=head1 NAME
-[ this is a template for a new perldelta file. Any text flagged as XXX needs
-to be processed before release. ]
-
-perldelta - what is new for perl v5.17.7
+perldelta - what is new for perl v5.17.8
=head1 DESCRIPTION
-This document describes differences between the 5.17.6 release and the 5.17.7
+This document describes differences between the 5.17.7 release and the 5.17.8
release.
-If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.17.5, first read
-L<perl5176delta>, which describes differences between 5.17.5 and 5.17.6.
-
-=head1 Notice
-
-XXX Any important notices here
+If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.17.6, first read
+L<perl5177delta>, which describes differences between 5.17.6 and 5.17.7.
=head1 Core Enhancements
-XXX New core language features go here. Summarize user-visible core language
-enhancements. Particularly prominent performance optimisations could go
-here, but most should go in the L</Performance Enhancements> section.
-
-[ List each enhancement as a =head2 entry ]
-
-=head1 Security
-
-XXX Any security-related notices go here. In particular, any security
-vulnerabilities closed should be noted here rather than in the
-L</Selected Bug Fixes> section.
-
-[ List each security issue as a =head2 entry ]
-
-=head1 Incompatible Changes
-
-=head2 readline() with C<$/ = \N> now reads N characters, not N bytes
-
-Previously, when reading from a stream with I/O layers such as
-C<encoding>, the readline() function, otherwise known as the C<< <> >>
-operator, would read I<N> bytes from the top-most layer. [perl #79960]
-
-Now, I<N> characters are read instead.
-
-There is no change in behaviour when reading from streams with no
-extra layers, since bytes map exactly to characters.
-
-XXX For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be:
+=head2 Regular Expression Set Operations
- There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.XXX.XXX
- If any exist, they are bugs, and we request that you submit a
- report. See L</Reporting Bugs> below.
-
-[ List each incompatible change as a =head2 entry ]
+This is an experimental feature to allow matching against the the union,
+intersection, etc., of sets of code points, similar to
+L<Unicode::Regex::Set>. It can also be used to extend C</x> processing
+to [bracketed] character classes, and as a replacement of user-defined
+properties, allowing more complex expressions than they do. See
+L<perlre/(?[ ])>.
=head1 Deprecations
-XXX Any deprecated features, syntax, modules etc. should be listed here. In
-particular, deprecated modules should be listed here even if they are listed as
-an updated module in the L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
-
-[ List each deprecation as a =head2 entry ]
+=head2 Deprecated modules
-=head2 Various XS-callable functions are now deprecated
+The Pod::LaTeX module is now deprecated, and due to be moved out of the Perl
+core in 5.20. Until then, using the core-installed version will produce a
+warning. You can suppress the warning by installing the module from CPAN.
-The following functions will be removed from a future version of Perl,
-and should not be used. With participating C compilers (e.g., gcc),
-compiling any file that uses any of these will generate a warning.
-These were not intended for public use; there are equivalent, faster,
-macros for most of them. See L<perlapi/Character classes>:
-C<is_uni_ascii>,
-C<is_uni_ascii_lc>,
-C<is_uni_blank>,
-C<is_uni_blank_lc>,
-C<is_uni_cntrl>,
-C<is_uni_cntrl_lc>,
-C<is_uni_idfirst_lc>,
-C<is_uni_space>,
-C<is_uni_space_lc>,
-C<is_uni_xdigit>,
-C<is_uni_xdigit_lc>,
-C<is_utf8_ascii>,
-C<is_utf8_blank>,
-C<is_utf8_cntrl>,
-C<is_utf8_idcont>,
-C<is_utf8_idfirst>,
-C<is_utf8_perl_space>,
-C<is_utf8_perl_word>,
-C<is_utf8_posix_digit>,
-C<is_utf8_space>,
-C<is_utf8_xdigit>.
-C<is_utf8_xidcont>,
-C<is_utf8_xidfirst>,
-C<to_uni_lower_lc>,
-C<to_uni_title_lc>,
-and
-C<to_uni_upper_lc>.
-
-=head1 Performance Enhancements
-
-XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here.
-There may well be none in a stable release.
-
-[ List each enhancement as a =item entry ]
+=head2 User-defined charnames with surprising whitespace
-=over 4
+A user-defined character name with trailing or multiple spaces in a row is
+likely a typo. This now generates a warning when defined, on the assumption
+that uses of it will be unlikely to include the excess whitespace.
-=item *
+=head2 Various XS-callable functions are now deprecated
-XXX
-
-=back
+All the functions used to classify characters will be removed from a
+future version of Perl, and should not be used. With participating C
+compilers (e.g., gcc), compiling any file that uses any of these will
+generate a warning. These were not intended for public use; there are
+equivalent, faster, macros for most of them.
