefiles
+
+Some platforms support large files, files larger than two gigabytes.
+See L<"Large file support"> for more information.
+
+=head2 installusrbinperl
+
+You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
+to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl. This is useful if you
+prefer not to modify /usr/bin for some reason or another but harmful
+because many scripts assume to find Perl in /usr/bin/perl.
+
+=head2 SOCKS support
+
+You can use "Configure -Dusesocks" which causes Perl to probe
+for the SOCKS (v5, not v4) proxy protocol library,
+http://www.socks.nec.com/
+
+=head2 C<-A> flag
+
+You can "post-edit" the Configure variables using the Configure C<-A>
+flag. The editing happens immediately after the platform specific
+hints files have been processed but before the actual configuration
+process starts. Run C<Configure -h> to find out the full C<-A> syntax.
+
+=head2 Enhanced Installation Directories
+
+The installation structure has been enriched to improve the support for
+maintaining multiple versions of perl, to provide locations for
+vendor-supplied modules and scripts, and to ease maintenance of
+locally-added modules and scripts. See the section on Installation
+Directories in the INSTALL file for complete details. For most users
+building and installing from source, the defaults should be fine.
=head1 Core Changes
=head2 Unicode and UTF-8 support
Perl can optionally use UTF-8 as its internal representation for character
-strings. The C<use utf8> pragma enables this support in the current lexical
+strings. The C<utf8> pragma enables this support in the current lexical
scope. See L<utf8> for more information.
=head2 Lexically scoped warning categories
You can now control the granularity of warnings emitted by perl at a finer
-level using the C<use warning> pragma. See L<warning> for details.
+level using the C<use warnings> pragma. See L<warnings> and L<perllexwarn>
+for details.
+
+=head2 Lvalue subroutines
+
+WARNING: This is an experimental feature.
+
+change#4081
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>,
+Tuomas Lukka <lukka@fas.harvard.edu>)]
+
+=head2 "our" declarations
+
+An "our" declaration introduces a value that can be best understood
+as a lexically scoped symbolic alias to a global variable in the
+current package. This is mostly useful as an alternative to the
+C<vars> pragma, but also provides the opportunity to introduce
+typing and other attributes for such variables. See L<perlfunc/our>.
+
+=head2 Weak references
+
+WARNING: This is an experimental feature.
+
+change#3385, also need perlguts documentation
+
+[TODO - Tuomas Lukka <lukka@fas.harvard.edu>]
+
+=head2 File globbing implemented internally
+
+WARNING: This is currently an experimental feature. Interfaces and
+implementation are likely to change.
+
+Perl can be compiled with -DPERL_INTERNAL_GLOB to use the File::Glob
+implementation of the glob() operator. This avoids using an external
+csh process and the problems associated with it.
=head2 Binary numbers supported
Binary numbers are now supported as literals, in s?printf formats, and
C<oct()>:
- $answer = 0b101010;
- printf "The answer is: %b\n", oct("0b101010");
+ $answer = 0b101010;
+ printf "The answer is: %b\n", oct("0b101010");
+
+=head2 Some arrows may be omitted in calls through references
+
+Perl now allows the arrow to be omitted in many constructs
+involving subroutine calls through references. For example,
+C<$foo[10]->('foo')> may now be written C<$foo[10]('foo')>.
+This is rather similar to how the arrow may be omitted from
+C<$foo[10]->{'foo'}>. Note however, that the arrow is still
+required for C<foo(10)->('bar')>.
=head2 syswrite() ease-of-use
-The length argument of C<syswrite()> is now optional.
+The length argument of C<syswrite()> has become optional.
+
+=head2 Filehandles can be autovivified
+
+The construct C<open(my $fh, ...)> can be used to create filehandles
+more easily. The filehandle will be automatically closed at the end
+of the scope of $fh, provided there are no other references to it. This
+largely eliminates the need for typeglobs when opening filehandles
+that must be passed around, as in the following example:
+
+ sub myopen {
+ open my $fh, "@_"
+ or die "Can't open '@_': $!";
+ return $fh;
+ }
+
+ {
+ my $f = myopen("</etc/motd");
+ print <$f>;
+ # $f implicitly closed here
+ }
+
+[TODO - this idiom needs more pod penetration]
=head2 64-bit support
-Better 64-bit support -- but full support still a distant goal. One
-must Configure with -Duse64bits to get Configure to probe for the
-extent of 64-bit support. Depending on the platform (hints file) more
-or less 64-awareness becomes available. As of 5.005_54 at least
-somewhat 64-bit aware platforms are HP-UX 11 or better, Solaris 2.6 or
-better, IRIX 6.2 or better. Naturally 64-bit platforms like Digital
-UNIX and UNICOS also have 64-bit support.
+All platforms that have 64-bit integers either (a) natively as longs
+or ints (b) via special compiler flags (c) using long long are able to
+use "quads" (64-integers) as follows:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+constants (decimal, hexadecimal, octal, binary) in the code
+
+=item *
+
+arguments to oct() and hex()
+
+=item *
+
+arguments to print(), printf() and sprintf() (flag prefixes ll, L, q)
+
+=item *
+
+printed as such
+
+=item *
+
+pack() and unpack() "q" and "Q" formats
+
+=item *
+
+in basic arithmetics: + - * / %
+
+=item *
+
+vec() (but see the below note about bit arithmetics)
+
+=back
+
+Note that unless you have the case (a) you will have to configure
+and compile Perl using the -Duse64bits Configure flag.
+
+Unfortunately bit arithmetics (&, |, ^, ~, <<, >>) for numbers are not
+64-bit clean, they are explictly forced to be 32-bit. Bit arithmetics
+for bit vectors (created by vec()) are not limited in their width.
+
+Last but not least: note that due to Perl's habit of always using
+floating point numbers the quads are still not true integers.
+When quads overflow their limits (0...18_446_744_073_709_551_615 unsigned,
+-9_223_372_036_854_775_808...9_223_372_036_854_775_807 signed), they
+are silently promoted to floating point numbers, after which they will
+start losing precision (their lower digits).
+
+=head2 Large file support
+
+If you have filesystems that support "large files" (files larger than
+2 gigabytes), you may now also be able to create and access them from
+Perl. You have to use Configure -Duselargefiles. Turning on the
+large file support turns on also the 64-bit support, for obvious reasons.
+
+Note that in addition to requiring a proper file system to do large
+files you may also need to adjust your per-process (or your
+per-system, or per-process-group, or per-user-group) maximum filesize
+limits before running Perl scripts that try to handle large files,
+especially if you intend to write such files.
+
+Finally, in addition to your process/process group maximum filesize
+limits, you may have quota limits on your filesystems that stop you
+(your user id or your user group id) from using large files.
+
+Adjusting your process/user/group/file system/operating system limits
+is outside the scope of Perl core language. For process limits, you
+may try increasing the limits using your shell's limits/limit/ulimit
+command before running Perl. The BSD::Resource extension (not
+included with the standard Perl distribution) may also be of use, it
+offers the getrlimit/setrlimit interface that can be used to adjust
+process resource usage limits, including the maximum filesize limit.
