1PERL589DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL589DELTA(1)
2
6 perl589delta - what is new for perl v5.8.9
7
9 This document describes differences between the 5.8.8 release and the
10 5.8.9 release.
11
13 The 5.8.9 release will be the last significant release of the 5.8.x
14 series. Any future releases of 5.8.x will likely only be to deal with
15 security issues, and platform build failures. Hence you should look to
16 migrating to 5.10.x, if you have not started already. See "Known
17 Problems" for more information.
18
20 A particular construction in the source code of extensions written in
21 C++ may need changing. See "Changed Internals" for more details. All
22 extensions written in C, most written in C++, and all existing compiled
23 extensions are unaffected. This was necessary to improve C++ support.
24 Other than this, there are no changes intentionally incompatible with
26 5.8.8. If any exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.
27
29 Unicode Character Database 5.1.0.
30 The copy of the Unicode Character Database included in Perl 5.8 has
31 been updated to 5.1.0 from 4.1.0. See
32 <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.1.0/#NotableChanges> for the
33 notable changes.
34 stat and -X on directory handles
36 It is now possible to call "stat" and the "-X" filestat operators on
37 directory handles. As both directory and file handles are barewords,
38 there can be ambiguities over which was intended. In these situations
39 the file handle semantics are preferred. Both also treat *FILE{IO}
40 filehandles like *FILE filehandles.
41 Source filters in @INC
43 It's possible to enhance the mechanism of subroutine hooks in @INC by
44 adding a source filter on top of the filehandle opened and returned by
45 the hook. This feature was planned a long time ago, but wasn't quite
46 working until now. See "require" in perlfunc for details. (Nicholas
47 Clark)
48 Exceptions in constant folding
50 The constant folding routine is now wrapped in an exception handler,
51 and if folding throws an exception (such as attempting to evaluate
52 0/0), perl now retains the current optree, rather than aborting the
53 whole program. Without this change, programs would not compile if they
54 had expressions that happened to generate exceptions, even though those
55 expressions were in code that could never be reached at runtime.
56 (Nicholas Clark, Dave Mitchell)
57 "no VERSION"
59 You can now use "no" followed by a version number to specify that you
60 want to use a version of perl older than the specified one.
61 Improved internal UTF-8 caching code
63 The code that caches calculated UTF-8 byte offsets for character
64 offsets for a string has been re-written. Several bugs have been
65 located and eliminated, and the code now makes better use of the
66 information it has, so should be faster. In particular, it doesn't scan
67 to the end of a string before calculating an offset within the string,
68 which should speed up some operations on long strings. It is now
69 possible to disable the caching code at run time, to verify that it is
70 not the cause of suspected problems.
71 Runtime relocatable installations
73 There is now Configure support for creating a perl tree that is
74 relocatable at run time. see "Relocatable installations".
75 New internal variables
77 "${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}"
78 This variable gives the native status returned by the last pipe
79 close, backtick command, successful call to "wait" or "waitpid", or
80 from the "system" operator. See perlvar for details. (Contributed
81 by Gisle Aas.)
82 "${^UTF8CACHE}"
84 This variable controls the state of the internal UTF-8 offset
85 caching code. 1 for on (the default), 0 for off, -1 to debug the
86 caching code by checking all its results against linear scans, and
87 panicking on any discrepancy.
88 "readpipe" is now overridable
90 The built-in function "readpipe" is now overridable. Overriding it
91 permits also to override its operator counterpart, "qx//" (also known
92 as ``).
93 simple exception handling macros
95 Perl 5.8.9 (and 5.10.0 onwards) now provides a couple of macros to do
96 very basic exception handling in XS modules. You can use these macros
97 if you call code that may "croak", but you need to do some cleanup
98 before giving control back to Perl. See "Exception Handling" in
99 perlguts for more details.
100 -D option enhancements
102 • "-Dq" suppresses the EXECUTING... message when running under "-D"
103 • "-Dl" logs runops loop entry and exit, and jump level popping.
105 • "-Dv" displays the process id as part of the trace output.
107 XS-assisted SWASHGET
109 Some pure-perl code that the regexp engine was using to retrieve
110 Unicode properties and transliteration mappings has been reimplemented
111 in XS for faster execution. (SADAHIRO Tomoyuki)
112 Constant subroutines
114 The interpreter internals now support a far more memory efficient form
115 of inlineable constants. Storing a reference to a constant value in a
116 symbol table is equivalent to a full typeglob referencing a constant
117 subroutine, but using about 400 bytes less memory. This proxy constant
118 subroutine is automatically upgraded to a real typeglob with subroutine
119 if necessary. The approach taken is analogous to the existing space
120 optimisation for subroutine stub declarations, which are stored as
121 plain scalars in place of the full typeglob.
122 However, to aid backwards compatibility of existing code, which
124 (wrongly) does not expect anything other than typeglobs in symbol
125 tables, nothing in core uses this feature, other than the regression
126 tests.
127 Stubs for prototyped subroutines have been stored in symbol tables as
129 plain strings, and stubs for unprototyped subroutines as the number -1,
130 since 5.005, so code which assumes that the core only places typeglobs
131 in symbol tables has been making incorrect assumptions for over 10
132 years.
133
135 Compile support added for:
136 • DragonFlyBSD
138 • MidnightBSD
140 • MirOS BSD
142 • RISC OS
144 • Cray XT4/Catamount
146
148 New Modules
149 • "Module::Pluggable" is a simple framework to create modules that
150 accept pluggable sub-modules. The bundled version is 3.8
151 • "Module::CoreList" is a hash of hashes that is keyed on perl
153 version as indicated in $]. The bundled version is 2.17
154 • "Win32API::File" now available in core on Microsoft Windows. The
156 bundled version is 0.1001_01
157 • "Devel::InnerPackage" finds all the packages defined by a single
159 file. It is part of the "Module::Pluggable" distribution. The
160 bundled version is 0.3
161 Updated Modules
163 • "attributes" upgraded to version 0.09
164 • "AutoLoader" upgraded to version 5.67
166 • "AutoSplit" upgraded to 1.06
168 • "autouse" upgraded to version 1.06
170 • "B" upgraded from 1.09_01 to 1.19
172 • provides new pad related abstraction macros
174 "B::NV::COP_SEQ_RANGE_LOW", "B::NV::COP_SEQ_RANGE_HIGH",
175 "B::NV::PARENT_PAD_INDEX", "B::NV::PARENT_FAKELEX_FLAGS", which
176 hides the difference in storage in 5.10.0 and later.
