perl588delta(1)

1PERL588DELTA(1)        Perl Programmers Reference Guide        PERL588DELTA(1)
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3
4

NAME

6       perl588delta - what is new for perl v5.8.8
7

DESCRIPTION

9       This document describes differences between the 5.8.7 release and the
10       5.8.8 release.
11

Incompatible Changes

13       There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.8.7. If any
14       exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
15

Core Enhancements

17       •   "chdir", "chmod" and "chown" can now work on filehandles as well as
18           filenames, if the system supports respectively "fchdir", "fchmod"
19           and "fchown", thanks to a patch provided by Gisle Aas.
20

Modules and Pragmata

22       •   "Attribute::Handlers" upgraded to version 0.78_02
23
24           •   Documentation typo fix
25
26       •   "attrs" upgraded to version 1.02
27
28           •   Internal cleanup only
29
30       •   "autouse" upgraded to version 1.05
31
32           •   Simplified implementation
33
34       •   "B" upgraded to version 1.09_01
35
36           •   The inheritance hierarchy of the "B::" modules has been
37               corrected; "B::NV" now inherits from "B::SV" (instead of
38               "B::IV").
39
40       •   "blib" upgraded to version 1.03
41
42           •   Documentation typo fix
43
44       •   "ByteLoader" upgraded to version 0.06
45
46           •   Internal cleanup
47
48       •   "CGI" upgraded to version 3.15
49
50           •   Extraneous "?" from "self_url()" removed
51
52           •   "scrolling_list()" select attribute fixed
53
54           •   "virtual_port" now works properly with the https protocol
55
56           •   "upload_hook()" and "append()" now works in function-oriented
57               mode
58
59           •   "POST_MAX" doesn't cause the client to hang any more
60
61           •   Automatic tab indexes are now disabled and new "-tabindex"
62               pragma has been added to turn automatic indexes back on
63
64           •   "end_form()" doesn't emit empty (and non-validating) "<div>"
65
66           •   "CGI::Carp" works better in certain mod_perl configurations
67
68           •   Setting $CGI::TMPDIRECTORY is now effective
69
70           •   Enhanced documentation
71
72       •   "charnames" upgraded to version 1.05
73
74           •   "viacode()" now accept hex strings and has been optimized.
75
76       •   "CPAN" upgraded to version 1.76_02
77
78           •   1 minor bug fix for Win32
79
80       •   "Cwd" upgraded to version 3.12
81
82           •   "canonpath()" on Win32 now collapses foo\.. sections correctly.
83
84           •   Improved behaviour on Symbian OS.
85
86           •   Enhanced documentation and typo fixes
87
88           •   Internal cleanup
89
90       •   "Data::Dumper" upgraded to version 2.121_08
91
92           •   A problem where "Data::Dumper" would sometimes update the
93               iterator state of hashes has been fixed
94
95           •   Numeric labels now work
96
97           •   Internal cleanup
98
99       •   "DB" upgraded to version 1.01
100
101           •   A problem where the state of the regexp engine would sometimes
102               get clobbered when running under the debugger has been fixed.
103
104       •   "DB_File" upgraded to version 1.814
105
106           •   Adds support for Berkeley DB 4.4.
107
108       •   "Devel::DProf" upgraded to version 20050603.00
109
110           •   Internal cleanup
111
112       •   "Devel::Peek" upgraded to version 1.03
113
114           •   Internal cleanup
115
116       •   "Devel::PPPort" upgraded to version 3.06_01
117
118           •   "--compat-version" argument checking has been improved
119
120           •   Files passed on the command line are filtered by default
121
122           •   "--nofilter" option to override the filtering has been added
123
124           •   Enhanced documentation
125
126       •   "diagnostics" upgraded to version 1.15
127
128           •   Documentation typo fix
129
130       •   "Digest" upgraded to version 1.14
131
132           •   The constructor now knows which module implements SHA-224
133
134           •   Documentation tweaks and typo fixes
135
136       •   "Digest::MD5" upgraded to version 2.36
137
138           •   "XSLoader" is now used for faster loading
139
140           •   Enhanced documentation including MD5 weaknesses discovered
141               lately
142
143       •   "Dumpvalue" upgraded to version 1.12
144
145           •   Documentation fix
146
147       •   "DynaLoader" upgraded but unfortunately we're not able to increment
148           its version number :-(
149
150           •   Implements "dl_unload_file" on Win32
151
152           •   Internal cleanup
153
154           •   "XSLoader" 0.06 incorporated; small optimisation for calling
155               "bootstrap_inherit()" and documentation enhancements.
156
157       •   "Encode" upgraded to version 2.12
158
159           •   A coderef is now acceptable for "CHECK"!
160
161           •   3 new characters added to the ISO-8859-7 encoding
162
163           •   New encoding "MIME-Header-ISO_2022_JP" added
164
165           •   Problem with partial characters and "encoding(utf-8-strict)"
166               fixed.
167
168           •   Documentation enhancements and typo fixes
169
170       •   "English" upgraded to version 1.02
171
172           •   the $COMPILING variable has been added
173
174       •   "ExtUtils::Constant" upgraded to version 0.17
175
176           •   Improved compatibility with older versions of perl
177
178       •   "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" upgraded to version 6.30 (was 6.17)
179
180           •   Too much to list here;  see
181               <http://search.cpan.org/dist/ExtUtils-MakeMaker/Changes>
182
183       •   "File::Basename" upgraded to version 2.74, with changes contributed
184           by Michael Schwern.
185
186           •   Documentation clarified and errors corrected.
187
188           •   "basename" now strips trailing path separators before
189               processing the name.
190
191           •   "basename" now returns "/" for parameter "/", to make
192               "basename" consistent with the shell utility of the same name.
193
194           •   The suffix is no longer stripped if it is identical to the
195               remaining characters in the name, again for consistency with
196               the shell utility.
197
198           •   Some internal code cleanup.
199
200       •   "File::Copy" upgraded to version 2.09
201
202           •   Copying a file onto itself used to fail.
203
204           •   Moving a file between file systems now preserves the access and
205               modification time stamps
206
207       •   "File::Find" upgraded to version 1.10
208
209           •   Win32 portability fixes
210
211           •   Enhanced documentation
212
213       •   "File::Glob" upgraded to version 1.05
214
215           •   Internal cleanup
216
217       •   "File::Path" upgraded to version 1.08
218
219           •   "mkpath" now preserves "errno" when "mkdir" fails
220
221       •   "File::Spec" upgraded to version 3.12
222
223           •   "File::Spec->rootdir()" now returns "\" on Win32, instead of
224               "/"
225
226           •   $^O could sometimes become tainted. This has been fixed.
227
228           •   "canonpath" on Win32 now collapses "foo/.." (or "foo\..")
229               sections correctly, rather than doing the "misguided" work it
230               was previously doing.  Note that "canonpath" on Unix still does
231               not collapse these sections, as doing so would be incorrect.
232
233           •   Some documentation improvements
234
235           •   Some internal code cleanup
236
237       •   "FileCache" upgraded to version 1.06
238
239           •   POD formatting errors in the documentation fixed
240
241       •   "Filter::Simple" upgraded to version 0.82
242
243       •   "FindBin" upgraded to version 1.47
244
245           •   Now works better with directories where access rights are more
246               restrictive than usual.
247
248       •   "GDBM_File" upgraded to version 1.08
249
250           •   Internal cleanup
251
252       •   "Getopt::Long" upgraded to version 2.35
253
254           •   "prefix_pattern" has now been complemented by a new
255               configuration option "long_prefix_pattern" that allows the user
256               to specify what prefix patterns should have long option style
257               semantics applied.
258
259           •   Options can now take multiple values at once (experimental)
260
261           •   Various bug fixes
262
263       •   "if" upgraded to version 0.05
264
265           •   Give more meaningful error messages from "if" when invoked with
266               a condition in list context.
267
268           •   Restore backwards compatibility with earlier versions of perl
269
270       •   "IO" upgraded to version 1.22
271
272           •   Enhanced documentation
273
274           •   Internal cleanup
275
276       •   "IPC::Open2" upgraded to version 1.02
277
278           •   Enhanced documentation
279
280       •   "IPC::Open3" upgraded to version 1.02
281
282           •   Enhanced documentation
283
284       •   "List::Util" upgraded to version 1.18 (was 1.14)
285
286           •   Fix pure-perl version of "refaddr" to avoid blessing an un-
287               blessed reference
288
289           •   Use "XSLoader" for faster loading
290
291           •   Fixed various memory leaks
292
293           •   Internal cleanup and portability fixes
294
295       •   "Math::Complex" upgraded to version 1.35
296
297           •   "atan2(0, i)" now works, as do all the (computable) complex
298               argument cases
299
300           •   Fixes for certain bugs in "make" and "emake"
301
302           •   Support returning the kth root directly
303
304           •   Support "[2,-3pi/8]" in "emake"
305
306           •   Support "inf" for "make"/"emake"
307
308           •   Document "make"/"emake" more visibly
309
310       •   "Math::Trig" upgraded to version 1.03
311
312           •   Add more great circle routines: "great_circle_waypoint" and
313               "great_circle_destination"
314
315       •   "MIME::Base64" upgraded to version 3.07
316
317           •   Use "XSLoader" for faster loading
318
319           •   Enhanced documentation
320
321           •   Internal cleanup
322
323       •   "NDBM_File" upgraded to version 1.06
324
325           •   Enhanced documentation
326
327       •   "ODBM_File" upgraded to version 1.06
328
329           •   Documentation typo fixed
330
331           •   Internal cleanup
332
333       •   "Opcode" upgraded to version 1.06
334
335           •   Enhanced documentation
336
337           •   Internal cleanup
338
339       •   "open" upgraded to version 1.05
340
341           •   Enhanced documentation
342
343       •   "overload" upgraded to version 1.04
344
345           •   Enhanced documentation
346
347       •   "PerlIO" upgraded to version 1.04
348
349           •   "PerlIO::via" iterate over layers properly now
350
351           •   "PerlIO::scalar" understands "$/ = """ now
352
353           •   "encoding(utf-8-strict)" with partial characters now works
354
355           •   Enhanced documentation
356
357           •   Internal cleanup
358
359       •   "Pod::Functions" upgraded to version 1.03
360
361           •   Documentation typos fixed
362
363       •   "Pod::Html" upgraded to version 1.0504
364
365           •   HTML output will now correctly link to "=item"s on the same
366               page, and should be valid XHTML.
367
368           •   Variable names are recognized as intended
369
370           •   Documentation typos fixed
371
372       •   "Pod::Parser" upgraded to version 1.32
373
374           •   Allow files that start with "=head" on the first line
375
376           •   Win32 portability fix
377
378           •   Exit status of "pod2usage" fixed
379
380           •   New "-noperldoc" switch for "pod2usage"
381
382           •   Arbitrary URL schemes now allowed
383
384           •   Documentation typos fixed
385
386       •   "POSIX" upgraded to version 1.09
387
388           •   Documentation typos fixed
389
390           •   Internal cleanup
391
392       •   "re" upgraded to version 0.05
393
394           •   Documentation typo fixed
395
396       •   "Safe" upgraded to version 2.12
397
398           •   Minor documentation enhancement
399
400       •   "SDBM_File" upgraded to version 1.05
401
402           •   Documentation typo fixed
403
404           •   Internal cleanup
405
406       •   "Socket" upgraded to version 1.78
407
408           •   Internal cleanup
409
410       •   "Storable" upgraded to version 2.15
411
412           •   This includes the "STORABLE_attach" hook functionality added by
413               Adam Kennedy, and more frugal memory requirements when storing
414               under "ithreads", by using the "ithreads" cloning tracking
415               code.
416
417       •   "Switch" upgraded to version 2.10_01
418
419           •   Documentation typos fixed
420
421       •   "Sys::Syslog" upgraded to version 0.13
422
423           •   Now provides numeric macros and meaningful "Exporter" tags.
424
425           •   No longer uses "Sys::Hostname" as it may provide useless values
426               in unconfigured network environments, so instead uses
427               "INADDR_LOOPBACK" directly.
428
429           •   "syslog()" now uses local timestamp.
430
431           •   "setlogmask()" now behaves like its C counterpart.
432
433           •   "setlogsock()" will now "croak()" as documented.
434
435           •   Improved error and warnings messages.
436
437           •   Improved documentation.
438
439       •   "Term::ANSIColor" upgraded to version 1.10
440
441           •   Fixes a bug in "colored" when $EACHLINE is set that caused it
442               to not color lines consisting solely of 0 (literal zero).
443
444           •   Improved tests.
445
446       •   "Term::ReadLine" upgraded to version 1.02
447
448           •   Documentation tweaks
449
450       •   "Test::Harness" upgraded to version 2.56 (was 2.48)
451
452           •   The "Test::Harness" timer is now off by default.
453
454           •   Now shows elapsed time in milliseconds.
455
456           •   Various bug fixes
457
458       •   "Test::Simple" upgraded to version 0.62 (was 0.54)
459
460           •   "is_deeply()" no longer fails to work for many cases
461
462           •   Various minor bug fixes
463
464           •   Documentation enhancements
465
466       •   "Text::Tabs" upgraded to version 2005.0824
467
468           •   Provides a faster implementation of "expand"
469
470       •   "Text::Wrap" upgraded to version 2005.082401
471
472           •   Adds $Text::Wrap::separator2, which allows you to preserve
473               existing newlines but add line-breaks with some other string.
474
475       •   "threads" upgraded to version 1.07
476
477           •   "threads" will now honour "no warnings 'threads'"
478
479           •   A thread's interpreter is now freed after "$t->join()" rather
480               than after "undef $t", which should fix some "ithreads" memory
481               leaks. (Fixed by Dave Mitchell)
482
483           •   Some documentation typo fixes.
484
485       •   "threads::shared" upgraded to version 0.94
486
487           •   Documentation changes only
488
489           •   Note: An improved implementation of "threads::shared" is
490               available on CPAN - this will be merged into 5.8.9 if it proves
491               stable.
492
493       •   "Tie::Hash" upgraded to version 1.02
494
495           •   Documentation typo fixed
496
497       •   "Time::HiRes" upgraded to version 1.86 (was 1.66)
498
499           •   "clock_nanosleep()" and "clock()" functions added
500
501           •   Support for the POSIX "clock_gettime()" and "clock_getres()"
502               has been added
503
504           •   Return "undef" or an empty list if the C "gettimeofday()"
505               function fails
506
507           •   Improved "nanosleep" detection
508
509           •   Internal cleanup
510
511           •   Enhanced documentation
512
513       •   "Unicode::Collate" upgraded to version 0.52
514
515           •   Now implements UCA Revision 14 (based on Unicode 4.1.0).
516
517           •   "Unicode::Collate->new" method no longer overwrites user's $_
518
519           •   Enhanced documentation
520
521       •   "Unicode::UCD" upgraded to version 0.24
522
523           •   Documentation typos fixed
524
525       •   "User::grent" upgraded to version 1.01
526
527           •   Documentation typo fixed
528
529       •   "utf8" upgraded to version 1.06
530
531           •   Documentation typos fixed
532
533       •   "vmsish" upgraded to version 1.02
534
535           •   Documentation typos fixed
536
537       •   "warnings" upgraded to version 1.05
538
539           •   Gentler messing with "Carp::" internals
540
541           •   Internal cleanup
542
543           •   Documentation update
544
545       •   "Win32" upgraded to version 0.2601
546
547           •   Provides Windows Vista support to "Win32::GetOSName"
548
549           •   Documentation enhancements
550
551       •   "XS::Typemap" upgraded to version 0.02
552
553           •   Internal cleanup
554