+See L<perlapi/Character classes>. The complete list (including some
+that were deprecated in 5.17.7) is:
+C<is_uni_alnum>, C<is_uni_alnumc>, C<is_uni_alnumc_lc>,
+C<is_uni_alnum_lc>, C<is_uni_alpha>, C<is_uni_alpha_lc>,
+C<is_uni_ascii>, C<is_uni_ascii_lc>, C<is_uni_blank>,
+C<is_uni_blank_lc>, C<is_uni_cntrl>, C<is_uni_cntrl_lc>,
+C<is_uni_digit>, C<is_uni_digit_lc>, C<is_uni_graph>,
+C<is_uni_graph_lc>, C<is_uni_idfirst>, C<is_uni_idfirst_lc>,
+C<is_uni_lower>, C<is_uni_lower_lc>, C<is_uni_print>,
+C<is_uni_print_lc>, C<is_uni_punct>, C<is_uni_punct_lc>,
+C<is_uni_space>, C<is_uni_space_lc>, C<is_uni_upper>,
+C<is_uni_upper_lc>, C<is_uni_xdigit>, C<is_uni_xdigit_lc>,
+C<is_utf8_alnum>, C<is_utf8_alnumc>, C<is_utf8_alpha>,
+C<is_utf8_ascii>, C<is_utf8_blank>, C<is_utf8_char>,
+C<is_utf8_cntrl>, C<is_utf8_digit>, C<is_utf8_graph>,
+C<is_utf8_idcont>, C<is_utf8_idfirst>, C<is_utf8_lower>,
+C<is_utf8_mark>, C<is_utf8_perl_space>, C<is_utf8_perl_word>,
+C<is_utf8_posix_digit>, C<is_utf8_print>, C<is_utf8_punct>,
+C<is_utf8_space>, C<is_utf8_upper>, C<is_utf8_xdigit>,
+C<is_utf8_xidcont>, C<is_utf8_xidfirst>.
+
+In addition these three functions that have never worked properly are
+deprecated:
+C<to_uni_lower_lc>, C<to_uni_title_lc>, and C<to_uni_upper_lc>.
+
+=head2 Certain rare uses of backslashes within regexes are now deprectated
+
+There are three pairs of characters that Perl recognizes as
+metacharacters in regular expression patterns: C<{}>, C<[]>, and C<()>.
+These can be used as well to delimit patterns, as in:
+
+ m{foo}
+ s(foo)(bar)
+
+Since they are metacharacters, they have special meaning to regular
+expression patterns, and it turns out that you can't turn off that
+special meaning by the normal means of preceding them with a backslash,
+if you use them, paired, within a pattern delimitted by them. For
+example, in
+
+ m{foo\{1,3\}}
+
+the backslashes do not change the behavior, and this matches
+S<C<"f o">> followed by one to three more occurrences of C<"o">.
+
+Usages like this, where they are interpreted as metacharacters, are
+exceedingly rare; we think there are none, for example, in all of CPAN.
+Hence, this deprecation should affect very little code. It does give
+notice, however, that any such code needs to change, which will in turn
+allow us to change the behavior in future Perl versions so that the
+backslashes do have an effect, and without fear that we are silently
+breaking any existing code.
=head1 Modules and Pragmata
-XXX All changes to installed files in F<cpan/>, F<dist/>, F<ext/> and F<lib/>
-go here. If Module::CoreList is updated, generate an initial draft of the
-following sections using F<Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl>, which prints stub
-entries to STDOUT. Results can be pasted in place of the '=head2' entries
-below. A paragraph summary for important changes should then be added by hand.
-In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a F<Changes> file that could be
-cribbed.
-
-[ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
-
-=head2 New Modules and Pragmata
+=head2 Selected Updates to Modules and Pragmata
=over 4
=item *
-XXX
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
+Several modules have had their version number changed to one with no
+underscore, since such version numbers are usually interpreted to mean
+"development-only version". No other changes have been made in these cases.
+The affected modules are:
=over 4
=item *
-L<GDBM_File> has been upgraded from version 1.14 to 1.15. The undocumented
-optional fifth parameter to C<TIEHASH> has been removed. This was intended
-to provide control of the callback used by C<gdbm*> functions in case of
-fatal errors (such as filesystem problems), but did not work (and could
-never have worked). No code on CPAN even attempted to use it. The callback
-is now always the previous default, C<croak>. Problems on some platforms with
-how the C<C> C<croak> function is called have also been resolved.