177 • provides "B::sub_generation", which exposes "PL_sub_generation"
179 • provides "B::GV::isGV_with_GP", which on pre-5.10 perls always
181 returns true.
182 • New type "B::HE" added with methods "VAL", "HASH" and
184 "SVKEY_force"
185 • The "B::GVf_IMPORTED_CV" flag is now set correctly when a proxy
187 constant subroutine is imported.
188 • bugs fixed in the handling of "PMOP"s.
190 • "B::BM::PREVIOUS" returns now "U32", not "U16". "B::CV::START"
192 and "B:CV::ROOT" return now "NULL" on an XSUB, "B::CV::XSUB"
193 and "B::CV::XSUBANY" return 0 on a non-XSUB.
194 • "B::C" upgraded to 1.05
196 • "B::Concise" upgraded to 0.76
198 • new option "-src" causes the rendering of each statement
200 (starting with the nextstate OP) to be preceded by the first
201 line of source code that generates it.
202 • new option "-stash="somepackage"", "require"s "somepackage",
204 and then renders each function defined in its namespace.
205 • now has documentation of detailed hint symbols.
207 • "B::Debug" upgraded to version 1.05
209 • "B::Deparse" upgraded to version 0.87
211 • properly deparse "print readpipe $x, $y".
213 • now handles "''->()", ::(), "sub :: {}", etc. correctly [RT
215 #43010]. All bugs in parsing these kinds of syntax are now
216 fixed:
217 perl -MO=Deparse -e '"my %h = "->()'
219 perl -MO=Deparse -e '::->()'
220 perl -MO=Deparse -e 'sub :: {}'
221 perl -MO=Deparse -e 'package a; sub a::b::c {}'
222 perl -MO=Deparse -e 'sub the::main::road {}'
223 • does not deparse $^H{v_string}, which is automatically set by
225 the internals.
226 • "B::Lint" upgraded to version 1.11
228 • "B::Terse" upgraded to version 1.05
230 • "base" upgraded to version 2.13
232 • loading a module via base.pm would mask a global $SIG{__DIE__}
234 in that module.
235 • push all classes at once in @ISA
237 • "Benchmark" upgraded to version 1.10
239 • "bigint" upgraded to 0.23
241 • "bignum" upgraded to 0.23
243 • "bigrat" upgraded to 0.23
245 • "blib" upgraded to 0.04
247 • "Carp" upgraded to version 1.10
249 The argument backtrace code now shows "undef" as "undef", instead
251 of a string "undef".
252 • "CGI" upgraded to version 3.42
254 • "charnames" upgraded to 1.06
256 • "constant" upgraded to version 1.17
258 • "CPAN" upgraded to version 1.9301
260 • "Cwd" upgraded to version 3.29 with some platform specific
262 improvements (including for VMS).
263 • "Data::Dumper" upgraded to version 2.121_17
265 • Fixes hash iterator current position with the pure Perl version
267 [RT #40668]
268 • Performance enhancements, which will be most evident on
270 platforms where repeated calls to C's realloc() are slow, such
271 as Win32.
272 • "DB_File" upgraded to version 1.817
274 • "DB_Filter" upgraded to version 0.02
276 • "Devel::DProf" upgraded to version 20080331.00
278 • "Devel::Peek" upgraded to version 1.04
280 • "Devel::PPPort" upgraded to version 3.14
282 • "diagnostics" upgraded to version 1.16
284 • "Digest" upgraded to version 1.15
286 • "Digest::MD5" upgraded to version 2.37
288 • "DirHandle" upgraded to version 1.02
290 • now localises $., $@, $!, $^E, and $? before closing the
292 directory handle to suppress leaking any side effects of
293 warnings about it already being closed.
294 • "DynaLoader" upgraded to version 1.09
296 "DynaLoader" can now dynamically load a loadable object from a file
298 with a non-default file extension.
299 • "Encode" upgraded to version 2.26
301 "Encode::Alias" includes a fix for encoding "646" on Solaris
303 (better known as ASCII).
304 • "English" upgraded to version 1.03
306 • "Errno" upgraded to version 1.10
308 • "Exporter" upgraded to version 5.63
310 • "ExtUtils::Command" upgraded to version 1.15
312 • "ExtUtils::Constant" upgraded to version 0.21
314 • "ExtUtils::Embed" upgraded to version 1.28
316 • "ExtUtils::Install" upgraded to version 1.50_01
318 • "ExtUtils::Installed" upgraded to version 1.43
320 • "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" upgraded to version 6.48
322 • support for "INSTALLSITESCRIPT" and "INSTALLVENDORSCRIPT"
324 configuration.
325 • "ExtUtils::Manifest" upgraded to version 1.55
327 • "ExtUtils::ParseXS" upgraded to version 2.19
329 • "Fatal" upgraded to version 1.06
331 • allows built-ins in "CORE::GLOBAL" to be made fatal.
333 • "Fcntl" upgraded to version 1.06
335 • "fields" upgraded to version 2.12
337 • "File::Basename" upgraded to version 2.77
339 • "FileCache" upgraded to version 1.07
341 • "File::Compare" upgraded to 1.1005
343 • "File::Copy" upgraded to 2.13
345 • now uses 3-arg open.
347 • "File::DosGlob" upgraded to 1.01
349 • "File::Find" upgraded to version 1.13
351 • "File::Glob" upgraded to version 1.06
353 • fixes spurious results with brackets inside braces.
355 • "File::Path" upgraded to version 2.07_02
357 • "File::Spec" upgraded to version 3.29
359 • improved handling of bad arguments.
361 • some platform specific improvements (including for VMS and
363 Cygwin), with an optimisation on "abs2rel" when handling both
364 relative arguments.
365 • "File::stat" upgraded to version 1.01
367 • "File::Temp" upgraded to version 0.20
369 • "filetest" upgraded to version 1.02
371 • "Filter::Util::Call" upgraded to version 1.07
373 • "Filter::Simple" upgraded to version 0.83
375 • "FindBin" upgraded to version 1.49
377 • "GDBM_File" upgraded to version 1.09
379 • "Getopt::Long" upgraded to version 2.37
381 • "Getopt::Std" upgraded to version 1.06
383 • "Hash::Util" upgraded to version 0.06
385 • "if" upgraded to version 0.05
387 • "IO" upgraded to version 1.23
389 Reduced number of calls to "getpeername" in "IO::Socket"
391 • "IPC::Open" upgraded to version 1.03
393 • "IPC::Open3" upgraded to version 1.03
395 • "IPC::SysV" upgraded to version 2.00
397 • "lib" upgraded to version 0.61
399 • avoid warning about loading .par files.