Utility Changes

556   "h2xs" enhancements
557       "h2xs" implements new option "--use-xsloader" to force use of
558       "XSLoader" even in backwards compatible modules.
559
560       The handling of authors' names that had apostrophes has been fixed.
561
562       Any enums with negative values are now skipped.
563
564   "perlivp" enhancements
565       "perlivp" implements new option "-a" and will not check for *.ph files
566       by default any more.  Use the "-a" option to run all tests.
567

New Documentation

569       The perlglossary manpage is a glossary of terms used in the Perl
570       documentation, technical and otherwise, kindly provided by O'Reilly
571       Media, inc.
572

Performance Enhancements

574       •   Weak reference creation is now O(1) rather than O(n), courtesy of
575           Nicholas Clark. Weak reference deletion remains O(n), but if
576           deletion only happens at program exit, it may be skipped
577           completely.
578
579       •   Salvador Fandin~o provided improvements to reduce the memory usage
580           of "sort" and to speed up some cases.
581
582       •   Jarkko Hietaniemi and Andy Lester worked to mark as much data as
583           possible in the C source files as "static", to increase the
584           proportion of the executable file that the operating system can
585           share between process, and thus reduce real memory usage on multi-
586           user systems.
587

Installation and Configuration Improvements

589       Parallel makes should work properly now, although there may still be
590       problems if "make test" is instructed to run in parallel.
591
592       Building with Borland's compilers on Win32 should work more smoothly.
593       In particular Steve Hay has worked to side step many warnings emitted
594       by their compilers and at least one C compiler internal error.
595
596       "Configure" will now detect "clearenv" and "unsetenv", thanks to a
597       patch from Alan Burlison. It will also probe for "futimes" and whether
598       "sprintf" correctly returns the length of the formatted string, which
599       will both be used in perl 5.8.9.
600
601       There are improved hints for next-3.0, vmesa, IX, Darwin, Solaris,
602       Linux, DEC/OSF, HP-UX and MPE/iX
603
604       Perl extensions on Windows now can be statically built into the Perl
605       DLL, thanks to a work by Vadim Konovalov. (This improvement was
606       actually in 5.8.7, but was accidentally omitted from perl587delta).
607

Selected Bug Fixes

609   no warnings 'category' works correctly with -w
610       Previously when running with warnings enabled globally via "-w",
611       selective disabling of specific warning categories would actually turn
612       off all warnings.  This is now fixed; now "no warnings 'io';" will only
613       turn off warnings in the "io" class. Previously it would erroneously
614       turn off all warnings.
615
616       This bug fix may cause some programs to start correctly issuing
617       warnings.
618
619   Remove over-optimisation
620       Perl 5.8.4 introduced a change so that assignments of "undef" to a
621       scalar, or of an empty list to an array or a hash, were optimised away.
622       As this could cause problems when "goto" jumps were involved, this
623       change has been backed out.
624
625   sprintf() fixes
626       Using the sprintf() function with some formats could lead to a buffer
627       overflow in some specific cases. This has been fixed, along with
628       several other bugs, notably in bounds checking.
629
630       In related fixes, it was possible for badly written code that did not
631       follow the documentation of "Sys::Syslog" to have formatting
632       vulnerabilities.  "Sys::Syslog" has been changed to protect people from
633       poor quality third party code.
634
635   Debugger and Unicode slowdown
636       It had been reported that running under perl's debugger when processing
637       Unicode data could cause unexpectedly large slowdowns. The most likely
638       cause of this was identified and fixed by Nicholas Clark.
639
640   Smaller fixes
641       •   "FindBin" now works better with directories where access rights are
642           more restrictive than usual.
643
644       •   Several memory leaks in ithreads were closed. An improved
645           implementation of "threads::shared" is available on CPAN - this
646           will be merged into 5.8.9 if it proves stable.
647
648       •   Trailing spaces are now trimmed from $! and $^E.
649
650       •   Operations that require perl to read a process's list of groups,
651           such as reads of $( and $), now dynamically allocate memory rather
652           than using a fixed sized array. The fixed size array could cause C
653           stack exhaustion on systems configured to use large numbers of
654           groups.
655
656       •   "PerlIO::scalar" now works better with non-default $/ settings.
657
658       •   You can now use the "x" operator to repeat a "qw//" list. This used
659           to raise a syntax error.
660
661       •   The debugger now traces correctly execution in eval("")uated code
662           that contains #line directives.
663
664       •   The value of the "open" pragma is no longer ignored for three-
665           argument opens.
666
667       •   The optimisation of "for (reverse @a)" introduced in perl 5.8.6
668           could misbehave when the array had undefined elements and was used
669           in LVALUE context. Dave Mitchell provided a fix.
670
671       •   Some case insensitive matches between UTF-8 encoded data and 8 bit
672           regexps, and vice versa, could give malformed character warnings.
673           These have been fixed by Dave Mitchell and Yves Orton.
674
675       •   "lcfirst" and "ucfirst" could corrupt the string for certain cases
676           where the length UTF-8 encoding of the string in lower case, upper
677           case or title case differed. This was fixed by Nicholas Clark.
678
679       •   Perl will now use the C library calls "unsetenv" and "clearenv" if
680           present to delete keys from %ENV and delete %ENV entirely, thanks
681           to a patch from Alan Burlison.
682

