PERL583DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL583DELTA(1) #

PERL583DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL583DELTA(1)

NNAAMMEE #

 perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN #

 This document describes differences between the 5.8.2 release and the
 5.8.3 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 and perl582delta, which describe differences between
 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2

IInnccoommppaattiibbllee CChhaannggeess There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2.

CCoorree EEnnhhaanncceemmeennttss A “SCALAR” method is now available for tied hashes. This is called when a tied hash is used in scalar context, such as

     if (%tied_hash) {
         ...
     }

 The old behaviour was that %tied_hash would return whatever would have
 been returned for that hash before the hash was tied (so usually 0). The
 new behaviour in the absence of a SCALAR method is to return TRUE if in
 the middle of an "each" iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY to check
 if the hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent "each" will also
 begin by calling FIRSTKEY). Please see "SCALAR" in perltie for the full
 details and caveats.

MMoodduulleess aanndd PPrraaggmmaattaa

CGI #

 Cwd
 Digest
 Digest::MD5
 Encode
 File::Spec
 FindBin
     A function "again" is provided to resolve problems where modules in
     different directories wish to use FindBin.

 List::Util
     You can now weaken references to read only values.

 Math::BigInt
 PodParser
 Pod::Perldoc

POSIX #

 Unicode::Collate
 Unicode::Normalize
 Test::Harness
 threads::shared
     "cond_wait" has a new two argument form. "cond_timedwait" has been
     added.

UUttiilliittyy CChhaannggeess “find2perl” now assumes “-print” as a default action. Previously, it needed to be specified explicitly.

 A new utility, "prove", makes it easy to run an individual regression
 test at the command line. "prove" is part of Test::Harness, which users
 of earlier Perl versions can install from CPAN.

NNeeww DDooccuummeennttaattiioonn The documentation has been revised in places to produce more standard manpages.

 The documentation for the special code blocks (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, END)
 has been improved.

IInnssttaallllaattiioonn aanndd CCoonnffiigguurraattiioonn IImmpprroovveemmeennttss Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64

SSeelleecctteedd BBuugg FFiixxeess Using ssuubbssttrr(()) on a UTF8 string could cause subsequent accesses on that string to return garbage. This was due to incorrect UTF8 offsets being cached, and is now fixed.

 jjooiinn(()) could return garbage when the same jjooiinn(()) statement was used to
 process 8 bit data having earlier processed UTF8 data, due to the flags
 on that statement's temporary workspace not being reset correctly. This
 is now fixed.

 "$a .. $b" will now work as expected when either $a or $b is "undef"

 Using Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly.

 Reading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the C code implementing $^E did
 not preserve "errno", so reading $^E could cause "errno" and therefore $!
 to change unexpectedly.

 Reentrant functions will (once more) work with C++. 5.8.2 introduced a
 bugfix which accidentally broke the compilation of Perl extensions
 written in C++

NNeeww oorr CChhaannggeedd DDiiaaggnnoossttiiccss The fatal error “DESTROY created new reference to dead object” is now documented in perldiag.

CChhaannggeedd IInntteerrnnaallss The hash code has been refactored to reduce source duplication. The external interface is unchanged, and aside from the bug fixes described above, there should be no change in behaviour.

 "hv_clear_placeholders" is now part of the perl API

 Some C macros have been tidied. In particular macros which create
 temporary local variables now name these variables more defensively,
 which should avoid bugs where names clash.

 <signal.h> is now always included.

CCoonnffiigguurraattiioonn aanndd BBuuiillddiinngg “Configure” now invokes callbacks regardless of the value of the variable they are called for. Previously callbacks were only invoked in the “case $variable $define)” branch. This change should only affect platform maintainers writing configuration hints files.

PPllaattffoorrmm SSppeecciiffiicc PPrroobblleemmss The regression test ext/threads/shared/t/wait.t fails on early RedHat 9 and HP-UX 10.20 due to bugs in their threading implementations. RedHat users should see https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-136.html and consider upgrading their glibc.

KKnnoowwnn PPrroobblleemmss Detached threads aren’t supported on Windows yet, as they may lead to memory access violation problems.

 There is a known race condition opening scripts in "suidperl". "suidperl"
 is neither built nor installed by default, and has been deprecated since
 perl 5.8.0. You are advised to replace use of suidperl with tools such as
 sudo ( http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ )

 We have a backlog of unresolved bugs. Dealing with bugs and bug reports
 is unglamorous work; not something ideally suited to volunteer labour,
 but that is all that we have.

 The perl5 development team are implementing changes to help address this
 problem, which should go live in early 2004.

FFuuttuurree DDiirreeccttiioonnss Code freeze for the next maintenance release (5.8.4) is on March 31st 2004, with release expected by mid April. Similarly 5.8.5’s freeze will be at the end of June, with release by mid July.

OObbiittuuaarryy Iain ‘Spoon’ Truskett, Perl hacker, author of perlreref and contributor to CPAN, died suddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24. He will be missed.

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.org, 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 2004-08-09 PERL583DELTA(1)