401 • "libnet" upgraded to version 1.22
403 • "List::Util" upgraded to 1.19
405 • "Locale::Maketext" upgraded to 1.13
407 • "Math::BigFloat" upgraded to version 1.60
409 • "Math::BigInt" upgraded to version 1.89
411 • "Math::BigRat" upgraded to version 0.22
413 • implements new "as_float" method.
415 • "Math::Complex" upgraded to version 1.54.
417 • "Math::Trig" upgraded to version 1.18.
419 • "NDBM_File" upgraded to version 1.07
421 • improve g++ handling for systems using GDBM compatibility
423 headers.
424 • "Net::Ping" upgraded to version 2.35
426 • "NEXT" upgraded to version 0.61
428 • fix several bugs with "NEXT" when working with "AUTOLOAD",
430 "eval" block, and within overloaded stringification.
431 • "ODBM_File" upgraded to 1.07
433 • "open" upgraded to 1.06
435 • "ops" upgraded to 1.02
437 • "PerlIO::encoding" upgraded to version 0.11
439 • "PerlIO::scalar" upgraded to version 0.06
441 • [RT #40267] "PerlIO::scalar" doesn't respect readonly-ness.
443 • "PerlIO::via" upgraded to version 0.05
445 • "Pod::Html" upgraded to version 1.09
447 • "Pod::Parser" upgraded to version 1.35
449 • "Pod::Usage" upgraded to version 1.35
451 • "POSIX" upgraded to version 1.15
453 • "POSIX" constants that duplicate those in "Fcntl" are now
455 imported from "Fcntl" and re-exported, rather than being
456 duplicated by "POSIX"
457 • "POSIX::remove" can remove empty directories.
459 • "POSIX::setlocale" safer to call multiple times.
461 • "POSIX::SigRt" added, which provides access to POSIX realtime
463 signal functionality on systems that support it.
464 • "re" upgraded to version 0.06_01
466 • "Safe" upgraded to version 2.16
468 • "Scalar::Util" upgraded to 1.19
470 • "SDBM_File" upgraded to version 1.06
472 • "SelfLoader" upgraded to version 1.17
474 • "Shell" upgraded to version 0.72
476 • "sigtrap" upgraded to version 1.04
478 • "Socket" upgraded to version 1.81
480 • this fixes an optimistic use of "gethostbyname"
482 • "Storable" upgraded to 2.19
484 • "Switch" upgraded to version 2.13
486 • "Sys::Syslog" upgraded to version 0.27
488 • "Term::ANSIColor" upgraded to version 1.12
490 • "Term::Cap" upgraded to version 1.12
492 • "Term::ReadLine" upgraded to version 1.03
494 • "Test::Builder" upgraded to version 0.80
496 • "Test::Harness" upgraded version to 2.64
498 • this makes it able to handle newlines.
500 • "Test::More" upgraded to version 0.80
502 • "Test::Simple" upgraded to version 0.80
504 • "Text::Balanced" upgraded to version 1.98
506 • "Text::ParseWords" upgraded to version 3.27
508 • "Text::Soundex" upgraded to version 3.03
510 • "Text::Tabs" upgraded to version 2007.1117
512 • "Text::Wrap" upgraded to version 2006.1117
514 • "Thread" upgraded to version 2.01
516 • "Thread::Semaphore" upgraded to version 2.09
518 • "Thread::Queue" upgraded to version 2.11
520 • added capability to add complex structures (e.g., hash of
522 hashes) to queues.
523 • added capability to dequeue multiple items at once.
525 • added new methods to inspect and manipulate queues: "peek",
527 "insert" and "extract"
528 • "Tie::Handle" upgraded to version 4.2
530 • "Tie::Hash" upgraded to version 1.03
532 • "Tie::Memoize" upgraded to version 1.1
534 • "Tie::Memoize::EXISTS" now correctly caches its results.
536 • "Tie::RefHash" upgraded to version 1.38
538 • "Tie::Scalar" upgraded to version 1.01
540 • "Tie::StdHandle" upgraded to version 4.2
542 • "Time::gmtime" upgraded to version 1.03
544 • "Time::Local" upgraded to version 1.1901
546 • "Time::HiRes" upgraded to version 1.9715 with various build
548 improvements (including VMS) and minor platform-specific bug fixes
549 (including for HP-UX 11 ia64).
550 • "threads" upgraded to 1.71
552 • new thread state information methods: "is_running",
554 "is_detached" and "is_joinable". "list" method enhanced to
555 return running or joinable threads.
556 • new thread signal method: "kill"
558 • added capability to specify thread stack size.
560 • added capability to control thread exiting behavior. Added a
562 new "exit" method.
563 • "threads::shared" upgraded to version 1.27
565 • smaller and faster implementation that eliminates one internal
567 structure and the consequent level of indirection.
568 • user locks are now stored in a safer manner.
570 • new function "shared_clone" creates a copy of an object leaving
572 shared elements as-is and deep-cloning non-shared elements.
573 • added new "is_shared" method.
575 • "Unicode::Normalize" upgraded to version 1.02
577 • "Unicode::UCD" upgraded to version 0.25
579 • "warnings" upgraded to version 1.05_01
581 • "Win32" upgraded to version 0.38
583 • added new function "GetCurrentProcessId" which returns the
585 regular Windows process identifier of the current process, even
586 when called from within a fork.
587 • "XSLoader" upgraded to version 0.10
589 • "XS::APItest" and "XS::Typemap" are for internal use only and hence
591 no longer installed. Many more tests have been added to
592 "XS::APItest".
593
595 debugger upgraded to version 1.31
596 • Andreas König contributed two functions to save and load the
597 debugger history.
598 • "NEXT::AUTOLOAD" no longer emits warnings under the debugger.
600 • The debugger should now correctly find tty the device on OS X 10.5
602 and VMS when the program "fork"s.
603 • LVALUE subs now work inside the debugger.
605 perlthanks
607 Perl 5.8.9 adds a new utility perlthanks, which is a variant of
608 perlbug, but for sending non-bug-reports to the authors and maintainers
609 of Perl. Getting nothing but bug reports can become a bit demoralising
610 - we'll see if this changes things.
611 perlbug
613 perlbug now checks if you're reporting about a non-core module and
614 suggests you report it to the CPAN author instead.