+
+=head2 Long doubles
+
+In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
+range of precision of your double precision floating point numbers
+(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
+this support (if it is available).
+
+=head2 "more bits"
+
+You can Configure -Dusemorebits to turn on both the 64-bit support
+and the long double support.
=head2 Better syntax checks on parenthesized unary operators
Expressions such as:
- print defined(&foo,&bar,&baz);
- print uc("foo","bar","baz");
- undef($foo,&bar);
+ print defined(&foo,&bar,&baz);
+ print uc("foo","bar","baz");
+ undef($foo,&bar);
-used to be accidentally allowed in earlier versions, and produced
-unpredictable behavior. Some of them produced ancillary warnings
-when used in this way, while others silently did the wrong thing.
+used to be accidentally allowed in earlier versions, and produced
+unpredictable behaviour. Some produced ancillary warnings
+when used in this way; others silently did the wrong thing.
The parenthesized forms of most unary operators that expect a single
-argument will now ensure that they are not called with more than one
-argument, making the above cases syntax errors. Note that the usual
-behavior of:
+argument now ensure that they are not called with more than one
+argument, making the cases shown above syntax errors. The usual
+behaviour of:
- print defined &foo, &bar, &baz;
- print uc "foo", "bar", "baz";
- undef $foo, &bar;
+ print defined &foo, &bar, &baz;
+ print uc "foo", "bar", "baz";
+ undef $foo, &bar;
remains unchanged. See L<perlop>.
+=head2 POSIX character class syntax [: :] supported
+
+For example to match alphabetic characters use /[[:alpha:]]/.
+See L<perlre> for details.
+
=head2 Improved C<qw//> operator
The C<qw//> operator is now evaluated at compile time into a true list
instead of being replaced with a run time call to C<split()>. This
-removes the confusing behavior of C<qw//> in scalar context stemming from
-the older implementation, which inherited the behavior from split().
+removes the confusing misbehaviour of C<qw//> in scalar context, which
+had inherited that behaviour from split().
Thus:
The new format type 'Z' is useful for packing and unpacking null-terminated
strings. See L<perlfunc/"pack">.
-=head2 pack() format modifier '_' supported
+=head2 pack() format modifier '!' supported
-The new format type modifer '_' is useful for packing and unpacking
+The new format type modifier '!' is useful for packing and unpacking
native shorts, ints, and longs. See L<perlfunc/"pack">.
+=head2 pack() and unpack() support counted strings
+
+The template character '/' can be used to specify a counted string
+type to be packed or unpacked. See L<perlfunc/"pack">.
+
+=head2 Comments in pack() templates
+
+The '#' character in a template introduces a comment up to
+end of the line. This facilitates documentation of pack()
+templates.
+
=head2 $^X variables may now have names longer than one character
Formerly, $^X was synonymous with ${"\cX"}, but $^XY was a syntax
error. Now variable names that begin with a control character may be
arbitrarily long. However, for compatibility reasons, these variables
I<must> be written with explicit braces, as C<${^XY}> for example.
-C<${^XYZ}> is synonymous with ${"\cXYZ"}. Variable names with more
+C<${^XYZ}> is synonymous with ${"\cXYZ"}. Variable names with more
than one control character, such as C<${^XY^Z}>, are illegal.
-The old syntax has not changed. As before, the `^X' may either be a
-literal control-X character or the two character sequence `caret' plus
-`X'. When the braces are omitted, the variable name stops after the
+The old syntax has not changed. As before, `^X' may be either a
+literal control-X character or the two-character sequence `caret' plus
+`X'. When braces are omitted, the variable name stops after the
control character. Thus C<"$^XYZ"> continues to be synonymous with
-C<$^X . "YZ"> as before.
+C<$^X . "YZ"> as before.
As before, lexical variables may not have names beginning with control
characters. As before, variables whose names begin with a control
-character are always forced to be in package `main'. These variables
-are all reserved for future extensions, except the ones that begin
-with C<^_>, which may be used by user programs and will not acquire a
-special meaning in any future version of Perl.
+character are always forced to be in package `main'. All such variables
+are reserved for future extensions, except those that begin with
+C<^_>, which may be used by user programs and are guaranteed not to
+acquire special meaning in any future version of Perl.
+
+=head2 C<use attrs> implicit in subroutine attributes
+
+Formerly, if you wanted to mark a subroutine as being a method call or
+as requiring an automatic lock() when it is entered, you had to declare
+that with a C<use attrs> pragma in the body of the subroutine.
+That can now be accomplished with a declaration syntax, like this:
+
+ sub mymethod : locked, method ;
+ ...
+ sub mymethod : locked, method {
+ ...
+ }
+
+F<AutoSplit.pm> and F<SelfLoader.pm> have been updated to keep the attributes
+with the stubs they provide. See L<attributes>.
+
+=head2 Regular expression improvements
+
+change#2827,2373,2372,2365,1813,1800,4112,4158,4215,4301
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head2 Overloading improvements
+
+change#2150
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head2 open() with more than two arguments
+
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head2 Support for interpolating named characters
+
+change#4052
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head2 Experimental support for user-hooks in @INC
+
+[TODO - Ken Fox <kfox@ford.com>]
+
+=head2 C<require> and C<do> may be overridden
+
+C<require> and C<do 'file'> operations may be overridden locally
+by importing subroutines of the same name into the current package
+(or globally by importing them into the CORE::GLOBAL:: namespace).
+Overriding C<require> will also affect C<use>, provided the override
+is visible at compile-time.
+See L<perlsub/"Overriding Built-in Functions">.
+
+=head2 New variable $^C reflects C<-c> switch
+
+C<$^C> has a boolean value that reflects whether perl is being run
+in compile-only mode (i.e. via the C<-c> switch). Since
+BEGIN blocks are executed under such conditions, this variable
+enables perl code to determine whether actions that make sense
+only during normal running are warranted. See L<perlvar>.
+
+=head2 Optional Y2K warnings
+
+If Perl is built with the cpp macro C<PERL_Y2KWARN> defined,
+it emits optional warnings when concatenating the number 19
+with another number.
+
+This behavior must be specifically enabled when running Configure.
+See L<INSTALL> and L<README.Y2K>.
=head1 Significant bug fixes
=head2 E<lt>HANDLEE<gt> on empty files
With C<$/> set to C<undef>, slurping an empty file returns a string of
-zero length (instead of C<undef>, as it used to) for the first time the
-HANDLE is read. Subsequent reads yield C<undef>.
+zero length (instead of C<undef>, as it used to) the first time the
+HANDLE is read. Further reads yield C<undef>.
This means that the following will append "foo" to an empty file (it used
-to not do anything before):
+to do nothing):
perl -0777 -pi -e 's/^/foo/' empty_file
-Note that the behavior of:
+The behaviour of:
perl -pi -e 's/^/foo/' empty_file
is unchanged (it continues to leave the file empty).