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata
-
-=over 4
+L<I18N::Langinfo> was 0.08_02 and is now 0.09
=item *
-XXX
+L<I18N::LangTags::List> was 0.35_01 and is now 0.39
-=back
+=item *
-=head1 Documentation
+L<IO> was 1.25_08 and is now 1.26
-XXX Changes to files in F<pod/> go here. Consider grouping entries by
-file and be sure to link to the appropriate page, e.g. L<perlfunc>.
+=item *
-=head2 New Documentation
+L<Safe> was 2.33_01 and is now 2.34
-XXX Changes which create B<new> files in F<pod/> go here.
+=item *
-=head3 L<XXX>
+L<Test> was 1.25_02 and is now 1.26.
-XXX Description of the purpose of the new file here
+=back
-=head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
+=item *
-XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in F<pod/> go here.
-However, any changes to F<pod/perldiag.pod> should go in the L</Diagnostics>
-section.
+L<Digest::SHA> has been upgraded from version 5.80 to 5.81. This fixes a
+double-free bug, which might have caused vulnerabilities in some cases.
-=head3 L<perlapi/Character classes>
+=item *
-=over 4
+L<Module::CoreList> has been upgraded from 2.79 to 2.80.
=item *
-There are quite a few macros callable from XS modules that classify
-characters into things like alphabetic, punctuation, etc. More of these
-are now documented, including ones which work on characters whose code
-points are outside the Latin-1 range.
+L<Socket> has been upgraded from 2.006_001 to 2.009. This fixes an
+uninitialized memory read.
=back
including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
-XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C<C> code go here. Also
-include any changes in L<perldiag> that reconcile it to the C<C> code.
-
=head2 New Diagnostics
-XXX Newly added diagnostic messages go under here, separated into New Errors
-and New Warnings
-
-=head3 New Errors
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-XXX L<message|perldiag/"message">
-
-=back
-
=head3 New Warnings
=over 4
=item *
-XXX L<message|perldiag/"message">
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
-
-XXX Changes (i.e. rewording) of diagnostic messages go here
-
-=over 4
+L<'%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'|perldiag/"'%s' resolved to '\o{%s}%d'">
=item *
-XXX Describe change here
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Utility Changes
-
-XXX Changes to installed programs such as F<perlbug> and F<xsubpp> go here.
-Most of these are built within the directories F<utils> and F<x2p>.
-
-[ List utility changes as a =head3 entry for each utility and =item
-entries for each change
-Use L<XXX> with program names to get proper documentation linking. ]
-
-=head3 L<XXX>
-
-=over 4
+L<'Trailing white-space in a charnames alias definition is deprecated'|perldiag/"Trailing white-space in a charnames alias definition is deprecated">
=item *
-XXX
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Configuration and Compilation
-
-XXX Changes to F<Configure>, F<installperl>, F<installman>, and analogous tools
-go here. Any other changes to the Perl build process should be listed here.
-However, any platform-specific changes should be listed in the
-L</Platform Support> section, instead.
-
-[ List changes as a =item entry ].
-
-=over 4
+L<'A sequence of multiple spaces in a charnames alias definition is deprecated'|perldiag/"A sequence of multiple spaces in a charnames alias definition is deprecated">
=item *
-XXX
+L<'Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated'|perldiag/"Passing malformed UTF-8 to "%s" is deprecated">
=back
=head1 Testing
-XXX Any significant changes to the testing of a freshly built perl should be
-listed here. Changes which create B<new> files in F<t/> go here as do any
-large changes to the testing harness (e.g. when parallel testing was added).
-Changes to existing files in F<t/> aren't worth summarizing, although the bugs
-that they represent may be covered elsewhere.
+=over 4
-[ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
+=item *
-=over 4
+Many more of the core's tests now have descriptions.
=item *
-XXX
+Thread stress-tests now adapt to the speed of the machine running the tests,
+thus reducing the incidence of false failures.
=back
=head1 Platform Support
-XXX Any changes to platform support should be listed in the sections below.
-
-[ Within the sections, list each platform as a =item entry with specific
-changes as paragraphs below it. ]
-
-=head2 New Platforms
-
-XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous
-versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the F<hints/>
-directories, or new subdirectories and F<README> files at the top level of the
-source tree.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item XXX-some-platform
-
-XXX
-
-=back
-
=head2 Discontinued Platforms
=over 4
-=item BeOS
+=item Rhapsody
-Support for BeOS has been removed.
+Support for Rhapsody has been removed.
=back
=head2 Platform-Specific Notes
-XXX List any changes for specific platforms. This could include configuration
-and compilation changes or changes in portability/compatibility. However,
-changes within modules for platforms should generally be listed in the
-L</Modules and Pragmata> section.