615 h2xs
617 • won't define an empty string as a constant [RT #25366]
618 • has examples for "h2xs -X"
620 h2ph
622 • now attempts to deal sensibly with the difference in path
623 implications between "" and "<>" quoting in "#include" statements.
624 • now generates correct code for "#if defined A || defined B" [RT
626 #39130]
627
629 As usual, the documentation received its share of corrections,
630 clarifications and other nitfixes. More "" tags were added for
631 indexing.
632 perlunitut is a tutorial written by Juerd Waalboer on Unicode-related
634 terminology and how to correctly handle Unicode in Perl scripts.
635 perlunicode is updated in section user defined properties.
637 perluniintro has been updated in the example of detecting data that is
639 not valid in particular encoding.
640 perlcommunity provides an overview of the Perl Community along with
642 further resources.
643 CORE documents the pseudo-namespace for Perl's core routines.
645
647 perlglossary adds deprecated modules and features and to be dropped
648 modules.
649 perlhack has been updated and added resources on smoke testing.
651 The Perl FAQs (perlfaq1..perlfaq9) have been updated.
653 perlcheat is updated with better details on "\w", "\d", and "\s".
655 perldebug is updated with information on how to call the debugger.
657 perldiag documentation updated with subroutine with an ampersand on the
659 argument to "exists" and "delete" and also several terminology updates
660 on warnings.
661 perlfork documents the limitation of "exec" inside pseudo-processes.
663 perlfunc:
665 • Documentation is fixed in section "caller" and "pop".
667 • Function "alarm" now mentions "Time::HiRes::ualarm" in preference
669 to "select".
670 • Regarding precedence in "-X", filetest operators are the same as
672 unary operators, but not regarding parsing and parentheses (spotted
673 by Eirik Berg Hanssen).
674 • "reverse" function documentation received scalar context examples.
676 perllocale documentation is adjusted for number localization and
678 "POSIX::setlocale" to fix Debian bug #379463.
679 perlmodlib is updated with "CPAN::API::HOWTO" and
681 "Sys::Syslog::win32::Win32"
682 perlre documentation updated to reflect the differences between
684 "[[:xxxxx:]]" and "\p{IsXxxxx}" matches. Also added section on "/g" and
685 "/c" modifiers.
686 perlreguts describe the internals of the regular expressions engine. It
688 has been contributed by Yves Orton.
689 perlrebackslash describes all perl regular expression backslash and
691 escape sequences.
692 perlrecharclass describes the syntax and use of character classes in
694 Perl Regular Expressions.
695 perlrun is updated to clarify on the hash seed PERL_HASH_SEED. Also
697 more information in options "-x" and "-u".
698 perlsub example is updated to use a lexical variable for "opendir"
700 syntax.
701 perlvar fixes confusion about real GID $( and effective GID $).
703 Perl thread tutorial example is fixed in section "Queues: Passing Data
705 Around" in perlthrtut and perlthrtut.
706 perlhack documentation extensively improved by Jarkko Hietaniemi and
708 others.
709 perltoot provides information on modifying @UNIVERSAL::ISA.
711 perlport documentation extended to include different "kill(-9, ...)"
713 semantics on Windows. It also clearly states "dump" is not supported on
714 Win32 and cygwin.
715 INSTALL has been updated and modernised.
717
719 • The default since perl 5.000 has been for perl to create an empty
720 scalar with every new typeglob. The increased use of lexical
721 variables means that most are now unused. Thanks to Nicholas
722 Clark's efforts, Perl can now be compiled with
723 "-DPERL_DONT_CREATE_GVSV" to avoid creating these empty scalars.
724 This will significantly decrease the number of scalars allocated
725 for all configurations, and the number of scalars that need to be
726 copied for ithread creation. Whilst this option is binary
727 compatible with existing perl installations, it does change a long-
728 standing assumption about the internals, hence it is not enabled by
729 default, as some third party code may rely on the old behaviour.
730 We would recommend testing with this configuration on new
732 deployments of perl, particularly for multi-threaded servers, to
733 see whether all third party code is compatible with it, as this
734 configuration may give useful performance improvements. For
735 existing installations we would not recommend changing to this
736 configuration unless thorough testing is performed before
737 deployment.
738 • "diagnostics" no longer uses $&, which results in large speedups
740 for regexp matching in all code using it.
741 • Regular expressions classes of a single character are now treated
743 the same as if the character had been used as a literal, meaning
744 that code that uses char-classes as an escaping mechanism will see
745 a speedup. (Yves Orton)
746 • Creating anonymous array and hash references (ie. "[]" and "{}")
748 now incurs no more overhead than creating an anonymous list or
749 hash. Nicholas Clark provided changes with a saving of two ops and
750 one stack push, which was measured as a slightly better than 5%
751 improvement for these operations.
752 • Many calls to strlen() have been eliminated, either because the
754 length was already known, or by adopting or enhancing APIs that
755 pass lengths. This has been aided by the adoption of a my_sprintf()
756 wrapper, which returns the correct C89 value - the length of the
757 formatted string. Previously we could not rely on the return value
758 of sprintf(), because on some ancient but extant platforms it still
759 returns "char *".
760 • "index" is now faster if the search string is stored in UTF-8 but
762 only contains characters in the Latin-1 range.
763 • The Unicode swatch cache inside the regexp engine is now used. (the
765 lookup had a key mismatch, present since the initial
766 implementation). [RT #42839]
767
769 Relocatable installations
770 There is now Configure support for creating a relocatable perl tree. If
771 you Configure with "-Duserelocatableinc", then the paths in @INC (and
772 everything else in %Config) can be optionally located via the path of
773 the perl executable.
774 At start time, if any paths in @INC or "Config" that Configure marked
776 as relocatable (by starting them with ".../"), then they are prefixed
777 the directory of $^X. This allows the relocation can be configured on a
778 per-directory basis, although the default with "-Duserelocatableinc" is
779 that everything is relocated. The initial install is done to the
780 original configured prefix.
781 Configuration improvements
783 Configure is now better at removing temporary files. Tom Callaway (from
784 RedHat) also contributed patches that complete the set of flags passed
785 to the compiler and the linker, in particular that "-fPIC" is now
786 enabled on Linux. It will also croak when your /dev/null isn't a
787 device.
788 A new configuration variable "d_pseudofork" has been to Configure, and
790 is available as $Config{d_pseudofork} in the "Config" module. This
791 distinguishes real "fork" support from the pseudofork emulation used on
792 Windows platforms.
793 Config.pod and config.sh are now placed correctly for cross-
795 compilation.