-=head1 Supported Platforms
+=head2 C<eval '...'> improvements
-=over 4
+Line numbers (as reflected by caller() and most diagnostics) within
+C<eval '...'> were often incorrect when here documents were involved.
+This has been corrected.
-=item *
+Lexical lookups for variables appearing in C<eval '...'> within
+functions that were themselves called within an C<eval '...'> were
+searching the wrong place for lexicals. The lexical search now
+correctly ends at the subroutine's block boundary.
-VM/ESA is now supported.
+Parsing of here documents used to be flawed when they appeared as
+the replacement expression in C<eval 's/.../.../e'>. This has
+been fixed.
-=item *
+=head2 All compilation errors are true errors
-Siemens BS2000 is now supported under the POSIX Shell.
+Some "errors" encountered at compile time were by neccessity
+generated as warnings followed by eventual termination of the
+program. This enabled more such errors to be reported in a
+single run, rather than causing a hard stop at the first error
+that was encountered.
-=item *
+The mechanism for reporting such errors has been reimplemented
+to queue compile-time errors and report them at the end of the
+compilation as true errors rather than as warnings. This fixes
+cases where error messages leaked through in the form of warnings
+when code was compiled at run time using C<eval STRING>, and
+also allows such errors to be reliably trapped using __DIE__ hooks.
-The Mach CThreads (NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP) are now supported by the Thread
-extension.
+=head2 Automatic flushing of output buffers
-=item *
+fork(), exec(), system(), qx//, and pipe open()s now flush buffers
+of all files opened for output when the operation
+was attempted. This mostly eliminates confusing
+buffering mishaps suffered by users unaware of how Perl internally
+handles I/O.
-GNU/Hurd is now supported.
+=head2 Better diagnostics on meaningless filehandle operations
-=back
+Constructs such as C<open(E<lt>FHE<gt>)> and C<close(E<lt>FHE<gt>)>
+are compile time errors. Attempting to read from filehandles that
+were opened only for writing will now produce warnings (just as
+writing to read-only filehandles does).
-=head1 New tests
+=head2 Where possible, buffered data discarded from duped input filehandle
-=over 4
+C<open(NEW, "E<lt>&OLD")> now attempts to discard any data that
+was previously read and buffered in C<OLD> before duping the handle.
+On platforms where doing this is allowed, the next read operation
+on C<NEW> will return the same data as the corresponding operation
+on C<OLD>. Formerly, it would have returned the data from the start
+of the following disk block instead.
-=item op/io_const
+=head2 system(), backticks and pipe open now reflect exec() failure
-IO constants (SEEK_*, _IO*).
-
-=item op/io_dir
+On Unix and similar platforms, system(), qx() and open(FOO, "cmd |")
+etc., are implemented via fork() and exec(). When the underlying
+exec() fails, earlier versions did not report the error properly,
+since the exec() happened to be in a different process.
-Directory-related IO methods (new, read, close, rewind, tied delete).
+The child process now communicates with the parent about the
+error in launching the external command, which allows these
+constructs to return with their usual error value and set $!.
-=item op/io_multihomed
+=head2 Implicitly closed filehandles are safer
-INET sockets with multi-homed hosts.
+Sometimes implicitly closed filehandles (as when they are localized,
+and Perl automatically closes them on exiting the scope) could
+inadvertently set $? or $!. This has been corrected.
-=item op/io_poll
+=head2 C<(\$)> prototype and C<$foo{a}>
-IO poll().
+An scalar reference prototype now correctly allows a hash or
+array element in that slot.
-=item op/io_unix
+=head2 Pseudo-hashes work better
-UNIX sockets.
+Dereferencing some types of reference values in a pseudo-hash,
+such as C<$ph->{foo}[1]>, was accidentally disallowed. This has
+been corrected.
-=item op/filetest
+When applied to a pseudo-hash element, exists() now reports whether
+the specified value exists, not merely if the key is valid.
-File test operators.
+=head2 C<goto &sub> and AUTOLOAD
-=item op/lex_assign
+The C<goto &sub> construct works correctly when C<&sub> happens
+to be autoloaded.
-Verify operations that access pad objects (lexicals and temporaries).
+=head2 C<-bareword> allowed under C<use integer>
-=back
+The autoquoting of barewords preceded by C<-> did not work
+in prior versions when the C<integer> pragma was enabled.
+This has been fixed.
-=head1 Modules and Pragmata
+=head2 Boolean assignment operators are legal lvalues
-=head2 Modules
+Constructs such as C<($a ||= 2) += 1> are now allowed.
-=over 4
+=head2 C<sort $coderef @foo> allowed
-=item Dumpvalue
+sort() did not accept a subroutine reference as the comparison
+function in earlier versions. This is now permitted.
-Added Dumpvalue module provides screen dumps of Perl data.
+=head2 Failures in DESTROY()
-=item Benchmark
+When code in a destructor threw an exception, it went unnoticed
+in earlier versions of Perl, unless someone happened to be
+looking in $@ just after the point the destructor happened to
+run. Such failures are now visible as warnings when warnings are
+enabled.
-You can now run tests for I<x> seconds instead of guessing the right
-number of tests to run.
+=head2 Locale bugs fixed
-=item Fcntl
+printf() and sprintf() previously reset the numeric locale
+back to the default "C" locale. This has been fixed.
-More Fcntl constants added: F_SETLK64, F_SETLKW64, O_LARGEFILE for
-large (more than 4G) file access (the 64-bit support is not yet
-working, though, so no need to get overly excited), Free/Net/OpenBSD
-locking behaviour flags F_FLOCK, F_POSIX, Linux F_SHLCK, and
-O_ACCMODE: the mask of O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, and O_RDWR.
+Numbers formatted according to the local numeric locale
+(such as using a decimal comma instead of a decimal dot) caused
+"isn't numeric" warnings, even while the operations accessing
+those numbers produced correct results. The warnings are gone.
-=item Math::Complex
-
-The accessors methods Re, Im, arg, abs, rho, theta, methods can
-($z->Re()) now also act as mutators ($z->Re(3)).
+=head2 Memory leaks
-=item Math::Trig
+The C<eval 'return sub {...}'> construct could sometimes leak
+memory. This has been fixed.
-A little bit of radial trigonometry (cylindrical and spherical) added,
-for example the great circle distance.
+Operations that aren't filehandle constructors used to leak memory
+when used on invalid filehandles. This has been fixed.
-=item Time::Local
+Constructs that modified C<@_> could fail to deallocate values
+in C<@_> and thus leak memory. This has been corrected.
-The timelocal() and timegm() functions used to silently return bogus
-results when the date exceeded the machine's integer range. They
-consistently croak() if the date falls in an unsupported range.
+=head2 Spurious subroutine stubs after failed subroutine calls
-=back
+Perl could sometimes create empty subroutine stubs when a
+subroutine was not found in the package. Such cases stopped
+later method lookups from progressing into base packages.