-
=over 4
-=item XXX-some-platform
+=item Windows
-XXX
+Perl can now be built using Microsoft's Visual C++ 2012 compiler by specifying
+CCTYPE=MSVC110 (or MSVC110FREE if you are using the free Express edition for
+Windows Desktop) in F<win32/Makefile>.
-=back
+=item Haiku
-=head1 Internal Changes
+Perl should now work out of the box on Haiku R1 Alpha 4.
-XXX Changes which affect the interface available to C<XS> code go here. Other
-significant internal changes for future core maintainers should be noted as
-well.
+=back
-[ List each change as a =item entry ]
+=head1 Internal Changes
=over 4
=item *
-SvUPGRADE() is no longer an expression. Originally this macro (and its
-underlying function, sv_upgrade()) were documented as boolean, although
-in reality they always croaked on error and never returned false. In 2005
-the documentation was updated to specify a void return value, but
-SvUPGRADE() was left always returning 1 for backwards compatibility. This
-has now been removed, and SvUPGRADE() is now a statement with no return
-value.
-
-So this is now a syntax error:
-
- if (!SvUPGRADE(sv)) { croak(...); }
-
-If you have code like that, simply replace it with
-
- SvUPGRADE(sv);
-
-or to to avoid compiler warnings with older perls, possibly
-
- (void)SvUPGRADE(sv);
+A synonym for the misleadingly named C<av_len()> has been created:
+C<av_top()>. Both of these return the number of the highest index in
+the array, not the number of elements it contains.
=back
=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarized here. Bug fixes in
-files in F<ext/> and F<lib/> are best summarized in L</Modules and Pragmata>.
-
-[ List each fix as a =item entry ]
-
=over 4
=item *
-C<sort {undef} ...> under fatal warnings no longer crashes. It started
-crashing in Perl 5.16.
+A bug in the core typemap caused any C types that map to the T_BOOL core
+typemap entry to not be set, updated, or modified when the T_BOOL variable was
+used in an OUTPUT: section with an exception for RETVAL. T_BOOL in an INPUT:
+section was not affected. Using a T_BOOL return type for an XSUB (RETVAL)
+was not affected. A side effect of fixing this bug is, if a T_BOOL is specified
+in the OUTPUT: section (which previous did nothing to the SV), and a read only
+SV (literal) is passed to the XSUB, croaks like "Modification of a read-only
+value attempted" will happen. [perl #115796]
=item *
-Stashes blessed into each other
-(C<bless \%Foo::, 'Bar'; bless \%Bar::, 'Foo'>) no longer result in double
-frees. This bug started happening in Perl 5.16.
+On many platforms, providing a directory name as the script name caused perl
+to do nothing and report success. It should now universally report an error
+and exit nonzero. [perl #61362]
=back
=head1 Known Problems
-XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any
-tests that had to be C<TODO>ed for the release would be noted here. Unfixed
-platform specific bugs also go here.
+=over 4
-[ List each fix as a =item entry ]
+=item *
-=over 4
+Perl 5.17.7 introduced a new internal copy-on-write mechanism, in the
+interests of speed. An flaw in the implementation means that some regexp
+matches which previously completed very fast, without invoking the full
+regexp engine, now run much slower than before. We expect this performance
+problem to be resolved before 5.18.0 is released.
=item *
-XXX
+The C<POSIX> module may yield test failures when building on a ZFS
+filesystem under FreeBSD.
=back
-=head1 Obituary
+=head1 Acknowledgements
+
+Perl 5.17.8 represents approximately 5 weeks of development since Perl 5.17.7
+and contains approximately 18,000 lines of changes across 280 files from 24
+authors.
-XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary
-here.
+Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant community
+of users and developers. The following people are known to have contributed the
+improvements that became Perl 5.17.8:
-=head1 Acknowledgements
+Aaron Crane, Andy Dougherty, Augustina Blair, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Craig
+A. Berry, Daniel Dragan, Dave Rolsky, David Mitchell, Eric Brine, Father
+Chrysostomos, H.Merijn Brand, James E Keenan, Jerry D. Hedden, Jesse Luehrs,
+Karl Williamson, Matthew Horsfall, Nicholas Clark, Renee Baecker, Ricardo
+Signes, Shlomi Fish, Steffen Müller, Steve Hay, Steven Schubiger, Tony Cook.
+
+The list above is almost certainly incomplete as it is automatically generated
+from version control history. In particular, it does not include the names of
+the (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues to the Perl bug
+tracker.
-XXX Generate this with:
+Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN modules
+included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN community for
+helping Perl to flourish.
- perl Porting/acknowledgements.pl v5.17.6..HEAD
+For a more complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please see
+the F<AUTHORS> file in the Perl source distribution.
=head1 Reporting Bugs
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff