perl582delta(1)

1PERL582DELTA(1)        Perl Programmers Reference Guide        PERL582DELTA(1)
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NAME

6       perl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2
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DESCRIPTION

9       This document describes differences between the 5.8.1 release and the
10       5.8.2 release.
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12       If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1, first read
13       the perl58delta, which describes differences between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0,
14       and the perl581delta, which describes differences between 5.8.0 and
15       5.8.1.
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Incompatible Changes

18       For threaded builds for modules calling certain re-entrant system
19       calls, binary compatibility was accidentally lost between 5.8.0 and
20       5.8.1.  Binary compatibility with 5.8.0 has been restored in 5.8.2,
21       which necessitates breaking compatibility with 5.8.1. We see this as
22       the lesser of two evils.
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24       This will only affect people who have a threaded perl 5.8.1, and com‐
25       piled modules which use these calls, and now attempt to run the com‐
26       piled modules with 5.8.2. The fix is to re-compile and re-install the
27       modules using 5.8.2.
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Core Enhancements

30       Hash Randomisation
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32       The hash randomisation introduced with 5.8.1 has been amended. It tran‐
33       spired that although the implementation introduced in 5.8.1 was source
34       compatible with 5.8.0, it was not binary compatible in certain cases.
35       5.8.2 contains an improved implementation which is both source and
36       binary compatible with both 5.8.0 and 5.8.1, and remains robust against
37       the form of attack which prompted the change for 5.8.1.
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39       We are grateful to the Debian project for their input in this area.
40       See "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec for the original ratio‐
41       nale behind this change.
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43       Threading
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45       Several memory leaks associated with variables shared between threads
46       have been fixed.
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Modules and Pragmata

49       Updated Modules And Pragmata
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51       The following modules and pragmata have been updated since Perl 5.8.1:
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53       Devel::PPPort
54       Digest::MD5
55       I18N::LangTags
56       libnet
57       MIME::Base64
58       Pod::Perldoc
59       strict
60           Documentation improved
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62       Tie::Hash
63           Documentation improved
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65       Time::HiRes
66       Unicode::Collate
67       Unicode::Normalize
68       UNIVERSAL
69           Documentation improved
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Selected Bug Fixes

72       Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators are now
73       handled correctly by the parser.
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Changed Internals

76       Interpreter initialization is more complete when -DMULTIPLICITY is off.
77       This should resolve problems with initializing and destroying the Perl
78       interpreter more than once in a single process.
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Platform Specific Problems

81       Dynamic linker flags have been tweaked for Solaris and OS X, which
82       should solve problems seen while building some XS modules.
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84       Bugs in OS/2 sockets and tmpfile have been fixed.
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86       In OS X "setreuid" and friends are troublesome - perl will now work
87       around their problems as best possible.
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Future Directions

90       Starting with 5.8.3 we intend to make more frequent maintenance
91       releases, with a smaller number of changes in each. The intent is to
92       propagate bug fixes out to stable releases more rapidly and make
93       upgrading stable releases less of an upheaval. This should give end
94       users more flexibility in their choice of upgrade timing, and allow
95       them easier assessment of the impact of upgrades. The current plan is
96       for code freezes as follows
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98       ·   5.8.3 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday December 31st 2003
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100       ·   5.8.4 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday March 31st 2004
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102       ·   5.8.5 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday June 30th 2004
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104       with the release following soon after, when testing is complete.
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106       See "Future Directions" in perl581delta for more soothsaying.
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Reporting Bugs

109       If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
110       recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug
111       database at http://bugs.perl.org/.  There may also be information at
112       http://www.perl.com/, the Perl Home Page.
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114       If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug pro‐
115       gram included with your release.  Be sure to trim your bug down to a
116       tiny but sufficient test case.  Your bug report, along with the output
117       of "perl -V", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by
118       the Perl porting team.  You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at
119       http://bugs.perl.org/
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