1PERL582DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL582DELTA(1)
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6 perl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2
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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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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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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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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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72 Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators are now
73 handled correctly by the parser.
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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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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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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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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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122 The Changes file for exhaustive details on what changed.
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124 The INSTALL file for how to build Perl.
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126 The README file for general stuff.
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128 The Artistic and Copying files for copyright information.
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132perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERL582DELTA(1)