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

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

NNAAMMEE #

 perl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN #

 This document describes differences between the 5.8.1 release and the
 5.8.2 release.

 If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1, first read
 the perl58delta, which describes differences between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0, and
 the perl581delta, which describes differences between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1.

IInnccoommppaattiibbllee CChhaannggeess For threaded builds for modules calling certain re-entrant system calls, binary compatibility was accidentally lost between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1. Binary compatibility with 5.8.0 has been restored in 5.8.2, which necessitates breaking compatibility with 5.8.1. We see this as the lesser of two evils.

 This will only affect people who have a threaded perl 5.8.1, and compiled
 modules which use these calls, and now attempt to run the compiled
 modules with 5.8.2. The fix is to re-compile and re-install the modules
 using 5.8.2.

CCoorree EEnnhhaanncceemmeennttss HHaasshh RRaannddoommiissaattiioonn The hash randomisation introduced with 5.8.1 has been amended. It transpired that although the implementation introduced in 5.8.1 was source compatible with 5.8.0, it was not binary compatible in certain cases. 5.8.2 contains an improved implementation which is both source and binary compatible with both 5.8.0 and 5.8.1, and remains robust against the form of attack which prompted the change for 5.8.1.

 We are grateful to the Debian project for their input in this area.  See
 "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec for the original rationale
 behind this change.

TThhrreeaaddiinngg Several memory leaks associated with variables shared between threads have been fixed.

MMoodduulleess aanndd PPrraaggmmaattaa UUppddaatteedd MMoodduulleess AAnndd PPrraaggmmaattaa The following modules and pragmata have been updated since Perl 5.8.1:

 Devel::PPPort
 Digest::MD5
 I18N::LangTags
 libnet
 MIME::Base64
 Pod::Perldoc
 strict
     Documentation improved

 Tie::Hash
     Documentation improved

 Time::HiRes
 Unicode::Collate
 Unicode::Normalize

UNIVERSAL #

     Documentation improved

SSeelleecctteedd BBuugg FFiixxeess Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators are now handled correctly by the parser.

CChhaannggeedd IInntteerrnnaallss Interpreter initialization is more complete when -DMULTIPLICITY is off. This should resolve problems with initializing and destroying the Perl interpreter more than once in a single process.

PPllaattffoorrmm SSppeecciiffiicc PPrroobblleemmss Dynamic linker flags have been tweaked for Solaris and OS X, which should solve problems seen while building some XS modules.

 Bugs in OS/2 sockets and tmpfile have been fixed.

 In OS X "setreuid" and friends are troublesome - perl will now work
 around their problems as best possible.

FFuuttuurree DDiirreeccttiioonnss Starting with 5.8.3 we intend to make more frequent maintenance releases, with a smaller number of changes in each. The intent is to propagate bug fixes out to stable releases more rapidly and make upgrading stable releases less of an upheaval. This should give end users more flexibility in their choice of upgrade timing, and allow them easier assessment of the impact of upgrades. The current plan is for code freezes as follows

 •   5.8.3 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday December 31st 2003

 •   5.8.4 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday March 31st 2004

 •   5.8.5 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday June 30th 2004

 with the release following soon after, when testing is complete.

 See "Future Directions" in perl581delta for more soothsaying.

RReeppoorrttiinngg BBuuggss If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/. There may also be information at http://www.perl.com/, the Perl Home Page.

 If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the ppeerrllbbuugg program
 included with your release.  Be sure to trim your bug down to a tiny but
 sufficient test case.  Your bug report, along with the output of "perl
 -V", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by the Perl
 porting team.  You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at
 http://bugs.perl.org/

SSEEEE AALLSSOO #

 The _C_h_a_n_g_e_s file for exhaustive details on what changed.

 The _I_N_S_T_A_L_L file for how to build Perl.

 The _R_E_A_D_M_E file for general stuff.

 The _A_r_t_i_s_t_i_c and _C_o_p_y_i_n_g files for copyright information.

perl v5.36.3 2004-04-07 PERL582DELTA(1)