New or Changed Diagnostics

684   Attempt to set length of freed array
685       This is a new warning, produced in situations such as this:
686
687           $r = do {my @a; \$#a};
688           $$r = 503;
689
690   Non-string passed as bitmask
691       This is a new warning, produced when number has been passed as an
692       argument to select(), instead of a bitmask.
693
694           # Wrong, will now warn
695           $rin = fileno(STDIN);
696           ($nfound,$timeleft) = select($rout=$rin, undef, undef, $timeout);
697
698           # Should be
699           $rin = '';
700           vec($rin,fileno(STDIN),1) = 1;
701           ($nfound,$timeleft) = select($rout=$rin, undef, undef, $timeout);
702
703   Search pattern not terminated or ternary operator parsed as search pattern
704       This syntax error indicates that the lexer couldn't find the final
705       delimiter of a "?PATTERN?" construct. Mentioning the ternary operator
706       in this error message makes it easier to diagnose syntax errors.
707

Changed Internals

709       There has been a fair amount of refactoring of the "C" source code,
710       partly to make it tidier and more maintainable. The resulting object
711       code and the "perl" binary may well be smaller than 5.8.7, in
712       particular due to a change contributed by Dave Mitchell which reworked
713       the warnings code to be significantly smaller. Apart from being smaller
714       and possibly faster, there should be no user-detectable changes.
715
716       Andy Lester supplied many improvements to determine which function
717       parameters and local variables could actually be declared "const" to
718       the C compiler. Steve Peters provided new *_set macros and reworked the
719       core to use these rather than assigning to macros in LVALUE context.
720
721       Dave Mitchell improved the lexer debugging output under "-DT"
722
723       Nicholas Clark changed the string buffer allocation so that it is now
724       rounded up to the next multiple of 4 (or 8 on platforms with 64 bit
725       pointers). This should reduce the number of calls to "realloc" without
726       actually using any extra memory.
727
728       The "HV"'s array of "HE*"s is now allocated at the correct (minimal)
729       size, thanks to another change by Nicholas Clark. Compile with
730       "-DPERL_USE_LARGE_HV_ALLOC" to use the old, sloppier, default.
731
732       For XS or embedding debugging purposes, if perl is compiled with
733       "-DDEBUG_LEAKING_SCALARS_FORK_DUMP" in addition to
734       "-DDEBUG_LEAKING_SCALARS" then a child process is "fork"ed just before
735       global destruction, which is used to display the values of any scalars
736       found to have leaked at the end of global destruction. Without this,
737       the scalars have already been freed sufficiently at the point of
738       detection that it is impossible to produce any meaningful dump of their
739       contents.  This feature was implemented by the indefatigable Nicholas
740       Clark, based on an idea by Mike Giroux.
741

Platform Specific Problems

743       The optimiser on HP-UX 11.23 (Itanium 2) is currently partly disabled
744       (scaled down to +O1) when using HP C-ANSI-C; the cause of problems at
745       higher optimisation levels is still unclear.
746
747       There are a handful of remaining test failures on VMS, mostly due to
748       test fixes and minor module tweaks with too many dependencies to
749       integrate into this release from the development stream, where they
750       have all been corrected.  The following is a list of expected failures
751       with the patch number of the fix where that is known:
752
753           ext/Devel/PPPort/t/ppphtest.t  #26913
754           ext/List/Util/t/p_tainted.t    #26912
755           lib/ExtUtils/t/PL_FILES.t      #26813
756           lib/ExtUtils/t/basic.t         #26813
757           t/io/fs.t
758           t/op/cmp.t
759

Reporting Bugs

761       If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
762       recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug
763       database at http://bugs.perl.org.  There may also be information at
764       http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
765
766       If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug
767       program included with your release.  Be sure to trim your bug down to a
768       tiny but sufficient test case.  Your bug report, along with the output
769       of "perl -V", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by
770       the Perl porting team.  You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at
771       http://bugs.perl.org/
772