796 $Config{useshrplib} is now 'true' rather than 'yes' when using a shared
798 perl library.
799 Compilation improvements
801 Parallel makes should work properly now, although there may still be
802 problems if "make test" is instructed to run in parallel.
803 Many compilation warnings have been cleaned up. A very stubborn
805 compiler warning in S_emulate_eaccess() was killed after six attempts.
806 g++ support has been tuned, especially for FreeBSD.
807 mkppport has been integrated, and all ppport.h files in the core will
809 now be autogenerated at build time (and removed during cleanup).
810 Installation improvements.
812 installman now works with "-Duserelocatableinc" and "DESTDIR".
813 installperl no longer installs:
815 • static library files of statically linked extensions when a shared
817 perl library is being used. (They are not needed. See "Windows"
818 below).
819 • SIGNATURE and PAUSE*.pub (CPAN files)
821 • NOTES and PATCHING (ExtUtils files)
823 • perlld and ld2 (Cygwin files)
825 Platform Specific Changes
827 There are improved hints for AIX, Cygwin, DEC/OSF, FreeBSD, HP/UX, Irix
828 6 Linux, MachTen, NetBSD, OS/390, QNX, SCO, Solaris, SunOS, System V
829 Release 5.x (UnixWare 7, OpenUNIX 8), Ultrix, UMIPS, uts and VOS.
830 FreeBSD
832 • Drop "-std=c89" and "-ansi" if using "long long" as the main
834 integral type, else in FreeBSD 6.2 (and perhaps other releases),
835 system headers do not declare some functions required by perl.
836 Solaris
838 • Starting with Solaris 10, we do not want versioned shared
840 libraries, because those often indicate a private use only library.
841 These problems could often be triggered when SUNWbdb (Berkeley DB)
842 was installed. Hence if Solaris 10 is detected set
843 "ignore_versioned_solibs=y".
844 VMS
846 • Allow IEEE math to be deselected on OpenVMS I64 (but it remains the
848 default).
849 • Record IEEE usage in "config.h"
851 • Help older VMS compilers by using "ccflags" when building
853 "munchconfig.exe".
854 • Don't try to build old "Thread" extension on VMS when
856 "-Duseithreads" has been chosen.
857 • Passing a raw string of "NaN" to nawk causes a core dump - so the
859 string has been changed to "*NaN*"
860 • t/op/stat.t tests will now test hard links on VMS if they are
862 supported.
863 Windows
865 • When using a shared perl library installperl no longer installs
867 static library files, import library files and export library files
868 (of statically linked extensions) and empty bootstrap files (of
869 dynamically linked extensions). This fixes a problem building PAR-
870 Packer on Win32 with a debug build of perl.
871 • Various improvements to the win32 build process, including support
873 for Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (aka Visual C++ 8.x).
874 • perl.exe will now have an icon if built with MinGW or Borland.
876 • Improvements to the perl-static.exe build process.
878 • Add Win32 makefile option to link all extensions statically.
880 • The WinCE directory has been merged into the Win32 directory.
882 • "setlocale" tests have been re-enabled for Windows XP onwards.
884
886 Unicode
887 Many many bugs related to the internal Unicode implementation (UTF-8)
888 have been fixed. In particular, long standing bugs related to returning
889 Unicode via "tie", overloading or $@ are now gone, some of which were
890 never reported.
891 "unpack" will internally convert the string back from UTF-8 on numeric
893 types. This is a compromise between the full consistency now in 5.10,
894 and the current behaviour, which is often used as a "feature" on string
895 types.
896 Using ":crlf" and "UTF-16" IO layers together will now work.
898 Fixed problems with "split", Unicode "/\s+/" and "/ \0/".
900 Fixed bug RT #40641 - encoding of Unicode characters in regular
902 expressions.
903 Fixed a bug where using certain patterns in a regexp led to a panic.
905 [RT #45337]
906 Perl no longer segfaults (due to infinite internal recursion) if the
908 locale's character is not UTF-8 [RT #41442]:
909 use open ':locale';
911 print STDERR "\x{201e}"; # „
912 PerlIO
914 Inconsistencies have been fixed in the reference counting PerlIO uses
915 to keep track of Unix file descriptors, and the API used by XS code to
916 manage getting and releasing "FILE *"s
917 Magic
919 Several bugs have been fixed in Magic, the internal system used to
920 implement features such as "tie", tainting and threads sharing.
921 "undef @array" on a tied array now correctly calls the "CLEAR" method.
923 Some of the bitwise ops were not checking whether their arguments were
925 magical before using them. [RT #24816]
926 Magic is no longer invoked twice by the expression "\&$x"
928 A bug with assigning large numbers and tainting has been resolved. [RT
930 #40708]
931 A new entry has been added to the MAGIC vtable - "svt_local". This is
933 used when copying magic to the new value during "local", allowing
934 certain problems with localising shared variables to be resolved.
935 For the implementation details, see "Magic Virtual Tables" in perlguts.
937 Reblessing overloaded objects now works
939 Internally, perl object-ness is on the referent, not the reference,
940 even though methods can only be called via a reference. However, the
941 original implementation of overloading stored flags related to
942 overloading on the reference, relying on the flags being copied when
943 the reference was copied, or set at the creation of a new reference.
944 This manifests in a bug - if you rebless an object from a class that
945 has overloading, into one that does not, then any other existing
946 references think that they (still) point to an overloaded object,
947 choose these C code paths, and then throw errors. Analogously,
948 blessing into an overloaded class when other references exist will
949 result in them not using overloading.
950 The implementation has been fixed for 5.10, but this fix changes the
952 semantics of flag bits, so is not binary compatible, so can't be
953 applied to 5.8.9. However, 5.8.9 has a work-around that implements the
954 same bug fix. If the referent has multiple references, then all the
955 other references are located and corrected. A full search is avoided
956 whenever possible by scanning lexicals outwards from the current
957 subroutine, and the argument stack.
958 A certain well known Linux vendor applied incomplete versions of this
960 bug fix to their /usr/bin/perl and then prematurely closed bug reports
961 about performance issues without consulting back upstream. This not
962 being enough, they then proceeded to ignore the necessary fixes to
963 these unreleased changes for 11 months, until massive pressure was
964 applied by their long-suffering paying customers, catalysed by the
965 failings being featured on a prominent blog and Slashdot.
966 "strict" now propagates correctly into string evals
968 Under 5.8.8 and earlier:
969 $ perl5.8.8 -e 'use strict; eval "use foo bar" or die $@'
971 Can't locate foo.pm in @INC (@INC contains: ... .) at (eval 1) line 2.
972 BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 2.
973 Under 5.8.9 and later:
975 $ perl5.8.9 -e 'use strict; eval "use foo bar" or die $@'
977 Bareword "bar" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at (eval 1) line 1.
978 This may cause problems with programs that parse the error message and
980 rely on the buggy behaviour.
981 Other fixes
983 • The tokenizer no longer treats "=cute" (and other words beginning
984 with "=cut") as a synonym for "=cut".
985 • Calling "CORE::require"
987 "CORE::require" and "CORE::do" were always parsed as "require" and
989 "do" when they were overridden. This is now fixed.
990 • Stopped memory leak on long /etc/groups entries.
992 • "while (my $x ...) { ...; redo }" shouldn't "undef $x".
994 In the presence of "my" in the conditional of a while(), until(),
996 or for(;;) loop, we now add an extra scope to the body so that
997 "redo" doesn't "undef" the lexical.
998 • The "encoding" pragma now correctly ignores anything following an
1000 "@" character in the "LC_ALL" and "LANG" environment variables. [RT
1001 # 49646]
1002 • A segfault observed with some gcc 3.3 optimisations is resolved.
1004 • A possible segfault when "unpack" used in scalar context with "()"
1006 groups is resolved. [RT #50256]
1007 • Resolved issue where $! could be changed by a signal handler
1009 interrupting a "system" call.
1010 • Fixed bug RT #37886, symbolic dereferencing was allowed in the
1012 argument of "defined" even under the influence of "use strict
1013 'refs'".
1014 • Fixed bug RT #43207, where "lc"/"uc" inside "sort" affected the
1016 return value.
1017 • Fixed bug RT #45607, where "*{"BONK"} = \&{"BONK"}" didn't work
1019 correctly.
1020 • Fixed bug RT #35878, croaking from a XSUB called via "goto &xsub"
1022 corrupts perl internals.
1023 • Fixed bug RT #32539, DynaLoader.o is moved into libperl.so to avoid
1025 the need to statically link DynaLoader into the stub perl
1026 executable. With this libperl.so provides everything needed to get
1027 a functional embedded perl interpreter to run.
1028 • Fix bug RT #36267 so that assigning to a tied hash doesn't change
1030 the underlying hash.
1031 • Fix bug RT #6006, regexp replaces using large replacement variables
1033 fail some of the time, i.e. when substitution contains something
1034 like "${10}" (note the bracket) instead of just $10.
1035 • Fix bug RT #45053, Perl_newCONSTSUB() is now thread safe.
1037 Platform Specific Fixes
1039 Darwin / MacOS X
1040 • Various improvements to 64 bit builds.
1042 • Mutex protection added in PerlIOStdio_close() to avoid race
1044 conditions. Hopefully this fixes failures in the threads tests
1045 free.t and blocks.t.
1046 • Added forked terminal support to the debugger, with the ability to
1048 update the window title.
1049 OS/2
1051 • A build problem with specifying "USE_MULTI" and "USE_ITHREADS" but
1053 without "USE_IMP_SYS" has been fixed.
1054 • "OS2::REXX" upgraded to version 1.04
1056 Tru64
1058 • Aligned floating point build policies for cc and gcc.
1060 RedHat Linux
1062 • Revisited a patch from 5.6.1 for RH7.2 for Intel's icc [RT #7916],
1064 added an additional check for $Config{gccversion}.
1065 Solaris/i386
1067 • Use "-DPTR_IS_LONG" when using 64 bit integers
1069 VMS
1071 • Fixed "PerlIO::Scalar" in-memory file record-style reads.
1073 • pipe shutdown at process exit should now be more robust.
1075 • Bugs in VMS exit handling tickled by "Test::Harness" 2.64 have been
1077 fixed.
1078 • Fix fcntl() locking capability test in configure.com.
1080 • Replaced "shrplib='define'" with "useshrplib='true'" on VMS.
1082 Windows
1084 • "File::Find" used to fail when the target directory is a bare drive
1086 letter and "no_chdir" is 1 (the default is 0). [RT #41555]
1087 • A build problem with specifying "USE_MULTI" and "USE_ITHREADS" but
1089 without "USE_IMP_SYS" has been fixed.
1090 • The process id is no longer truncated to 16 bits on some Windows
1092 platforms ( http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=72443 )
1093 • Fixed bug RT #54828 in perlio.c where calling "binmode" on Win32
1095 and Cygwin may cause a segmentation fault.
1096 Smaller fixes
1098 • It is now possible to overload "eq" when using "nomethod".
1099 • Various problems using "overload" with 64 bit integers corrected.
1101 • The reference count of "PerlIO" file descriptors is now correctly
1103 handled.
1104 • On VMS, escaped dots will be preserved when converted to Unix
1106 syntax.
1107 • "keys %+" no longer throws an 'ambiguous' warning.
1109 • Using "#!perl -d" could trigger an assertion, which has been fixed.
1111 • Don't stringify tied code references in @INC when calling
1113 "require".
1114 • Code references in @INC report the correct file name when
1116 "__FILE__" is used.
1117 • Width and precision in sprintf didn't handle characters above 255
1119 correctly. [RT #40473]
1120 • List slices with indices out of range now work more consistently.
1122 [RT #39882]
1123 • A change introduced with perl 5.8.1 broke the parsing of arguments
1125 of the form "-foo=bar" with the "-s" on the <#!> line. This has
1126 been fixed. See http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=43483
1127 • "tr///" is now threadsafe. Previously it was storing a swash inside
1129 its OP, rather than in a pad.
1130 • pod2html labels anchors more consistently and handles nested
1132 definition lists better.
1133 • "threads" cleanup veto has been extended to include perl_free() and
1135 perl_destruct()
1136 • On some systems, changes to $ENV{TZ} would not always be respected
1138 by the underlying calls to localtime_r(). Perl now forces the
1139 inspection of the environment on these systems.
1140 • The special variable $^R is now more consistently set when
1142 executing regexps using the "(?{...})" construct. In particular,
1143 it will still be set even if backreferences or optional sub-
1144 patterns "(?:...)?" are used.
1145
1147 panic: sv_chop %s
1148 This new fatal error occurs when the C routine Perl_sv_chop() was
1149 passed a position that is not within the scalar's string buffer. This
1150 is caused by buggy XS code, and at this point recovery is not possible.
1151 Maximal count of pending signals (%s) exceeded
1153 This new fatal error occurs when the perl process has to abort due to
1154 too many pending signals, which is bound to prevent perl from being
1155 able to handle further incoming signals safely.
1156 panic: attempt to call %s in %s
1158 This new fatal error occurs when the ACL version file test operator is
1159 used where it is not available on the current platform. Earlier checks
1160 mean that it should never be possible to get this.
1161 FETCHSIZE returned a negative value
1163 New error indicating that a tied array has claimed to have a negative
1164 number of elements.
1165 Can't upgrade %s (%d) to %d
1167 Previously the internal error from the SV upgrade code was the less
1168 informative Can't upgrade that kind of scalar. It now reports the
1169 current internal type, and the new type requested.
1170 %s argument is not a HASH or ARRAY element or a subroutine
1172 This error, thrown if an invalid argument is provided to "exists" now
1173 correctly includes "or a subroutine". [RT #38955]
1174 Cannot make the non-overridable builtin %s fatal
1176 This error in "Fatal" previously did not show the name of the builtin
1177 in question (now represented by %s above).
1178 Unrecognized character '%s' in column %d
1180 This error previously did not state the column.
1181 Offset outside string
1183 This can now also be generated by a "seek" on a file handle using
1184 "PerlIO::scalar".
1185 Invalid escape in the specified encoding in regexp; marked by <-- HERE in
1187 m/%s/
1188 New error, introduced as part of the fix to RT #40641 to handle
1189 encoding of Unicode characters in regular expression comments.
1190 Your machine doesn't support dump/undump.
1192 A more informative fatal error issued when calling "dump" on Win32 and
1193 Cygwin. (Given that the purpose of "dump" is to abort with a core dump,
1194 and core dumps can't be produced on these platforms, this is more
1195 useful than silently exiting.)
1196
1198 The perl sources can now be compiled with a C++ compiler instead of a C
1199 compiler. A necessary implementation details is that under C++, the
1200 macro "XS" used to define XSUBs now includes an "extern "C""
1201 definition. A side effect of this is that C++ code that used the
1202 construction
1203 typedef XS(SwigPerlWrapper);
1205 now needs to be written
1207 typedef XSPROTO(SwigPerlWrapper);
1209 using the new "XSPROTO" macro, in order to compile. C extensions are
1211 unaffected, although C extensions are encouraged to use "XSPROTO" too.
1212 This change was present in the 5.10.0 release of perl, so any actively
1213 maintained code that happened to use this construction should already
1214 have been adapted. Code that needs changing will fail with a
1215 compilation error.
1216 "set" magic on localizing/assigning to a magic variable will now only
1218 trigger for container magics, i.e. it will for %ENV or %SIG but not for
1219 $#array.
1220 The new API macro newSVpvs() can be used in place of constructions such
1222 as "newSVpvn("ISA", 3)". It takes a single string constant, and at C
1223 compile time determines its length.
1224 The new API function Perl_newSV_type() can be used as a more efficient
1226 replacement of the common idiom
1227 sv = newSV(0);
1229 sv_upgrade(sv, type);
1230 Similarly Perl_newSVpvn_flags() can be used to combine Perl_newSVpv()
1232 with Perl_sv_2mortal() or the equivalent Perl_sv_newmortal() with
1233 Perl_sv_setpvn()
1234 Two new macros mPUSHs() and mXPUSHs() are added, to make it easier to
1236 push mortal SVs onto the stack. They were then used to fix several bugs
1237 where values on the stack had not been mortalised.
1238 A Perl_signbit() function was added to test the sign of an "NV". It
1240 maps to the system one when available.
1241 Perl_av_reify(), Perl_lex_end(), Perl_mod(), Perl_op_clear(),
1243 Perl_pop_return(), Perl_qerror(), Perl_setdefout(),
1244 Perl_vivify_defelem() and Perl_yylex() are now visible to extensions.
1245 This was required to allow "Data::Alias" to work on Windows.
1246 Perl_find_runcv() is now visible to perl core extensions. This was
1248 required to allow "Sub::Current" to work on Windows.
1249 "ptr_table*" functions are now available in unthreaded perl. "Storable"
1251 takes advantage of this.
1252 There have been many small cleanups made to the internals. In
1254 particular, Perl_sv_upgrade() has been simplified considerably, with a
1255 straight-through code path that uses memset() and memcpy() to
1256 initialise the new body, rather than assignment via multiple temporary
1257 variables. It has also benefited from simplification and de-duplication
1258 of the arena management code.
1259 A lot of small improvements in the code base were made due to reports
1261 from the Coverity static code analyzer.
1262 Corrected use and documentation of Perl_gv_stashpv(),
1264 Perl_gv_stashpvn(), Perl_gv_stashsv() functions (last parameter is a
1265 bitmask, not boolean).
1266 "PERL_SYS_INIT", "PERL_SYS_INIT3" and "PERL_SYS_TERM" macros have been
1268 changed into functions.
1269 "PERLSYS_TERM" no longer requires a context. PerlIO_teardown() is now
1271 called without a context, and debugging output in this function has
1272 been disabled because that required that an interpreter was present, an
1273 invalid assumption at termination time.
1274 All compile time options which affect binary compatibility have been
1276 grouped together into a global variable ("PL_bincompat_options").
1277 The values of "PERL_REVISION", "PERL_VERSION" and "PERL_SUBVERSION" are
1279 now baked into global variables (and hence into any shared perl
1280 library). Additionally under "MULTIPLICITY", the perl executable now
1281 records the size of the interpreter structure (total, and for this
1282 version). Coupled with "PL_bincompat_options" this will allow 5.8.10
1283 (and later), when compiled with a shared perl library, to perform
1284 sanity checks in main() to verify that the shared library is indeed
1285 binary compatible.
1286 Symbolic references can now have embedded NULs. The new public function
1288 Perl_get_cvn_flags() can be used in extensions if you have to handle
1289 them.
1290 Macro cleanups
1292 The core code, and XS code in ext that is not dual-lived on CPAN, no
1293 longer uses the macros "PL_na", NEWSV(), Null(), "Nullav", "Nullcv",
1294 "Nullhv", "Nullhv" etc. Their use is discouraged in new code,
1295 particularly "PL_na", which is a small performance hit.
1296
1298 Many modules updated from CPAN incorporate new tests. Some core
1299 specific tests have been added:
1300 ext/DynaLoader/t/DynaLoader.t
1302 Tests for the "DynaLoader" module.
1303 t/comp/fold.t
1305 Tests for compile-time constant folding.
1306 t/io/pvbm.t
1308 Tests incorporated from 5.10.0 which check that there is no
1309 unexpected interaction between the internal types "PVBM" and
1310 "PVGV".
