| 1 | =head1 NAME
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| 2 |
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| 3 | perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6
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| 4 |
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| 5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION
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| 6 |
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| 7 | This document describes differences between the 5.8.5 release and
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| 8 | the 5.8.6 release.
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| 9 |
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| 10 | =head1 Incompatible Changes
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| 11 |
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| 12 | There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.5.
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| 13 |
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| 14 | =head1 Core Enhancements
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| 15 |
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| 16 | The perl interpreter is now more tolerant of UTF-16-encoded scripts.
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| 17 |
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| 18 | On Win32, Perl can now use non-IFS compatible LSPs, which allows Perl to
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| 19 | work in conjunction with firewalls such as McAfee Guardian. For full details
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| 20 | see the file F<README.win32>, particularly if you're running Win95.
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| 21 |
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| 22 | =head1 Modules and Pragmata
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| 23 |
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| 24 | =over 4
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| 25 |
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| 26 | =item *
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| 27 |
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| 28 | With the C<base> pragma, an intermediate class with no fields used to messes
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| 29 | up private fields in the base class. This has been fixed.
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| 30 |
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| 31 | =item *
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| 32 |
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| 33 | Cwd upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
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| 34 |
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| 35 | =item *
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| 36 |
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| 37 | Devel::PPPort upgraded to version 3.03
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| 38 |
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| 39 | =item *
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| 40 |
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| 41 | File::Spec upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
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| 42 |
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| 43 | =item *
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| 44 |
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| 45 | Encode upgraded to version 2.08
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| 46 |
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| 47 | =item *
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| 48 |
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| 49 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker remains at version 6.17, as later stable releases currently
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| 50 | available on CPAN have some issues with core modules on some core platforms.
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| 51 |
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| 52 | =item *
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| 53 |
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| 54 | I18N::LangTags upgraded to version 0.35
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| 55 |
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| 56 | =item *
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| 57 |
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| 58 | Math::BigInt upgraded to version 1.73
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| 59 |
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| 60 | =item *
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| 61 |
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| 62 | Math::BigRat upgraded to version 0.13
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| 63 |
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| 64 | =item *
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| 65 |
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| 66 | MIME::Base64 upgraded to version 3.05
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| 67 |
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| 68 | =item *
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| 69 |
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| 70 | POSIX::sigprocmask function can now retrieve the current signal mask without
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| 71 | also setting it.
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| 72 |
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| 73 | =item *
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| 74 |
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| 75 | Time::HiRes upgraded to version 1.65
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| 76 |
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| 77 | =back
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| 78 |
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| 79 | =head1 Utility Changes
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| 80 |
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| 81 | Perl has a new -dt command-line flag, which enables threads support in the
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| 82 | debugger.
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| 83 |
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| 84 | =head1 Performance Enhancements
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| 85 |
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| 86 | C<reverse sort ...> is now optimized to sort in reverse, avoiding the
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| 87 | generation of a temporary intermediate list.
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| 88 |
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| 89 | C<for (reverse @foo)> now iterates in reverse, avoiding the generation of a
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| 90 | temporary reversed list.
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| 91 |
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| 92 | =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
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| 93 |
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| 94 | The regexp engine is now more robust when given invalid utf8 input, as is
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| 95 | sometimes generated by buggy XS modules.
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| 96 |
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| 97 | C<foreach> on threads::shared array used to be able to crash Perl. This bug
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| 98 | has now been fixed.
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| 99 |
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| 100 | A regexp in C<STDOUT>'s destructor used to coredump, because the regexp pad
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| 101 | was already freed. This has been fixed.
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| 102 |
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| 103 | C<goto &> is now more robust - bugs in deep recursion and chained C<goto &>
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| 104 | have been fixed.
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| 105 |
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| 106 | Using C<delete> on an array no longer leaks memory. A C<pop> of an item from a
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| 107 | shared array reference no longer causes a leak.
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| 108 |
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| 109 | C<eval_sv()> failing a taint test could corrupt the stack - this has been
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| 110 | fixed.
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| 111 |
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| 112 | On platforms with 64 bit pointers numeric comparison operators used to
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| 113 | erroneously compare the addresses of references that are overloaded, rather
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| 114 | than using the overloaded values. This has been fixed.
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| 115 |
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| 116 | C<read> into a UTF8-encoded buffer with an offset off the end of the buffer
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| 117 | no longer mis-calculates buffer lengths.
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| 118 |
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| 119 | Although Perl has promised since version 5.8 that C<sort()> would be
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| 120 | stable, the two cases C<sort {$b cmp $a}> and C<< sort {$b <=> $a} >> could
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| 121 | produce non-stable sorts. This is corrected in perl5.8.6.
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| 122 |
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| 123 | Localising C<$^D> no longer generates a diagnostic message about valid -D
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| 124 | flags.
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| 125 |
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| 126 | =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
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| 127 |
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| 128 | For -t and -T,
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| 129 | Too late for "-T" option
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| 130 | has been changed to the more informative
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| 131 | "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
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| 132 |
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| 133 | =head1 Changed Internals
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| 134 |
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| 135 | From now on all applications embedding perl will behave as if perl
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| 136 | were compiled with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. See "Environment access" in
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| 137 | the F<INSTALL> file for details.
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| 138 |
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| 139 | Most C<C> source files now have comments at the top explaining their purpose,
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| 140 | which should help anyone wishing to get an overview of the implementation.
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| 141 |
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| 142 | =head1 New Tests
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| 143 |
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| 144 | There are significantly more tests for the C<B> suite of modules.
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| 145 |
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| 146 | =head1 Reporting Bugs
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| 147 |
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| 148 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
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| 149 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
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| 150 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be
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| 151 | information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
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| 152 |
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| 153 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
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| 154 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down
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| 155 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the
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| 156 | output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to [email protected] to be
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| 157 | analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search
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| 158 | the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/
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| 159 |
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| 160 | =head1 SEE ALSO
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| 161 |
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| 162 | The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
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| 163 |
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| 164 | The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
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| 165 |
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| 166 | The F<README> file for general stuff.
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| 167 |
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| 168 | The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
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| 169 |
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| 170 | =cut
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