+This has been corrected.
-=head2 Pragmata
+=head2 Consistent numeric conversions
-C<use utf8;>, to enable UTF-8 and Unicode support.
+change#3378,3318
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
-Lexical warnings pragma, C<use warning;>, to control optional warnings.
+=head2 Taint failures under C<-U>
-C<use filetest;>, to control the behaviour of filetests (C<-r> C<-w> ...).
-Currently only one subpragma implemented, "use filetest 'access';",
-that enables the use of access(2) or equivalent to check the
-permissions instead of using stat(2) as usual. This matters
-in filesystems where there are ACLs (access control lists), the
-stat(2) might lie, while access(2) knows better.
+When running in unsafe mode, taint violations could sometimes
+cause silent failures. This has been fixed.
-=head1 Utility Changes
+=head2 END blocks and the C<-c> switch
-Todo.
+Prior versions used to run BEGIN B<and> END blocks when Perl was
+run in compile-only mode. Since this is typically not the expected
+behavior, END blocks are not executed anymore when the C<-c> switch
+is used.
-=head1 Documentation Changes
+Note that something resembling the previous behavior can still be
+obtained by putting C<BEGIN { $^C = 0; exit; } at the very end of
+the top level source file.
+
+=head2 Potential to leak DATA filehandles
+
+Using the C<__DATA__> token creates an implicit filehandle to
+the file that contains the token. It is the program's
+responsibility to close it when it is done reading from it.
+
+This caveat is now better explained in the documentation.
+See L<perldata>.
+
+=head2 Diagnostics follow STDERR
+
+Diagnostic output now goes to whichever file the C<STDERR> handle
+is pointing at, instead of always going to the underlying C runtime
+library's C<stderr>.
+
+=head2 Other fixes for better diagnostics
+
+Line numbers are no longer suppressed (under most likely circumstances)
+during the global destruction phase.
+
+Diagnostics emitted from code running in threads other than the main
+thread are now accompanied by the thread ID.
+
+Embedded null characters in diagnostics now actually show up. They
+used to truncate the message in prior versions.
+
+$foo::a and $foo::b are now exempt from "possible typo" warnings only
+if sort() is encountered in package foo.
+
+Unrecognized alphabetic escapes encountered when parsing quote
+constructs now generate a warning, since they may take on new
+semantics in later versions of Perl.
+
+=head1 Performance enhancements
+
+=head2 Simple sort() using { $a <=> $b } and the like are optimized
+
+Many common sort() operations using a simple inlined block are now
+optimized for faster performance.
+
+=head2 Optimized assignments to lexical variables
+
+Certain operations in the RHS of assignment statements have been
+optimized to directly set the lexical variable on the LHS,
+eliminating redundant copying overheads.
+
+=head2 Method lookups optimized
+
+[TODO - Chip Salzenberg <chip@perlsupport.com>]
+
+=head2 Faster mechanism to invoke XSUBs
+
+change#4044,4125
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head2 Perl_malloc() improvements
+
+change#4237
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head2 Faster subroutine calls
+
+Minor changes in how subroutine calls are handled internally
+provide marginal improvements in performance.
+
+=head1 Platform specific changes
+
+=head2 Additional supported platforms
=over 4
-=item perlopentut.pod
+=item *
-A tutorial on using open() effectively.
+VM/ESA is now supported.
-=item perlreftut.pod
+=item *
-A tutorial that introduces the essentials of references.
+Siemens BS2000 is now supported under the POSIX Shell.
+
+=item *
+
+The Mach CThreads (NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP) are now supported by the Thread
+extension.
+
+=item *
+
+GNU/Hurd is now supported.
+
+=item *
+
+Rhapsody is now supported.
+
+=item *
+
+EPOC is is now supported (on Psion 5).
=back
-=head1 New Diagnostics
+=head2 DOS
-=item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
+[TODO - Laszlo Molnar <laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se>]
-(W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
-by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
-C<'>-delimited regular expression.
+=head2 OS/2
-=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
-(W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
-by Perl.
+=head2 VMS
-=item Missing command in piped open
+[TODO - Charles Bailey <bailey@newman.upenn.edu>]
-(W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
-construction, but the command was missing or blank.
+=head2 Win32
-=head1 Obsolete Diagnostics
+Site library searches failed to look for ".../site/5.XXX/lib"
+if ".../site/5.XXXYY/lib" wasn't found. This has been corrected.
-Todo.
+When given a pathname that consists only of a drivename, such
+as C<A:>, opendir() and stat() now use the current working
+directory for the drive rather than the drive root.
-=head1 Configuration Changes
+The builtin XSUB functions in the Win32:: namespace are
+documented. See L<Win32>.
-You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
-to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl. This is useful if you
-prefer not to modify /usr/bin for some reason or another but harmful
-because many scripts assume to find Perl in /usr/bin/perl.
+$^X now contains the full path name of the running executable.
-=head1 Configuration Changes
+A Win32::GetLongPathName() function is provided to complement
+Win32::GetFullPathName() and Win32::GetShortPathName(). See L<Win32>.
-You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
-to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl. This is useful if you
-prefer not to modify /usr/bin for some reason or another but harmful
-because many scripts assume to find Perl in /usr/bin/perl.
+POSIX::uname() is supported.
+
+system(1,...) now returns true process IDs rather than process
+handles. kill() accepts any real process id, rather than strictly
+return values from system(1,...).
+
+The C<Shell> module is supported.
+
+Rudimentary support for building under command.com in Windows 95
+has been added.
+
+[TODO - GSAR]
+
+=head1 New tests
+
+=over 4
+
+=item lib/attrs
+
+Compatibility tests for C<sub : attrs> vs the older C<use attrs>.
+
+=item lib/io_const
+
+IO constants (SEEK_*, _IO*).
+
+=item lib/io_dir
+
+Directory-related IO methods (new, read, close, rewind, tied delete).
+
+=item lib/io_multihomed
+
+INET sockets with multi-homed hosts.
+
+=item lib/io_poll
+
+IO poll().
+
+=item lib/io_unix
+
+UNIX sockets.
+
+=item op/attrs
+
+Regression tests for C<my ($x,@y,%z) : attrs> and <sub : attrs>.
+
+=item op/filetest
+
+File test operators.
+
+=item op/lex_assign
+
+Verify operations that access pad objects (lexicals and temporaries).
+
+=back
+
+=head1 Modules and Pragmata
+
+=head2 Modules
+
+=over 4
+
+=item attributes
+
+While used internally by Perl as a pragma, this module also
+provides a way to fetch subroutine and variable attributes.
+See L<attributes>.
+
+=item B
+
+The Perl Compiler suite has been extensively reworked for this
+release.
+
+[TODO - Vishal Bhatia <vishal@gol.com>,
+Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ni-s.u-net.com>]
+
+=item ByteLoader
+
+The ByteLoader is a dedicated extension to generate and run
+Perl bytecode. See L<ByteLoader>.
+
+=item constant
+
+References can now be used. See L<constant>.
+
+=item charnames
+
+change#4052
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=item Data::Dumper
+
+A C<Maxdepth> setting can be specified to avoid venturing
+too deeply into deep data structures. See L<Data::Dumper>.
+
+Dumping C<qr//> objects works correctly.
+
+=item DB
+
+C<DB> is an experimental module that exposes a clean abstraction
+to Perl's debugging API.
+
+=item DB_File
+
+[TODO - Paul Marquess <paul.marquess@bt.com>]
+
+=item Devel::DProf
+
+Devel::DProf, a Perl source code profiler has been added. See L<DProf>.
+
+=item Dumpvalue
+
+The Dumpvalue module provides screen dumps of Perl data.
+
+=item Benchmark
+
+Overall, Benchmark results exhibit lower average error and better timing
+accuracy.
+
+You can now run tests for I<n> seconds instead of guessing the right
+number of tests to run: e.g. timethese(-5, ...) will run each
+code for at least 5 CPU seconds. Zero as the "number of repetitions"
+means "for at least 3 CPU seconds". The output format has also
+changed. For example:
+
+ use Benchmark;$x=3;timethese(-5,{a=>sub{$x*$x},b=>sub{$x**2}})
+
+will now output something like this:
+
+ Benchmark: running a, b, each for at least 5 CPU seconds...
+ a: 5 wallclock secs ( 5.77 usr + 0.00 sys = 5.77 CPU) @ 200551.91/s (n=1156516)
+ b: 4 wallclock secs ( 5.00 usr + 0.02 sys = 5.02 CPU) @ 159605.18/s (n=800686)
+
+New features: "each for at least N CPU seconds...", "wallclock secs",
+and the "@ operations/CPU second (n=operations)".
+
+timethese() now returns a reference to a hash of Benchmark objects containing
+the test results, keyed on the names of the tests.
+
+timethis() now returns the iterations field in the Benchmark result object
+instead of 0.
+
+timethese(), timethis(), and the new cmpthese() (see below) can also take
+a format specifier of 'none' to suppress output.
+
+A new function countit() is just like timeit() except that it takes a
+TIME instead of a COUNT.
+
+A new function cmpthese() prints a chart comparing the results of each test
+returned from a timethese() call. For each possible pair of tests, the
+percentage speed difference (iters/sec or seconds/iter) is shown.
+
+For other details, see L<Benchmark>.
+
+=item Devel::Peek
+
+The Devel::Peek module provides access to the internal representation
+of Perl variables and data. It is a data debugging tool for the XS programmer.
+
+=item ExtUtils::MakeMaker
+
+change#4135, also needs docs in module pod
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=item Fcntl
+
+More Fcntl constants added: F_SETLK64, F_SETLKW64, O_LARGEFILE for
+large (more than 4G) file access (64-bit support is not yet
+working, though, so no need to get overly excited), Free/Net/OpenBSD
+locking behaviour flags F_FLOCK, F_POSIX, Linux F_SHLCK, and
+O_ACCMODE: the mask of O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, and O_RDWR.
+
+=item File::Compare
+
+A compare_text() function has been added, which allows custom
+comparison functions. See L<File::Compare>.
+
+=item File::Find
+
+File::Find now works correctly when the wanted() function is either
+autoloaded or is a symbolic reference.
+
+A bug that caused File::Find to lose track of the working directory
+when pruning top-level directories has been fixed.
+
+=item File::Glob
+
+This extension implements BSD-style file globbing. It will also be
+used for the internal implementation of the glob() operator if
+Perl was compiled with -DPERL_INTERNAL_GLOB. See L<File::Glob>.
+
+=item File::Spec
+
+New methods have been added to the File::Spec module: devnull() returns
+the name of the null device (/dev/null on Unix) and tmpdir() the name of
+the temp directory (normally /tmp on Unix). There are now also methods
+to convert between absolute and relative filenames: abs2rel() and
+rel2abs(). For compatibility with operating systems that specify volume
+names in file paths, the splitpath(), splitdir(), and catdir() methods
+have been added.
+
+=item File::Spec::Functions
+
+The new File::Spec::Functions modules provides a function interface
+to the File::Spec module. Allows shorthand
+
+ $fullname = catfile($dir1, $dir2, $file);
+
+instead of
+
+ $fullname = File::Spec->catfile($dir1, $dir2, $file);
+
+=item Getopt::Long
+
+Getopt::Long licensing has changed to allow the Perl Artistic License
+as well as the GPL. It used to be GPL only, which got in the way of
+non-GPL applications that wanted to use Getopt::Long.
+
+Getopt::Long encourages the use of Pod::Usage to produce help
+messages. For example:
+
+ use Getopt::Long;
+ use Pod::Usage;
+ my $man = 0;
+ my $help = 0;
+ GetOptions('help|?' => \$help, man => \$man) or pod2usage(2);
+ pod2usage(1) if $help;
+ pod2usage(-exitstatus => 0, -verbose => 2) if $man;
+
+ __END__
+
+ =head1 NAME
+
+ sample - Using GetOpt::Long and Pod::Usage
+
+ =head1 SYNOPSIS
+
+ sample [options] [file ...]
+
+ Options:
+ -help brief help message
+ -man full documentation
+
+ =head1 OPTIONS
+
+ =over 8
+
+ =item B<-help>
+
+ Print a brief help message and exits.
+
+ =item B<-man>
+
+ Prints the manual page and exits.
+
+ =back
+
+ =head1 DESCRIPTION
+
+ B<This program> will read the given input file(s) and do someting
+ useful with the contents thereof.
+
+ =cut
+
+See L<Pod::Usage> for details.
+
+A bug that prevented the non-option call-back E<lt>E<gt> from being
+specified as the first argument has been fixed.
+
+To specify the characters E<lt> and E<gt> as option starters, use
+E<gt>E<lt>. Note, however, that changing option starters is strongly
+deprecated.
+
+=item IO
+
+write() and syswrite() will now accept a single-argument
+form of the call, for consistency with Perl's syswrite().
+
+You can now create a TCP-based IO::Socket::INET without forcing
+a connect attempt. This allows you to configure its options
+(like making it non-blocking) and then call connect() manually.
+
+A bug that prevented the IO::Socket::protocol() accessor
+from ever returning the correct value has been corrected.
+
+=item JPL
+
+Java Perl Lingo is now distributed with Perl. See jpl/README
+for more information.
+
+=item lib
+
+C<use lib> now weeds out any trailing duplicate entries.
+C<no lib> removes all named entries.
+
+=item Math::BigInt
+
+The bitwise operations C<E<lt>E<lt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<&>, C<|>,
+and C<~> are now supported on bigints.
+
+=item Math::Complex
+
+The accessor methods Re, Im, arg, abs, rho, and theta can now also
+act as mutators (accessor $z->Re(), mutator $z->Re(3)).
+
+=item Math::Trig
+
+A little bit of radial trigonometry (cylindrical and spherical),
+radial coordinate conversions, and the great circle distance were added.
+
+=item Pod::Parser
+
+[TODO - Brad Appleton <bradapp@enteract.com>]
+
+=item Pod::Text and Pod::Man
+
+[TODO - Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>]
+
+=item SDBM_File
+
+An EXISTS method has been added to this module (and sdbm_exists() has
+been added to the underlying sdbm library), so one can now call exists
+on an SDBM_File tied hash and get the correct result, rather than a
+runtime error.
+
+A bug that may have caused data loss when more than one disk block
+happens to be read from the database in a single FETCH() has been
+fixed.
+
+=item Time::Local
+
+The timelocal() and timegm() functions used to silently return bogus
+results when the date fell outside the machine's integer range. They
+now consistently croak() if the date falls in an unsupported range.
+
+=item Win32
+
+The error return value in list context has been changed for all functions
+that return a list of values. Previously these functions returned a list
+with a single element C<undef> if an error occurred. Now these functions
+return the empty list in these situations. This applies to the following
+functions:
+
+ Win32::FsType
+ Win32::GetOSVersion
+
+The remaining functions are unchanged and continue to return C<undef> on
+error even in list context.
+
+The Win32::SetLastError(ERROR) function has been added as a complement
+to the Win32::GetLastError() function.
+
+The new Win32::GetFullPathName(FILENAME) returns the full absolute
+pathname for FILENAME in scalar context. In list context it returns
+a two-element list containing the fully qualified directory name and
+the filename. See L<Win32>.
+
+=item DBM Filters
+
+A new feature called "DBM Filters" has been added to all the
+DBM modules--DB_File, GDBM_File, NDBM_File, ODBM_File, and SDBM_File.
+DBM Filters add four new methods to each DBM module:
+
+ filter_store_key
+ filter_store_value
+ filter_fetch_key
+ filter_fetch_value
+
+These can be used to filter key-value pairs before the pairs are
+written to the database or just after they are read from the database.
+See L<perldbmfilter> for further information.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Pragmata
+
+C<use attrs> is now obsolete, and is only provided for
+backward-compatibility. It's been replaced by the C<sub : attributes>
+syntax. See L<perlsub/"Subroutine Attributes"> and L<attributes>.
+
+C<use utf8> to enable UTF-8 and Unicode support.
+
+C<use caller 'encoding'> allows modules to inherit pragmatic attributes
+from the caller's context. C<encoding> is currently the only supported
+attribute.
+
+Lexical warnings pragma, C<use warnings;>, to control optional warnings.
+See L<perllexwarn>.
+
+C<use filetest> to control the behaviour of filetests (C<-r> C<-w>
+...). Currently only one subpragma implemented, "use filetest
+'access';", that uses access(2) or equivalent to check permissions
+instead of using stat(2) as usual. This matters in filesystems
+where there are ACLs (access control lists): the stat(2) might lie,
+but access(2) knows better.
+
+=head1 Utility Changes
+
+=head2 h2ph
+
+[TODO - Kurt Starsinic <kstar@chapin.edu>]
+
+=head2 perlcc
+
+C<perlcc> now supports the C and Bytecode backends. By default,
+it generates output from the simple C backend rather than the
+optimized C backend.
+
+Support for non-Unix platforms has been improved.
+
+=head2 h2xs
+
+change#4232
+[TODO - Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]
+
+=head1 Documentation Changes
+
+=over 4
+
+=item perlcompile.pod
+
+An introduction to using the Perl Compiler suite.
+
+=item perlhack.pod
+
+Some guidelines for hacking the Perl source code.
+
+=item perlopentut.pod
+
+A tutorial on using open() effectively.
+
+=item perlreftut.pod
+
+A tutorial that introduces the essentials of references.
+
+=item perltootc.pod
+
+A tutorial on managing class data for object modules.
+
+=back
+
+=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
+
+=over 4
+
+=item "my sub" not yet implemented
+
+(F) Lexically scoped subroutines are not yet implemented. Don't try that
+yet.
+
+=item '!' allowed only after types %s
+
+(F) The '!' is allowed in pack() and unpack() only after certain types.
+See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item / cannot take a count
+
+(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
+but you have also specified an explicit size for the string.
+See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item / must be followed by a, A or Z
+
+(F) You had an unpack template indicating a counted-length string,
+which must be followed by one of the letters a, A or Z
+to indicate what sort of string is to be unpacked.
+See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item / must be followed by a*, A* or Z*
+
+(F) You had a pack template indicating a counted-length string,
+Currently the only things that can have their length counted are a*, A* or Z*.
+See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item / must follow a numeric type
+
+(F) You had an unpack template that contained a '#',
+but this did not follow some numeric unpack specification.
+See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item Repeat count in pack overflows
+
+(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
+your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/pack>.
+
+=item Repeat count in unpack overflows
+
+(F) You can't specify a repeat count so large that it overflows
+your signed integers. See L<perlfunc/unpack>.
+
+=item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
+
+(W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
+by Perl. This combination appears in an interpolated variable or a
+C<'>-delimited regular expression. The character was understood literally.
+
+=item /%s/: Unrecognized escape \\%c in character class passed through
+
+(W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
+by Perl inside character classes. The character was understood literally.
+
+=item /%s/ should probably be written as "%s"
+
+(W) You have used a pattern where Perl expected to find a string,
+as in the first argument to C<join>. Perl will treat the true
+or false result of matching the pattern against $_ as the string,
+which is probably not what you had in mind.
+
+=item %s() called too early to check prototype
+
+(W) You've called a function that has a prototype before the parser saw a
+definition or declaration for it, and Perl could not check that the call
+conforms to the prototype. You need to either add an early prototype
+declaration for the subroutine in question, or move the subroutine
+definition ahead of the call to get proper prototype checking. Alternatively,
+if you are certain that you're calling the function correctly, you may put
+an ampersand before the name to avoid the warning. See L<perlsub>.
+
+=item %s package attribute may clash with future reserved word: %s
+
+(W) A lowercase attribute name was used that had a package-specific handler.
+That name might have a meaning to Perl itself some day, even though it
+doesn't yet. Perhaps you should use a mixed-case attribute name, instead.
+See L<attributes>.
+
+=item (in cleanup) %s
+
+(W) This prefix usually indicates that a DESTROY() method raised
+the indicated exception. Since destructors are usually called by
+the system at arbitrary points during execution, and often a vast
+number of times, the warning is issued only once for any number
+of failures that would otherwise result in the same message being
+repeated.
+
+Failure of user callbacks dispatched using the C<G_KEEPERR> flag
+could also result in this warning. See L<perlcall/G_KEEPERR>.
+
+=item <> should be quotes
+
+(F) You wrote C<require E<lt>fileE<gt>> when you should have written
+C<require 'file'>.
+
+=item Attempt to join self
+
+(F) You tried to join a thread from within itself, which is an
+impossible task. You may be joining the wrong thread, or you may
+need to move the join() to some other thread.