1311 t/lib/proxy_constant_subs.t
1313 Tests for the new form of constant subroutines.
1314 t/op/attrhand.t
1316 Tests for "Attribute::Handlers".
1317 t/op/dbm.t
1319 Tests for "dbmopen".
1320 t/op/inccode-tie.t
1322 Calls all tests in t/op/inccode.t after first tying @INC.
1323 t/op/incfilter.t
1325 Tests for source filters returned from code references in @INC.
1326 t/op/kill0.t
1328 Tests for RT #30970.
1329 t/op/qrstack.t
1331 Tests for RT #41484.
1332 t/op/qr.t
1334 Tests for the "qr//" construct.
1335 t/op/regexp_qr_embed.t
1337 Tests for the "qr//" construct within another regexp.
1338 t/op/regexp_qr.t
1340 Tests for the "qr//" construct.
1341 t/op/rxcode.t
1343 Tests for RT #32840.
1344 t/op/studytied.t
1346 Tests for "study" on tied scalars.
1347 t/op/substT.t
1349 Tests for "subst" run under "-T" mode.
1350 t/op/symbolcache.t
1352 Tests for "undef" and "delete" on stash entries that are bound to
1353 subroutines or methods.
1354 t/op/upgrade.t
1356 Tests for Perl_sv_upgrade().
1357 t/mro/package_aliases.t
1359 MRO tests for "isa" and package aliases.
1360 t/pod/twice.t
1362 Tests for calling "Pod::Parser" twice.
1363 t/run/cloexec.t
1365 Tests for inheriting file descriptors across "exec" (close-on-
1366 exec).
1367 t/uni/cache.t
1369 Tests for the UTF-8 caching code.
1370 t/uni/chr.t
1372 Test that strange encodings do not upset Perl_pp_chr().
1373 t/uni/greek.t
1375 Tests for RT #40641.
1376 t/uni/latin2.t
1378 Tests for RT #40641.
1379 t/uni/overload.t
1381 Tests for returning Unicode from overloaded values.
1382 t/uni/tie.t
1384 Tests for returning Unicode from tied variables.
1385
1387 There are no known new bugs.
1388 However, programs that rely on bugs that have been fixed will have
1390 problems. Also, many bug fixes present in 5.10.0 can't be back-ported
1391 to the 5.8.x branch, because they require changes that are binary
1392 incompatible, or because the code changes are too large and hence too
1393 risky to incorporate.
1394 We have only limited volunteer labour, and the maintenance burden is
1396 getting increasingly complex. Hence this will be the last significant
1397 release of the 5.8.x series. Any future releases of 5.8.x will likely
1398 only be to deal with security issues, and platform build failures.
1399 Hence you should look to migrating to 5.10.x, if you have not started
1400 already. Alternatively, if business requirements constrain you to
1401 continue to use 5.8.x, you may wish to consider commercial support from
1402 firms such as ActiveState.
1403
1405 Win32
1406 readdir(), cwd(), $^X and @INC now use the alternate (short) filename
1407 if the long name is outside the current codepage (Jan Dubois).
1408 Updated Modules
1410 • "Win32" upgraded to version 0.38. Now has a documented 'WinVista'
1412 response from "GetOSName" and support for Vista's privilege
1413 elevation in "IsAdminUser". Support for Unicode characters in path
1414 names. Improved cygwin and Win64 compatibility.
1415 • "Win32API" updated to 0.1001_01
1417 • killpg() support added to "MSWin32" (Jan Dubois).
1419 • "File::Spec::Win32" upgraded to version 3.2701
1421 OS/2
1423 Updated Modules
1424 • "OS2::Process" upgraded to 1.03
1426 Ilya Zakharevich has added and documented several "Window*" and
1428 "Clipbrd*" functions.
1429 • "OS2::REXX::DLL", "OS2::REXX" updated to version 1.03
1431 VMS
1433 Updated Modules
1434 • "DCLsym" upgraded to version 1.03
1436 • "Stdio" upgraded to version 2.4
1438 • "VMS::XSSymSet" upgraded to 1.1.
1440
1442 Nick Ing-Simmons, long time Perl hacker, author of the "Tk" and
1443 "Encode" modules, perlio.c in the core, and 5.003_02 pumpking, died of
1444 a heart attack on 25th September 2006. He will be missed.
1445
1447 Some of the work in this release was funded by a TPF grant.
1448 Steve Hay worked behind the scenes working out the causes of the
1450 differences between core modules, their CPAN releases, and previous
1451 core releases, and the best way to rectify them. He doesn't want to do
1452 it again. I know this feeling, and I'm very glad he did it this time,
1453 instead of me.
1454 Paul Fenwick assembled a team of 18 volunteers, who broke the back of
1456 writing this document. In particular, Bradley Dean, Eddy Tan, and
1457 Vincent Pit provided half the team's contribution.
1458 Schwern verified the list of updated module versions, correcting quite
1460 a few errors that I (and everyone else) had missed, both wrongly stated
1461 module versions, and changed modules that had not been listed.
1462 The crack Berlin-based QA team of Andreas König and Slaven Rezic
1464 tirelessly re-built snapshots, tested most everything CPAN against
1465 them, and then identified the changes responsible for any module
1466 regressions, ensuring that several show-stopper bugs were stomped
1467 before the first release candidate was cut.
1468 The other core committers contributed most of the changes, and applied
1470 most of the patches sent in by the hundreds of contributors listed in
1471 AUTHORS.
1472 And obviously, Larry Wall, without whom we wouldn't have Perl.
1474
1476 If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
1477 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug
1478 database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be information at
1479 http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
1480 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug
1482 program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down to a
1483 tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the output
1484 of "perl -V", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by
1485 the Perl porting team. You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at
1486 http://bugs.perl.org/
1487 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
1489 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please
1490 send it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed
1491 subscription unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core
1492 committers, who will be able to help assess the impact of issues,
1493 figure out a resolution, and help co-ordinate the release of patches to
1494 mitigate or fix the problem across all platforms on which Perl is
1495 supported. Please only use this address for security issues in the Perl
1496 core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
1497
1499 The Changes file for exhaustive details on what changed.
1500 The INSTALL file for how to build Perl.
1502 The README file for general stuff.
1504 The Artistic and Copying files for copyright information.
1506perl v5.38.2 2023-11-30 PERL589DELTA(1)