+
+=item Bad evalled substitution pattern
+
+(F) You've used the /e switch to evaluate the replacement for a
+substitution, but perl found a syntax error in the code to evaluate,
+most likely an unexpected right brace '}'.
+
+=item Bad realloc() ignored
+
+(S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had never been
+malloc()ed in the first place. Mandatory, but can be disabled by
+setting environment variable C<PERL_BADFREE> to 1.
+
+=item Binary number > 0b11111111111111111111111111111111 non-portable
+
+(W) The binary number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
+(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
+L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
+
+=item Bit vector size > 32 non-portable
+
+(W) Using bit vector sizes larger than 32 is non-portable.
+
+=item Buffer overflow in prime_env_iter: %s
+
+(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. While Perl was preparing to iterate over
+%ENV, it encountered a logical name or symbol definition which was too long,
+so it was truncated to the string shown.
+
+=item Can't check filesystem of script "%s"
+
+(P) For some reason you can't check the filesystem of the script for nosuid.
+
+=item Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call
+
+(F) Subroutines meant to be used in lvalue context should be declared as
+such, see L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
+
+=item Can't read CRTL environ
+
+(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read an element of %ENV
+from the CRTL's internal environment array and discovered the array was
+missing. You need to figure out where your CRTL misplaced its environ
+or define F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see L<perlvms>) so that environ is not searched.
+
+=item Can't remove %s: %s, skipping file
+
+(S) You requested an inplace edit without creating a backup file. Perl
+was unable to remove the original file to replace it with the modified
+file. The file was left unmodified.
+
+=item Can't return %s from lvalue subroutine
+
+(F) Perl detected an attempt to return illegal lvalues (such
+as temporary or readonly values) from a subroutine used as an lvalue.
+This is not allowed.
+
+=item Can't weaken a nonreference
+
+(F) You attempted to weaken something that was not a reference. Only
+references can be weakened.
+
+=item Character class [:%s:] unknown
+
+(F) The class in the character class [: :] syntax is unknown.
+See L<perlre>.
+
+=item Character class syntax [%s] belongs inside character classes
+
+(W) The character class constructs [: :], [= =], and [. .] go
+I<inside> character classes, the [] are part of the construct,
+for example: /[012[:alpha:]345]/. Note that [= =] and [. .]
+are not currently implemented; they are simply placeholders for
+future extensions.
+
+=item Constant is not %s reference
+
+(F) A constant value (perhaps declared using the C<use constant> pragma)
+is being dereferenced, but it amounts to the wrong type of reference. The
+message indicates the type of reference that was expected. This usually
+indicates a syntax error in dereferencing the constant value.
+See L<perlsub/"Constant Functions"> and L<constant>.
+
+=item constant(%s): %%^H is not localized
+
+(F) When setting compile-time-lexicalized hash %^H one should set the
+corresponding bit of $^H as well.
+
+=item constant(%s): %s
+
+(F) Compile-time-substitutions (such as overloaded constants and
+character names) were not correctly set up.
+
+=item defined(@array) is deprecated
+
+(D) defined() is not usually useful on arrays because it checks for an
+undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the array is empty,
+just use C<if (@array) { # not empty }> for example.
+
+=item defined(%hash) is deprecated
+
+(D) defined() is not usually useful on hashes because it checks for an
+undefined I<scalar> value. If you want to see if the hash is empty,
+just use C<if (%hash) { # not empty }> for example.
+
+=item Did not produce a valid header
+
+See Server error.
+
+=item Document contains no data
+
+See Server error.
+
+=item entering effective %s failed
+
+(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
+effective uids or gids failed.
+
+=item false [] range "%s" in regexp
+
+(W) A character class range must start and end at a literal character, not
+another character class like C<\d> or C<[:alpha:]>. The "-" in your false
+range is interpreted as a literal "-". Consider quoting the "-", "\-".
+See L<perlre>.
+
+=item Filehandle %s opened only for output
+
+(W) You tried to read from a filehandle opened only for writing. If you
+intended it to be a read/write filehandle, you needed to open it with
+"+E<lt>" or "+E<gt>" or "+E<gt>E<gt>" instead of with "E<lt>" or nothing. If
+you intended only to read from the file, use "E<lt>". See
+L<perlfunc/open>.
+
+=item Hexadecimal number > 0xffffffff non-portable
+
+(W) The hexadecimal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1
+(4294967295) and therefore non-portable between systems. See
+L<perlport> for more on portability concerns.
+
+=item Ill-formed CRTL environ value "%s"
+
+(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the CRTL's internal
+environ array, and encountered an element without the C<=> delimiter
+used to spearate keys from values. The element is ignored.
+
+=item Ill-formed message in prime_env_iter: |%s|
+
+(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read a logical name
+or CLI symbol definition when preparing to iterate over %ENV, and
+didn't see the expected delimiter between key and value, so the
+line was ignored.
+
+=item Illegal binary digit %s
+
+(F) You used a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
+
+=item Illegal binary digit %s ignored
+
+(W) You may have tried to use a digit other than 0 or 1 in a binary number.
+Interpretation of the binary number stopped before the offending digit.
+
+=item Illegal number of bits in vec
+
+(F) The number of bits in vec() (the third argument) must be a power of
+two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
+
+=item Integer overflow in %s number
+
+(W) The hexadecimal, octal or binary number you have specified either
+as a literal or as an argument to hex() or oct() is too big for your
+architecture, and has been converted to a floating point number. On a
+32-bit architecture the largest hexadecimal, octal or binary number
+representable without overflow is 0xFFFFFFFF, 037777777777, or
+0b11111111111111111111111111111111 respectively. Note that Perl
+transparently promotes all numbers to a floating point representation
+internally--subject to loss of precision errors in subsequent
+operations.
+
+=item Invalid %s attribute: %s
+
+The indicated attribute for a subroutine or variable was not recognized
+by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
+
+=item Invalid %s attributes: %s
+
+The indicated attributes for a subroutine or variable were not recognized
+by Perl or by a user-supplied handler. See L<attributes>.
+
+=item invalid [] range "%s" in regexp
+
+The offending range is now explicitly displayed.
+
+=item Invalid separator character %s in attribute list
+
+(F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
+elements of an attribute list. If the previous attribute
+had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
+too soon. See L<attributes>.
+
+=item Invalid separator character %s in subroutine attribute list
+
+(F) Something other than a comma or whitespace was seen between the
+elements of a subroutine attribute list. If the previous attribute
+had a parenthesised parameter list, perhaps that list was terminated
+too soon.
+
+=item leaving effective %s failed
+
+(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, switching the real and
+effective uids or gids failed.
+
+=item Lvalue subs returning %s not implemented yet
+
+(F) Due to limitations in the current implementation, array and hash
+values cannot be returned in subroutines used in lvalue context.
+See L<perlsub/"Lvalue subroutines">.
+
+=item Method %s not permitted
+
+See Server error.
+
+=item Missing %sbrace%s on \N{}
+
+(F) Wrong syntax of character name literal C<\N{charname}> within
+double-quotish context.
+
+=item Missing command in piped open
+
+(W) You used the C<open(FH, "| command")> or C<open(FH, "command |")>
+construction, but the command was missing or blank.
+
+=item Missing name in "my sub"
+
+(F) The reserved syntax for lexically scoped subroutines requires that they
+have a name with which they can be found.
+
+=item no UTC offset information; assuming local time is UTC
+
+(S) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl was unable to find the local
+timezone offset, so it's assuming that local system time is equivalent
+to UTC. If it's not, define the logical name F<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
+to translate to the number of seconds which need to be added to UTC to
+get local time.
+
+=item Octal number > 037777777777 non-portable
+
+(W) The octal number you specified is larger than 2**32-1 (4294967295)
+and therefore non-portable between systems. See L<perlport> for more
+on portability concerns.
+
+See also L<perlport> for writing portable code.
+
+=item panic: del_backref
+
+(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset a weak
+reference.
+
+=item panic: kid popen errno read
+
+(F) forked child returned an incomprehensible message about its errno.
+
+=item panic: magic_killbackrefs
+
+(P) Failed an internal consistency check while trying to reset all weak
+references to an object.
+
+=item Possible Y2K bug: %s
+
+(W) You are concatenating the number 19 with another number, which
+could be a potential Year 2000 problem.
+
+=item Premature end of script headers
+
+See Server error.
+
+=item realloc() of freed memory ignored
+
+(S) An internal routine called realloc() on something that had already
+been freed.
+
+=item Reference is already weak
+
+(W) You have attempted to weaken a reference that is already weak.
+Doing so has no effect.
+
+=item setpgrp can't take arguments
+
+(F) Your system has the setpgrp() from BSD 4.2, which takes no arguments,
+unlike POSIX setpgid(), which takes a process ID and process group ID.
+
+=item Strange *+?{} on zero-length expression
+
+(W) You applied a regular expression quantifier in a place where it
+makes no sense, such as on a zero-width assertion.
+Try putting the quantifier inside the assertion instead. For example,
+the way to match "abc" provided that it is followed by three
+repetitions of "xyz" is C</abc(?=(?:xyz){3})/>, not C</abc(?=xyz){3}/>.
+
+=item switching effective %s is not implemented
+
+(F) While under the C<use filetest> pragma, we cannot switch the
+real and effective uids or gids.
+
+=item This Perl can't reset CRTL environ elements (%s)
+
+=item This Perl can't set CRTL environ elements (%s=%s)
+
+(W) Warnings peculiar to VMS. You tried to change or delete an element
+of the CRTL's internal environ array, but your copy of Perl wasn't
+built with a CRTL that contained the setenv() function. You'll need to
+rebuild Perl with a CRTL that does, or redefine F<PERL_ENV_TABLES> (see
+L<perlvms>) so that the environ array isn't the target of the change to
+%ENV which produced the warning.
+
+=item Unknown open() mode '%s'
+
+(F) The second argument of 3-argument open() is not among the list
+of valid modes: C<L<lt>>, C<L<gt>>, C<E<gt>E<gt>>, C<+L<lt>>,
+C<+L<gt>>, C<+E<gt>E<gt>>, C<-|>, C<|->.
+
+=item Unknown process %x sent message to prime_env_iter: %s
+
+(P) An error peculiar to VMS. Perl was reading values for %ENV before
+iterating over it, and someone else stuck a message in the stream of
+data Perl expected. Someone's very confused, or perhaps trying to
+subvert Perl's population of %ENV for nefarious purposes.
+
+=item Unrecognized escape \\%c passed through
+
+(W) You used a backslash-character combination which is not recognized
+by Perl. The character was understood literally.
+
+=item Unterminated attribute parameter in attribute list
+
+(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing an
+attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
+character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
+character to get your parentheses to balance. See L<attributes>.
+
+=item Unterminated attribute list
+
+(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
+of an attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
+block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
+too soon. See L<attributes>.
+
+=item Unterminated attribute parameter in subroutine attribute list
+
+(F) The lexer saw an opening (left) parenthesis character while parsing a
+subroutine attribute list, but the matching closing (right) parenthesis
+character was not found. You may need to add (or remove) a backslash
+character to get your parentheses to balance.
+
+=item Unterminated subroutine attribute list
+
+(F) The lexer found something other than a simple identifier at the start
+of a subroutine attribute, and it wasn't a semicolon or the start of a
+block. Perhaps you terminated the parameter list of the previous attribute
+too soon.
+
+=item Value of CLI symbol "%s" too long
+
+(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. Perl tried to read the value of an %ENV
+element from a CLI symbol table, and found a resultant string longer
+than 1024 characters. The return value has been truncated to 1024
+characters.
+
+=item Version number must be a constant number
+
+(P) The attempt to translate a C<use Module n.n LIST> statement into
+its equivalent C<BEGIN> block found an internal inconsistency with
+the version number.
+
+=back
+
+=head1 Obsolete Diagnostics
+
+=over 4
+
+=item Character class syntax [: :] is reserved for future extensions
+
+(W) Within regular expression character classes ([]) the syntax beginning
+with "[:" and ending with ":]" is reserved for future extensions.
+If you need to represent those character sequences inside a regular
+expression character class, just quote the square brackets with the
+backslash: "\[:" and ":\]".
+
+=item Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
+
+(W) A warning peculiar to VMS. A logical name was encountered when preparing
+to iterate over %ENV which violates the syntactic rules governing logical
+names. Because it cannot be translated normally, it is skipped, and will not
+appear in %ENV. This may be a benign occurrence, as some software packages
+might directly modify logical name tables and introduce nonstandard names,
+or it may indicate that a logical name table has been corrupted.
+
+=item regexp too big
+
+(F) The current implementation of regular expressions uses shorts as
+address offsets within a string. Unfortunately this means that if
+the regular expression compiles to longer than 32767, it'll blow up.
+Usually when you want a regular expression this big, there is a better
+way to do it with multiple statements. See L<perlre>.
+
+=item Use of "$$<digit>" to mean "${$}<digit>" is deprecated
+
+(D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker followed
+by "$" and a digit. For example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean
+"${$}0" instead of "${$0}". This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.
+
+However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this bug completely,
+because at least two widely-used modules depend on the old meaning of
+"$$0" in a string. So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the
+old (broken) way inside strings; but it generates this message as a
+warning. And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will cease.
+
+=back
=head1 BUGS
-If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the headers of
-recently posted articles in the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
+If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the
+articles recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
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. Make sure you trim your bug down
+program included with your release. Make sure to trim your bug down
to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
-output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to <F<perlbug@perl.com>> to be
+output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.com to be
analysed by the Perl porting team.
=head1 SEE ALSO
=head1 HISTORY
-Written by Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@umich.edu>>, with many contributions
-from The Perl Porters.
+Written by Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@activestate.com>>, with many
+contributions from The Perl Porters.
Send omissions or corrections to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>.
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff