| =encoding utf8 |
| |
| =head1 NAME |
| |
| perl5120delta - what is new for perl v5.12.0 |
| |
| =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| |
| This document describes differences between the 5.10.0 release and the |
| 5.12.0 release. |
| |
| Many of the bug fixes in 5.12.0 are already included in the 5.10.1 |
| maintenance release. |
| |
| You can see the list of those changes in the 5.10.1 release notes |
| (L<perl5101delta>). |
| |
| |
| =head1 Core Enhancements |
| |
| =head2 New C<package NAME VERSION> syntax |
| |
| This new syntax allows a module author to set the $VERSION of a namespace |
| when the namespace is declared with 'package'. It eliminates the need |
| for C<our $VERSION = ...> and similar constructs. E.g. |
| |
| package Foo::Bar 1.23; |
| # $Foo::Bar::VERSION == 1.23 |
| |
| There are several advantages to this: |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<$VERSION> is parsed in exactly the same way as C<use NAME VERSION> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<$VERSION> is set at compile time |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<$VERSION> is a version object that provides proper overloading of |
| comparison operators so comparing C<$VERSION> to decimal (1.23) or |
| dotted-decimal (v1.2.3) version numbers works correctly. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Eliminates C<$VERSION = ...> and C<eval $VERSION> clutter |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| As it requires VERSION to be a numeric literal or v-string |
| literal, it can be statically parsed by toolchain modules |
| without C<eval> the way MM-E<gt>parse_version does for C<$VERSION = ...> |
| |
| =back |
| |
| It does not break old code with only C<package NAME>, but code that uses |
| C<package NAME VERSION> will need to be restricted to perl 5.12.0 or newer |
| This is analogous to the change to C<open> from two-args to three-args. |
| Users requiring the latest Perl will benefit, and perhaps after several |
| years, it will become a standard practice. |
| |
| |
| However, C<package NAME VERSION> requires a new, 'strict' version |
| number format. See L<"Version number formats"> for details. |
| |
| |
| =head2 The C<...> operator |
| |
| A new operator, C<...>, nicknamed the Yada Yada operator, has been added. |
| It is intended to mark placeholder code that is not yet implemented. |
| See L<perlop/"Yada Yada Operator">. |
| |
| =head2 Implicit strictures |
| |
| Using the C<use VERSION> syntax with a version number greater or equal |
| to 5.11.0 will lexically enable strictures just like C<use strict> |
| would do (in addition to enabling features.) The following: |
| |
| use 5.12.0; |
| |
| means: |
| |
| use strict; |
| use feature ':5.12'; |
| |
| =head2 Unicode improvements |
| |
| Perl 5.12 comes with Unicode 5.2, the latest version available to |
| us at the time of release. This version of Unicode was released in |
| October 2009. See L<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0> for |
| further details about what's changed in this version of the standard. |
| See L<perlunicode> for instructions on installing and using other versions |
| of Unicode. |
| |
| Additionally, Perl's developers have significantly improved Perl's Unicode |
| implementation. For full details, see L</Unicode overhaul> below. |
| |
| =head2 Y2038 compliance |
| |
| Perl's core time-related functions are now Y2038 compliant. (It may not mean much to you, but your kids will love it!) |
| |
| =head2 qr overloading |
| |
| It is now possible to overload the C<qr//> operator, that is, |
| conversion to regexp, like it was already possible to overload |
| conversion to boolean, string or number of objects. It is invoked when |
| an object appears on the right hand side of the C<=~> operator or when |
| it is interpolated into a regexp. See L<overload>. |
| |
| =head2 Pluggable keywords |
| |
| Extension modules can now cleanly hook into the Perl parser to define |
| new kinds of keyword-headed expression and compound statement. The |
| syntax following the keyword is defined entirely by the extension. This |
| allow a completely non-Perl sublanguage to be parsed inline, with the |
| correct ops cleanly generated. |
| |
| See L<perlapi/PL_keyword_plugin> for the mechanism. The Perl core |
| source distribution also includes a new module |
| L<XS::APItest::KeywordRPN>, which implements reverse Polish notation |
| arithmetic via pluggable keywords. This module is mainly used for test |
| purposes, and is not normally installed, but also serves as an example |
| of how to use the new mechanism. |
| |
| Perl's developers consider this feature to be experimental. We may remove |
| it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. |
| |
| =head2 APIs for more internals |
| |
| The lowest layers of the lexer and parts of the pad system now have C |
| APIs available to XS extensions. These are necessary to support proper |
| use of pluggable keywords, but have other uses too. The new APIs are |
| experimental, and only cover a small proportion of what would be |
| necessary to take full advantage of the core's facilities in these |
| areas. It is intended that the Perl 5.13 development cycle will see the |
| addition of a full range of clean, supported interfaces. |
| |
| Perl's developers consider this feature to be experimental. We may remove |
| it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. |
| |
| =head2 Overridable function lookup |
| |
| Where an extension module hooks the creation of rv2cv ops to modify the |
| subroutine lookup process, this now works correctly for bareword |
| subroutine calls. This means that prototypes on subroutines referenced |
| this way will be processed correctly. (Previously bareword subroutine |
| names were initially looked up, for parsing purposes, by an unhookable |
| mechanism, so extensions could only properly influence subroutine names |
| that appeared with an C<&> sigil.) |
| |
| =head2 A proper interface for pluggable Method Resolution Orders |
| |
| As of Perl 5.12.0 there is a new interface for plugging and using method |
| resolution orders other than the default linear depth first search. |
| The C3 method resolution order added in 5.10.0 has been re-implemented as |
| a plugin, without changing its Perl-space interface. See L<perlmroapi> for |
| more information. |
| |
| |
| |
| =head2 C<\N> experimental regex escape |
| |
| Perl now supports C<\N>, a new regex escape which you can think of as |
| the inverse of C<\n>. It will match any character that is not a newline, |
| independently from the presence or absence of the single line match |
| modifier C</s>. It is not usable within a character class. C<\N{3}> |
| means to match 3 non-newlines; C<\N{5,}> means to match at least 5. |
| C<\N{NAME}> still means the character or sequence named C<NAME>, but |
| C<NAME> no longer can be things like C<3>, or C<5,>. |
| |
| This will break a L<custom charnames translator|charnames/CUSTOM |
| TRANSLATORS> which allows numbers for character names, as C<\N{3}> will |
| now mean to match 3 non-newline characters, and not the character whose |
| name is C<3>. (No name defined by the Unicode standard is a number, |
| so only custom translators might be affected.) |
| |
| Perl's developers are somewhat concerned about possible user confusion |
| with the existing C<\N{...}> construct which matches characters by their |
| Unicode name. Consequently, this feature is experimental. We may remove |
| it or change it in a backwards-incompatible way in Perl 5.14. |
| |
| =head2 DTrace support |
| |
| Perl now has some support for DTrace. See "DTrace support" in F<INSTALL>. |
| |
| =head2 Support for C<configure_requires> in CPAN module metadata |
| |
| Both C<CPAN> and C<CPANPLUS> now support the C<configure_requires> |
| keyword in the F<META.yml> metadata file included in most recent CPAN |
| distributions. This allows distribution authors to specify configuration |
| prerequisites that must be installed before running F<Makefile.PL> |
| or F<Build.PL>. |
| |
| See the documentation for C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> or C<Module::Build> for |
| more on how to specify C<configure_requires> when creating a distribution |
| for CPAN. |
| |
| =head2 C<each>, C<keys>, C<values> are now more flexible |
| |
| The C<each>, C<keys>, C<values> function can now operate on arrays. |
| |
| =head2 C<when> as a statement modifier |
| |
| C<when> is now allowed to be used as a statement modifier. |
| |
| =head2 C<$,> flexibility |
| |
| The variable C<$,> may now be tied. |
| |
| =head2 // in when clauses |
| |
| // now behaves like || in when clauses |
| |
| =head2 Enabling warnings from your shell environment |
| |
| You can now set C<-W> from the C<PERL5OPT> environment variable |
| |
| =head2 C<delete local> |
| |
| C<delete local> now allows you to locally delete a hash entry. |
| |
| =head2 New support for Abstract namespace sockets |
| |
| Abstract namespace sockets are Linux-specific socket type that live in |
| AF_UNIX family, slightly abusing it to be able to use arbitrary |
| character arrays as addresses: They start with nul byte and are not |
| terminated by nul byte, but with the length passed to the socket() |
| system call. |
| |
| =head2 32-bit limit on substr arguments removed |
| |
| The 32-bit limit on C<substr> arguments has now been removed. The full |
| range of the system's signed and unsigned integers is now available for |
| the C<pos> and C<len> arguments. |
| |
| =head1 Potentially Incompatible Changes |
| |
| =head2 Deprecations warn by default |
| |
| Over the years, Perl's developers have deprecated a number of language |
| features for a variety of reasons. Perl now defaults to issuing a |
| warning if a deprecated language feature is used. Many of the deprecations |
| Perl now warns you about have been deprecated for many years. You can |
| find a list of what was deprecated in a given release of Perl in the |
| C<perl5xxdelta.pod> file for that release. |
| |
| To disable this feature in a given lexical scope, you should use C<no |
| warnings 'deprecated';> For information about which language features |
| are deprecated and explanations of various deprecation warnings, please |
| see L<perldiag>. See L</Deprecations> below for the list of features |
| and modules Perl's developers have deprecated as part of this release. |
| |
| =head2 Version number formats |
| |
| Acceptable version number formats have been formalized into "strict" and |
| "lax" rules. C<package NAME VERSION> takes a strict version number. |
| C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> and the L<version> object constructors take lax |
| version numbers. Providing an invalid version will result in a fatal |
| error. The version argument in C<use NAME VERSION> is first parsed as a |
| numeric literal or v-string and then passed to C<UNIVERSAL::VERSION> |
| (and must then pass the "lax" format test). |
| |
| These formats are documented fully in the L<version> module. To a first |
| approximation, a "strict" version number is a positive decimal number |
| (integer or decimal-fraction) without exponentiation or else a |
| dotted-decimal v-string with a leading 'v' character and at least three |
| components. A "lax" version number allows v-strings with fewer than |
| three components or without a leading 'v'. Under "lax" rules, both |
| decimal and dotted-decimal versions may have a trailing "alpha" |
| component separated by an underscore character after a fractional or |
| dotted-decimal component. |
| |
| The L<version> module adds C<version::is_strict> and C<version::is_lax> |
| functions to check a scalar against these rules. |
| |
| =head2 @INC reorganization |
| |
| In C<@INC>, C<ARCHLIB> and C<PRIVLIB> now occur after after the current |
| version's C<site_perl> and C<vendor_perl>. Modules installed into |
| C<site_perl> and C<vendor_perl> will now be loaded in preference to |
| those installed in C<ARCHLIB> and C<PRIVLIB>. |
| |
| |
| =head2 REGEXPs are now first class |
| |
| Internally, Perl now treats compiled regular expressions (such as |
| those created with C<qr//>) as first class entities. Perl modules which |
| serialize, deserialize or otherwise have deep interaction with Perl's |
| internal data structures need to be updated for this change. Most |
| affected CPAN modules have already been updated as of this writing. |
| |
| =head2 Switch statement changes |
| |
| The C<given>/C<when> switch statement handles complex statements better |
| than Perl 5.10.0 did (These enhancements are also available in |
| 5.10.1 and subsequent 5.10 releases.) There are two new cases where |
| C<when> now interprets its argument as a boolean, instead of an |
| expression to be used in a smart match: |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item flip-flop operators |
| |
| The C<..> and C<...> flip-flop operators are now evaluated in boolean |
| context, following their usual semantics; see L<perlop/"Range Operators">. |
| |
| Note that, as in perl 5.10.0, C<when (1..10)> will not work to test |
| whether a given value is an integer between 1 and 10; you should use |
| C<when ([1..10])> instead (note the array reference). |
| |
| However, contrary to 5.10.0, evaluating the flip-flop operators in |
| boolean context ensures it can now be useful in a C<when()>, notably |
| for implementing bistable conditions, like in: |
| |
| when (/^=begin/ .. /^=end/) { |
| # do something |
| } |
| |
| =item defined-or operator |
| |
| A compound expression involving the defined-or operator, as in |
| C<when (expr1 // expr2)>, will be treated as boolean if the first |
| expression is boolean. (This just extends the existing rule that applies |
| to the regular or operator, as in C<when (expr1 || expr2)>.) |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Smart match changes |
| |
| Since Perl 5.10.0, Perl's developers have made a number of changes to |
| the smart match operator. These, of course, also alter the behaviour |
| of the switch statements where smart matching is implicitly used. |
| These changes were also made for the 5.10.1 release, and will remain in |
| subsequent 5.10 releases. |
| |
| =head3 Changes to type-based dispatch |
| |
| The smart match operator C<~~> is no longer commutative. The behaviour of |
| a smart match now depends primarily on the type of its right hand |
| argument. Moreover, its semantics have been adjusted for greater |
| consistency or usefulness in several cases. While the general backwards |
| compatibility is maintained, several changes must be noted: |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Code references with an empty prototype are no longer treated specially. |
| They are passed an argument like the other code references (even if they |
| choose to ignore it). |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<%hash ~~ sub {}> and C<@array ~~ sub {}> now test that the subroutine |
| returns a true value for each key of the hash (or element of the |
| array), instead of passing the whole hash or array as a reference to |
| the subroutine. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Due to the commutativity breakage, code references are no longer |
| treated specially when appearing on the left of the C<~~> operator, |
| but like any vulgar scalar. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<undef ~~ %hash> is always false (since C<undef> can't be a key in a |
| hash). No implicit conversion to C<""> is done (as was the case in perl |
| 5.10.0). |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<$scalar ~~ @array> now always distributes the smart match across the |
| elements of the array. It's true if one element in @array verifies |
| C<$scalar ~~ $element>. This is a generalization of the old behaviour |
| that tested whether the array contained the scalar. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| The full dispatch table for the smart match operator is given in |
| L<perlsyn/"Smart matching in detail">. |
| |
| =head3 Smart match and overloading |
| |
| According to the rule of dispatch based on the rightmost argument type, |
| when an object overloading C<~~> appears on the right side of the |
| operator, the overload routine will always be called (with a 3rd argument |
| set to a true value, see L<overload>.) However, when the object will |
| appear on the left, the overload routine will be called only when the |
| rightmost argument is a simple scalar. This way, distributivity of smart |
| match across arrays is not broken, as well as the other behaviours with |
| complex types (coderefs, hashes, regexes). Thus, writers of overloading |
| routines for smart match mostly need to worry only with comparing |
| against a scalar, and possibly with stringification overloading; the |
| other common cases will be automatically handled consistently. |
| |
| C<~~> will now refuse to work on objects that do not overload it (in order |
| to avoid relying on the object's underlying structure). (However, if the |
| object overloads the stringification or the numification operators, and |
| if overload fallback is active, it will be used instead, as usual.) |
| |
| =head2 Other potentially incompatible changes |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The definitions of a number of Unicode properties have changed to match |
| those of the current Unicode standard. These are listed above under |
| L</Unicode overhaul>. This change may break code that expects the old |
| definitions. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The boolkeys op has moved to the group of hash ops. This breaks binary |
| compatibility. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Filehandles are now always blessed into C<IO::File>. |
| |
| The previous behaviour was to bless Filehandles into L<FileHandle> |
| (an empty proxy class) if it was loaded into memory and otherwise |
| to bless them into C<IO::Handle>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The semantics of C<use feature :5.10*> have changed slightly. |
| See L<"Modules and Pragmata"> for more information. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl's developers now use git, rather than Perforce. This should be |
| a purely internal change only relevant to people actively working on |
| the core. However, you may see minor difference in perl as a consequence |
| of the change. For example in some of details of the output of C<perl |
| -V>. See L<perlrepository> for more information. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| As part of the C<Test::Harness> 2.x to 3.x upgrade, the experimental |
| C<Test::Harness::Straps> module has been removed. |
| See L</"Modules and Pragmata"> for more details. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| As part of the C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> upgrade, the |
| C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> and C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> modules |
| have been removed from this distribution. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Module::CoreList> no longer contains the C<%:patchlevel> hash. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<length undef> now returns undef. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Unsupported private C API functions are now declared "static" to prevent |
| leakage to Perl's public API. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| To support the bootstrapping process, F<miniperl> no longer builds with |
| UTF-8 support in the regexp engine. |
| |
| This allows a build to complete with PERL_UNICODE set and a UTF-8 locale. |
| Without this there's a bootstrapping problem, as miniperl can't load |
| the UTF-8 components of the regexp engine, because they're not yet built. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<miniperl>'s @INC is now restricted to just C<-I...>, the split of |
| C<$ENV{PERL5LIB}>, and "C<.>" |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A space or a newline is now required after a C<"#line XXX"> directive. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Tied filehandles now have an additional method EOF which provides the |
| EOF type. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| To better match all other flow control statements, C<foreach> may no |
| longer be used as an attribute. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl's command-line switch "-P", which was deprecated in version 5.10.0, has |
| now been removed. The CPAN module C<< Filter::cpp >> can be used as an |
| alternative. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| |
| =head1 Deprecations |
| |
| From time to time, Perl's developers find it necessary to deprecate |
| features or modules we've previously shipped as part of the core |
| distribution. We are well aware of the pain and frustration that a |
| backwards-incompatible change to Perl can cause for developers building |
| or maintaining software in Perl. You can be sure that when we deprecate |
| a functionality or syntax, it isn't a choice we make lightly. Sometimes, |
| we choose to deprecate functionality or syntax because it was found to |
| be poorly designed or implemented. Sometimes, this is because they're |
| holding back other features or causing performance problems. Sometimes, |
| the reasons are more complex. Wherever possible, we try to keep deprecated |
| functionality available to developers in its previous form for at least |
| one major release. So long as a deprecated feature isn't actively |
| disrupting our ability to maintain and extend Perl, we'll try to leave |
| it in place as long as possible. |
| |
| The following items are now deprecated: |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item suidperl |
| |
| C<suidperl> is no longer part of Perl. It used to provide a mechanism to |
| emulate setuid permission bits on systems that don't support it properly. |
| |
| =item Use of C<:=> to mean an empty attribute list |
| |
| An accident of Perl's parser meant that these constructions were all |
| equivalent: |
| |
| my $pi := 4; |
| my $pi : = 4; |
| my $pi : = 4; |
| |
| with the C<:> being treated as the start of an attribute list, which |
| ends before the C<=>. As whitespace is not significant here, all are |
| parsed as an empty attribute list, hence all the above are equivalent |
| to, and better written as |
| |
| my $pi = 4; |
| |
| because no attribute processing is done for an empty list. |
| |
| As is, this meant that C<:=> cannot be used as a new token, without |
| silently changing the meaning of existing code. Hence that particular |
| form is now deprecated, and will become a syntax error. If it is |
| absolutely necessary to have empty attribute lists (for example, |
| because of a code generator) then avoid the warning by adding a space |
| before the C<=>. |
| |
| =item C<< UNIVERSAL->import() >> |
| |
| The method C<< UNIVERSAL->import() >> is now deprecated. Attempting to |
| pass import arguments to a C<use UNIVERSAL> statement will result in a |
| deprecation warning. |
| |
| =item Use of "goto" to jump into a construct |
| |
| Using C<goto> to jump from an outer scope into an inner scope is now |
| deprecated. This rare use case was causing problems in the |
| implementation of scopes. |
| |
| =item Custom character names in \N{name} that don't look like names |
| |
| In C<\N{I<name>}>, I<name> can be just about anything. The standard |
| Unicode names have a very limited domain, but a custom name translator |
| could create names that are, for example, made up entirely of punctuation |
| symbols. It is now deprecated to make names that don't begin with an |
| alphabetic character, and aren't alphanumeric or contain other than |
| a very few other characters, namely spaces, dashes, parentheses |
| and colons. Because of the added meaning of C<\N> (See L</C<\N> |
| experimental regex escape>), names that look like curly brace -enclosed |
| quantifiers won't work. For example, C<\N{3,4}> now means to match 3 to |
| 4 non-newlines; before a custom name C<3,4> could have been created. |
| |
| =item Deprecated Modules |
| |
| The following modules will be removed from the core distribution in a |
| future release, and should be installed from CPAN instead. Distributions |
| on CPAN which require these should add them to their prerequisites. The |
| core versions of these modules warnings will issue a deprecation warning. |
| |
| If you ship a packaged version of Perl, either alone or as part of a |
| larger system, then you should carefully consider the repercussions of |
| core module deprecations. You may want to consider shipping your default |
| build of Perl with packages for some or all deprecated modules which |
| install into C<vendor> or C<site> perl library directories. This will |
| inhibit the deprecation warnings. |
| |
| Alternatively, you may want to consider patching F<lib/deprecate.pm> |
| to provide deprecation warnings specific to your packaging system |
| or distribution of Perl, consistent with how your packaging system |
| or distribution manages a staged transition from a release where the |
| installation of a single package provides the given functionality, to |
| a later release where the system administrator needs to know to install |
| multiple packages to get that same functionality. |
| |
| You can silence these deprecation warnings by installing the modules |
| in question from CPAN. To install the latest version of all of them, |
| just install C<Task::Deprecations::5_12>. |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item L<Class::ISA> |
| |
| =item L<Pod::Plainer> |
| |
| =item L<Shell> |
| |
| =item L<Switch> |
| |
| Switch is buggy and should be avoided. You may find Perl's new |
| C<given>/C<when> feature a suitable replacement. See L<perlsyn/"Switch |
| statements"> for more information. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Assignment to $[ |
| |
| =item Use of the attribute :locked on subroutines |
| |
| =item Use of "locked" with the attributes pragma |
| |
| =item Use of "unique" with the attributes pragma |
| |
| =item Perl_pmflag |
| |
| C<Perl_pmflag> is no longer part of Perl's public API. Calling it now |
| generates a deprecation warning, and it will be removed in a future |
| release. Although listed as part of the API, it was never documented, |
| and only ever used in F<toke.c>, and prior to 5.10, F<regcomp.c>. In |
| core, it has been replaced by a static function. |
| |
| =item Numerous Perl 4-era libraries |
| |
| F<termcap.pl>, F<tainted.pl>, F<stat.pl>, F<shellwords.pl>, F<pwd.pl>, |
| F<open3.pl>, F<open2.pl>, F<newgetopt.pl>, F<look.pl>, F<find.pl>, |
| F<finddepth.pl>, F<importenv.pl>, F<hostname.pl>, F<getopts.pl>, |
| F<getopt.pl>, F<getcwd.pl>, F<flush.pl>, F<fastcwd.pl>, F<exceptions.pl>, |
| F<ctime.pl>, F<complete.pl>, F<cacheout.pl>, F<bigrat.pl>, F<bigint.pl>, |
| F<bigfloat.pl>, F<assert.pl>, F<abbrev.pl>, F<dotsh.pl>, and |
| F<timelocal.pl> are all now deprecated. Earlier, Perl's developers |
| intended to remove these libraries from Perl's core for the 5.14.0 release. |
| |
| During final testing before the release of 5.12.0, several developers |
| discovered current production code using these ancient libraries, some |
| inside the Perl core itself. Accordingly, the pumpking granted them |
| a stay of execution. They will begin to warn about their deprecation |
| in the 5.14.0 release and will be removed in the 5.16.0 release. |
| |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Unicode overhaul |
| |
| Perl's developers have made a concerted effort to update Perl to be in |
| sync with the latest Unicode standard. Changes for this include: |
| |
| Perl can now handle every Unicode character property. New documentation, |
| L<perluniprops>, lists all available non-Unihan character properties. By |
| default, perl does not expose Unihan, deprecated or Unicode-internal |
| properties. See below for more details on these; there is also a section |
| in the pod listing them, and explaining why they are not exposed. |
| |
| Perl now fully supports the Unicode compound-style of using C<=> |
| and C<:> in writing regular expressions: C<\p{property=value}> and |
| C<\p{property:value}> (both of which mean the same thing). |
| |
| Perl now fully supports the Unicode loose matching rules for text between |
| the braces in C<\p{...}> constructs. In addition, Perl allows underscores |
| between digits of numbers. |
| |
| Perl now accepts all the Unicode-defined synonyms for properties and |
| property values. |
| |
| C<qr/\X/>, which matches a Unicode logical character, has |
| been expanded to work better with various Asian languages. It |
| now is defined as an I<extended grapheme cluster>. (See |
| L<http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29/>). Anything matched previously |
| and that made sense will continue to be accepted. Additionally: |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<\X> will not break apart a C<S<CR LF>> sequence. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<\X> will now match a sequence which includes the C<ZWJ> and C<ZWNJ> |
| characters. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<\X> will now always match at least one character, including an initial |
| mark. Marks generally come after a base character, but it is possible in |
| Unicode to have them in isolation, and C<\X> will now handle that case, |
| for example at the beginning of a line, or after a C<ZWSP>. And this is |
| the part where C<\X> doesn't match the things that it used to that don't |
| make sense. Formerly, for example, you could have the nonsensical case |
| of an accented LF. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<\X> will now match a (Korean) Hangul syllable sequence, and the Thai |
| and Lao exception cases. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| Otherwise, this change should be transparent for the non-affected |
| languages. |
| |
| C<\p{...}> matches using the Canonical_Combining_Class property were |
| completely broken in previous releases of Perl. They should now work |
| correctly. |
| |
| Before Perl 5.12, the Unicode C<Decomposition_Type=Compat> property |
| and a Perl extension had the same name, which led to neither matching |
| all the correct values (with more than 100 mistakes in one, and several |
| thousand in the other). The Perl extension has now been renamed to be |
| C<Decomposition_Type=Noncanonical> (short: C<dt=noncanon>). It has the |
| same meaning as was previously intended, namely the union of all the |
| non-canonical Decomposition types, with Unicode C<Compat> being just |
| one of those. |
| |
| C<\p{Decomposition_Type=Canonical}> now includes the Hangul syllables. |
| |
| C<\p{Uppercase}> and C<\p{Lowercase}> now work as the Unicode standard |
| says they should. This means they each match a few more characters than |
| they used to. |
| |
| C<\p{Cntrl}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Control}>. This |
| means it no longer will match Private Use (gc=co), Surrogates (gc=cs), |
| nor Format (gc=cf) code points. The Format code points represent the |
| biggest possible problem. All but 36 of them are either officially |
| deprecated or strongly discouraged from being used. Of those 36, likely |
| the most widely used are the soft hyphen (U+00AD), and BOM, ZWSP, ZWNJ, |
| WJ, and similar characters, plus bidirectional controls. |
| |
| C<\p{Alpha}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Alphabetic}>. Before |
| 5.12, Perl's definition definition included a number of things that aren't |
| really alpha (all marks) while omitting many that were. The definitions |
| of C<\p{Alnum}> and C<\p{Word}> depend on Alpha's definition and have |
| changed accordingly. |
| |
| C<\p{Word}> no longer incorrectly matches non-word characters such |
| as fractions. |
| |
| C<\p{Print}> no longer matches the line control characters: Tab, LF, |
| CR, FF, VT, and NEL. This brings it in line with standards and the |
| documentation. |
| |
| C<\p{XDigit}> now matches the same characters as C<\p{Hex_Digit}>. This |
| means that in addition to the characters it currently matches, |
| C<[A-Fa-f0-9]>, it will also match the 22 fullwidth equivalents, for |
| example U+FF10: FULLWIDTH DIGIT ZERO. |
| |
| The Numeric type property has been extended to include the Unihan |
| characters. |
| |
| There is a new Perl extension, the 'Present_In', or simply 'In', |
| property. This is an extension of the Unicode Age property, but |
| C<\p{In=5.0}> matches any code point whose usage has been determined |
| I<as of> Unicode version 5.0. The C<\p{Age=5.0}> only matches code points |
| added in I<precisely> version 5.0. |
| |
| A number of properties now have the correct values for unassigned |
| code points. The affected properties are Bidi_Class, East_Asian_Width, |
| Joining_Type, Decomposition_Type, Hangul_Syllable_Type, Numeric_Type, |
| and Line_Break. |
| |
| The Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, ID_Continue, and ID_Start properties |
| are now up to date with current Unicode definitions. |
| |
| Earlier versions of Perl erroneously exposed certain properties that |
| are supposed to be Unicode internal-only. Use of these in regular |
| expressions will now generate, if enabled, a deprecation warning message. |
| The properties are: Other_Alphabetic, Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, |
| Other_Grapheme_Extend, Other_ID_Continue, Other_ID_Start, Other_Lowercase, |
| Other_Math, and Other_Uppercase. |
| |
| It is now possible to change which Unicode properties Perl understands |
| on a per-installation basis. As mentioned above, certain properties |
| are turned off by default. These include all the Unihan properties |
| (which should be accessible via the CPAN module Unicode::Unihan) and any |
| deprecated or Unicode internal-only property that Perl has never exposed. |
| |
| The generated files in the C<lib/unicore/To> directory are now more |
| clearly marked as being stable, directly usable by applications. New hash |
| entries in them give the format of the normal entries, which allows for |
| easier machine parsing. Perl can generate files in this directory for |
| any property, though most are suppressed. You can find instructions |
| for changing which are written in L<perluniprops>. |
| |
| =head1 Modules and Pragmata |
| |
| =head2 New Modules and Pragmata |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item C<autodie> |
| |
| C<autodie> is a new lexically-scoped alternative for the C<Fatal> module. |
| The bundled version is 2.06_01. Note that in this release, using a string |
| eval when C<autodie> is in effect can cause the autodie behaviour to leak |
| into the surrounding scope. See L<autodie/"BUGS"> for more details. |
| |
| Version 2.06_01 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<Compress::Raw::Bzip2> |
| |
| Version 2.024 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<overloading> |
| |
| C<overloading> allows you to lexically disable or enable overloading |
| for some or all operations. |
| |
| Version 0.001 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<parent> |
| |
| C<parent> establishes an ISA relationship with base classes at compile |
| time. It provides the key feature of C<base> without further unwanted |
| behaviors. |
| |
| Version 0.223 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<Parse::CPAN::Meta> |
| |
| Version 1.40 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<VMS::DCLsym> |
| |
| Version 1.03 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<VMS::Stdio> |
| |
| Version 2.4 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =item C<XS::APItest::KeywordRPN> |
| |
| Version 0.003 has been added to the Perl core. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Updated Pragmata |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item C<base> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.13 to 2.15. |
| |
| =item C<bignum> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.22 to 0.23. |
| |
| =item C<charnames> |
| |
| C<charnames> now contains the Unicode F<NameAliases.txt> database file. |
| This has the effect of adding some extra C<\N> character names that |
| formerly wouldn't have been recognised; for example, C<"\N{LATIN CAPITAL |
| LETTER GHA}">. |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.07. |
| |
| =item C<constant> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.13 to 1.20. |
| |
| =item C<diagnostics> |
| |
| C<diagnostics> now supports %.0f formatting internally. |
| |
| C<diagnostics> no longer suppresses C<Use of uninitialized value in range |
| (or flip)> warnings. [perl #71204] |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.17 to 1.19. |
| |
| =item C<feature> |
| |
| In C<feature>, the meaning of the C<:5.10> and C<:5.10.X> feature |
| bundles has changed slightly. The last component, if any (i.e. C<X>) is |
| simply ignored. This is predicated on the assumption that new features |
| will not, in general, be added to maintenance releases. So C<:5.10> |
| and C<:5.10.X> have identical effect. This is a change to the behaviour |
| documented for 5.10.0. |
| |
| C<feature> now includes the C<unicode_strings> feature: |
| |
| use feature "unicode_strings"; |
| |
| This pragma turns on Unicode semantics for the case-changing operations |
| (C<uc>, C<lc>, C<ucfirst>, C<lcfirst>) on strings that don't have the |
| internal UTF-8 flag set, but that contain single-byte characters between |
| 128 and 255. |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.16. |
| |
| =item C<less> |
| |
| C<less> now includes the C<stash_name> method to allow subclasses of |
| C<less> to pick where in %^H to store their stash. |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.02 to 0.03. |
| |
| =item C<lib> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.5565 to 0.62. |
| |
| =item C<mro> |
| |
| C<mro> is now implemented as an XS extension. The documented interface has |
| not changed. Code relying on the implementation detail that some C<mro::> |
| methods happened to be available at all times gets to "keep both pieces". |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.00 to 1.02. |
| |
| =item C<overload> |
| |
| C<overload> now allow overloading of 'qr'. |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.10. |
| |
| =item C<threads> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.67 to 1.75. |
| |
| =item C<threads::shared> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.14 to 1.32. |
| |
| =item C<version> |
| |
| C<version> now has support for L</Version number formats> as described |
| earlier in this document and in its own documentation. |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.74 to 0.82. |
| |
| =item C<warnings> |
| |
| C<warnings> has a new C<warnings::fatal_enabled()> function. It also |
| includes a new C<illegalproto> warning category. See also L</New or |
| Changed Diagnostics> for this change. |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.09. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Updated Modules |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item C<Archive::Extract> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.24 to 0.38. |
| |
| =item C<Archive::Tar> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.38 to 1.54. |
| |
| =item C<Attribute::Handlers> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.79 to 0.87. |
| |
| =item C<AutoLoader> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 5.63 to 5.70. |
| |
| =item C<B::Concise> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.74 to 0.78. |
| |
| =item C<B::Debug> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.05 to 1.12. |
| |
| =item C<B::Deparse> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.83 to 0.96. |
| |
| =item C<B::Lint> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.09 to 1.11_01. |
| |
| =item C<CGI> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.29 to 3.48. |
| |
| =item C<Class::ISA> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.33 to 0.36. |
| |
| NOTE: C<Class::ISA> is deprecated and may be removed from a future |
| version of Perl. |
| |
| =item C<Compress::Raw::Zlib> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.008 to 2.024. |
| |
| =item C<CPAN> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.9205 to 1.94_56. |
| |
| =item C<CPANPLUS> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.84 to 0.90. |
| |
| =item C<CPANPLUS::Dist::Build> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.06_02 to 0.46. |
| |
| =item C<Data::Dumper> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.121_14 to 2.125. |
| |
| =item C<DB_File> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.816_1 to 1.820. |
| |
| =item C<Devel::PPPort> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.13 to 3.19. |
| |
| =item C<Digest> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.15 to 1.16. |
| |
| =item C<Digest::MD5> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.36_01 to 2.39. |
| |
| =item C<Digest::SHA> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 5.45 to 5.47. |
| |
| =item C<Encode> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.23 to 2.39. |
| |
| =item C<Exporter> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 5.62 to 5.64_01. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::CBuilder> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.21 to 0.27. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::Command> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.13 to 1.16. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::Constant> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.2 to 0.22. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::Install> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.44 to 1.55. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 6.42 to 6.56. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::Manifest> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.51_01 to 1.57. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::ParseXS> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.18_02 to 2.21. |
| |
| =item C<File::Fetch> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.14 to 0.24. |
| |
| =item C<File::Path> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.04 to 2.08_01. |
| |
| =item C<File::Temp> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.18 to 0.22. |
| |
| =item C<Filter::Simple> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.82 to 0.84. |
| |
| =item C<Filter::Util::Call> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.07 to 1.08. |
| |
| =item C<Getopt::Long> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.37 to 2.38. |
| |
| =item C<IO> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.23_01 to 1.25_02. |
| |
| =item C<IO::Zlib> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.07 to 1.10. |
| |
| =item C<IPC::Cmd> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.40_1 to 0.54. |
| |
| =item C<IPC::SysV> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.05 to 2.01. |
| |
| =item C<Locale::Maketext> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.12 to 1.14. |
| |
| =item C<Locale::Maketext::Simple> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.18 to 0.21. |
| |
| =item C<Log::Message> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.02. |
| |
| =item C<Log::Message::Simple> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.04 to 0.06. |
| |
| =item C<Math::BigInt> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.88 to 1.89_01. |
| |
| =item C<Math::BigInt::FastCalc> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.16 to 0.19. |
| |
| =item C<Math::BigRat> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.21 to 0.24. |
| |
| =item C<Math::Complex> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.37 to 1.56. |
| |
| =item C<Memoize> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.01_02 to 1.01_03. |
| |
| =item C<MIME::Base64> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.07_01 to 3.08. |
| |
| =item C<Module::Build> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.2808_01 to 0.3603. |
| |
| =item C<Module::CoreList> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.12 to 2.29. |
| |
| =item C<Module::Load> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.12 to 0.16. |
| |
| =item C<Module::Load::Conditional> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.22 to 0.34. |
| |
| =item C<Module::Loaded> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.06. |
| |
| =item C<Module::Pluggable> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.6 to 3.9. |
| |
| =item C<Net::Ping> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.33 to 2.36. |
| |
| =item C<NEXT> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.60_01 to 0.64. |
| |
| =item C<Object::Accessor> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.32 to 0.36. |
| |
| =item C<Package::Constants> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.01 to 0.02. |
| |
| =item C<PerlIO> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.04 to 1.06. |
| |
| =item C<Pod::Parser> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.35 to 1.37. |
| |
| =item C<Pod::Perldoc> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.14_02 to 3.15_02. |
| |
| =item C<Pod::Plainer> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.01 to 1.02. |
| |
| NOTE: C<Pod::Plainer> is deprecated and may be removed from a future |
| version of Perl. |
| |
| =item C<Pod::Simple> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.05 to 3.13. |
| |
| =item C<Safe> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.12 to 2.22. |
| |
| =item C<SelfLoader> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.17. |
| |
| =item C<Storable> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.18 to 2.22. |
| |
| =item C<Switch> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.13 to 2.16. |
| |
| NOTE: C<Switch> is deprecated and may be removed from a future version |
| of Perl. |
| |
| =item C<Sys::Syslog> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.22 to 0.27. |
| |
| =item C<Term::ANSIColor> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.12 to 2.02. |
| |
| =item C<Term::UI> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.18 to 0.20. |
| |
| =item C<Test> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25_02. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.64 to 3.17. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Simple> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.72 to 0.94. |
| |
| =item C<Text::Balanced> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.0.0 to 2.02. |
| |
| =item C<Text::ParseWords> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.26 to 3.27. |
| |
| =item C<Text::Soundex> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 3.03 to 3.03_01. |
| |
| =item C<Thread::Queue> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.00 to 2.11. |
| |
| =item C<Thread::Semaphore> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 2.01 to 2.09. |
| |
| =item C<Tie::RefHash> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.37 to 1.38. |
| |
| =item C<Time::HiRes> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.9711 to 1.9719. |
| |
| =item C<Time::Local> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.1901_01. |
| |
| =item C<Time::Piece> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.12 to 1.15. |
| |
| =item C<Unicode::Collate> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.52 to 0.52_01. |
| |
| =item C<Unicode::Normalize> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 1.02 to 1.03. |
| |
| =item C<Win32> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.34 to 0.39. |
| |
| =item C<Win32API::File> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.1001_01 to 0.1101. |
| |
| =item C<XSLoader> |
| |
| Upgraded from version 0.08 to 0.10. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item C<attrs> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 1.02. |
| |
| =item C<CPAN::API::HOWTO> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 'undef'. |
| |
| =item C<CPAN::DeferedCode> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 5.50. |
| |
| =item C<CPANPLUS::inc> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 'undef'. |
| |
| =item C<DCLsym> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 1.03. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 6.42. |
| |
| =item C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker::vmsish> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 6.42. |
| |
| =item C<Stdio> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 2.3. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness::Assert> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.02. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness::Iterator> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.02. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness::Point> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.01. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness::Results> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.01. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness::Straps> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.26_01. |
| |
| =item C<Test::Harness::Util> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 0.01. |
| |
| =item C<XSSymSet> |
| |
| Removed from the Perl core. Prior version was 1.1. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Deprecated Modules and Pragmata |
| |
| See L</Deprecated Modules> above. |
| |
| |
| =head1 Documentation |
| |
| =head2 New Documentation |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<perlhaiku> contains instructions on how to build perl for the Haiku |
| platform. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<perlmroapi> describes the new interface for pluggable Method Resolution |
| Orders. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<perlperf>, by Richard Foley, provides an introduction to the use of |
| performance and optimization techniques which can be used with particular |
| reference to perl programs. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<perlrepository> describes how to access the perl source using the I<git> |
| version control system. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<perlpolicy> extends the "Social contract about contributed modules" into |
| the beginnings of a document on Perl porting policies. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Changes to Existing Documentation |
| |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The various large F<Changes*> files (which listed every change made |
| to perl over the last 18 years) have been removed, and replaced by a |
| small file, also called F<Changes>, which just explains how that same |
| information may be extracted from the git version control system. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<Porting/patching.pod> has been deleted, as it mainly described |
| interacting with the old Perforce-based repository, which is now obsolete. |
| Information still relevant has been moved to L<perlrepository>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The syntax C<unless (EXPR) BLOCK else BLOCK> is now documented as valid, |
| as is the syntax C<unless (EXPR) BLOCK elsif (EXPR) BLOCK ... else |
| BLOCK>, although actually using the latter may not be the best idea for |
| the readability of your source code. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Documented -X overloading. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Documented that C<when()> treats specially most of the filetest operators |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Documented C<when> as a syntax modifier. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Eliminated "Old Perl threads tutorial", which described 5005 threads. |
| |
| F<pod/perlthrtut.pod> is the same material reworked for ithreads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Correct previous documentation: v-strings are not deprecated |
| |
| With version objects, we need them to use MODULE VERSION syntax. This |
| patch removes the deprecation notice. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Security contact information is now part of L<perlsec>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A significant fraction of the core documentation has been updated to |
| clarify the behavior of Perl's Unicode handling. |
| |
| Much of the remaining core documentation has been reviewed and edited |
| for clarity, consistent use of language, and to fix the spelling of Tom |
| Christiansen's name. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The Pod specification (L<perlpodspec>) has been updated to bring the |
| specification in line with modern usage already supported by most Pod |
| systems. A parameter string may now follow the format name in a |
| "begin/end" region. Links to URIs with a text description are now |
| allowed. The usage of C<LE<lt>"section"E<gt>> has been marked as |
| deprecated. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<if.pm|if> has been documented in L<perlfunc/use> as a means to get |
| conditional loading of modules despite the implicit BEGIN block around |
| C<use>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The documentation for C<$1> in perlvar.pod has been clarified. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<\N{U+I<code point>}> is now documented. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Selected Performance Enhancements |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A new internal cache means that C<isa()> will often be faster. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The implementation of C<C3> Method Resolution Order has been |
| optimised - linearisation for classes with single inheritance is 40% |
| faster. Performance for multiple inheritance is unchanged. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Under C<use locale>, the locale-relevant information is now cached on |
| read-only values, such as the list returned by C<keys %hash>. This makes |
| operations such as C<sort keys %hash> in the scope of C<use locale> |
| much faster. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Empty C<DESTROY> methods are no longer called. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Perl_sv_utf8_upgrade()> is now faster. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<keys> on empty hash is now faster. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<if (%foo)> has been optimized to be faster than C<if (keys %foo)>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The string repetition operator (C<$str x $num>) is now several times |
| faster when C<$str> has length one or C<$num> is large. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Reversing an array to itself (as in C<@a = reverse @a>) in void context |
| now happens in-place and is several orders of magnitude faster than |
| it used to be. It will also preserve non-existent elements whenever |
| possible, i.e. for non magical arrays or tied arrays with C<EXISTS> |
| and C<DELETE> methods. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| L<perlapi>, L<perlintern>, L<perlmodlib> and L<perltoc> are now all |
| generated at build time, rather than being shipped as part of the release. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| If C<vendorlib> and C<vendorarch> are the same, then they are only added |
| to C<@INC> once. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<$Config{usedevel}> and the C-level C<PERL_USE_DEVEL> are now defined if |
| perl is built with C<-Dusedevel>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<Configure> will enable use of C<-fstack-protector>, to provide protection |
| against stack-smashing attacks, if the compiler supports it. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<Configure> will now determine the correct prototypes for re-entrant |
| functions and for C<gconvert> if you are using a C++ compiler rather |
| than a C compiler. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| On Unix, if you build from a tree containing a git repository, the |
| configuration process will note the commit hash you have checked out, for |
| display in the output of C<perl -v> and C<perl -V>. Unpushed local commits |
| are automatically added to the list of local patches displayed by |
| C<perl -V>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now supports SystemTap's C<dtrace> compatibility layer and an |
| issue with linking C<miniperl> has been fixed in the process. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| perldoc now uses C<less -R> instead of C<less> for improved behaviour |
| in the face of C<groff>'s new usage of ANSI escape codes. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| |
| C<perl -V> now reports use of the compile-time options C<USE_PERL_ATOF> and |
| C<USE_ATTRIBUTES_FOR_PERLIO>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| As part of the flattening of F<ext>, all extensions on all platforms are |
| built by F<make_ext.pl>. This replaces the Unix-specific |
| F<ext/util/make_ext>, VMS-specific F<make_ext.com> and Win32-specific |
| F<win32/buildext.pl>. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Internal Changes |
| |
| Each release of Perl sees numerous internal changes which shouldn't |
| affect day to day usage but may still be notable for developers working |
| with Perl's source code. |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The J.R.R. Tolkien quotes at the head of C source file have been checked |
| and proper citations added, thanks to a patch from Tom Christiansen. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The internal structure of the dual-life modules traditionally found in |
| the F<lib/> and F<ext/> directories in the perl source has changed |
| significantly. Where possible, dual-lifed modules have been extracted |
| from F<lib/> and F<ext/>. |
| |
| Dual-lifed modules maintained by Perl's developers as part of the Perl |
| core now live in F<dist/>. Dual-lifed modules maintained primarily on |
| CPAN now live in F<cpan/>. When reporting a bug in a module located |
| under F<cpan/>, please send your bug report directly to the module's |
| bug tracker or author, rather than Perl's bug tracker. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<\N{...}> now compiles better, always forces UTF-8 internal representation |
| |
| Perl's developers have fixed several problems with the recognition of |
| C<\N{...}> constructs. As part of this, perl will store any scalar |
| or regex containing C<\N{I<name>}> or C<\N{U+I<code point>}> in its |
| definition in UTF-8 format. (This was true previously for all occurrences |
| of C<\N{I<name>}> that did not use a custom translator, but now it's |
| always true.) |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl_magic_setmglob now knows about globs, fixing RT #71254. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<SVt_RV> no longer exists. RVs are now stored in IVs. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Perl_vcroak()> now accepts a null first argument. In addition, a full |
| audit was made of the "not NULL" compiler annotations, and those for |
| several other internal functions were corrected. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| New macros C<dSAVEDERRNO>, C<dSAVE_ERRNO>, C<SAVE_ERRNO>, C<RESTORE_ERRNO> |
| have been added to formalise the temporary saving of the C<errno> |
| variable. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The function C<Perl_sv_insert_flags> has been added to augment |
| C<Perl_sv_insert>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The function C<Perl_newSV_type(type)> has been added, equivalent to |
| C<Perl_newSV()> followed by C<Perl_sv_upgrade(type)>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The function C<Perl_newSVpvn_flags()> has been added, equivalent to |
| C<Perl_newSVpvn()> and then performing the action relevant to the flag. |
| |
| Two flag bits are currently supported. |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<SVf_UTF8> will call C<SvUTF8_on()> for you. (Note that this does |
| not convert an sequence of ISO 8859-1 characters to UTF-8). A wrapper, |
| C<newSVpvn_utf8()> is available for this. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<SVs_TEMP> now calls C<Perl_sv_2mortal()> on the new SV. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| There is also a wrapper that takes constant strings, C<newSVpvs_flags()>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The function C<Perl_croak_xs_usage> has been added as a wrapper to |
| C<Perl_croak>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now exports the functions C<PerlIO_find_layer> and C<PerlIO_list_alloc>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<PL_na> has been exterminated from the core code, replaced by local |
| STRLEN temporaries, or C<*_nolen()> calls. Either approach is faster than |
| C<PL_na>, which is a pointer dereference into the interpreter structure |
| under ithreads, and a global variable otherwise. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Perl_mg_free()> used to leave freed memory accessible via C<SvMAGIC()> |
| on the scalar. It now updates the linked list to remove each piece of |
| magic as it is freed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Under ithreads, the regex in C<PL_reg_curpm> is now reference |
| counted. This eliminates a lot of hackish workarounds to cope with it |
| not being reference counted. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Perl_mg_magical()> would sometimes incorrectly turn on C<SvRMAGICAL()>. |
| This has been fixed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The I<public> IV and NV flags are now not set if the string value has |
| trailing "garbage". This behaviour is consistent with not setting the |
| public IV or NV flags if the value is out of range for the type. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Uses of C<Nullav>, C<Nullcv>, C<Nullhv>, C<Nullop>, C<Nullsv> etc have |
| been replaced by C<NULL> in the core code, and non-dual-life modules, |
| as C<NULL> is clearer to those unfamiliar with the core code. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A macro C<MUTABLE_PTR(p)> has been added, which on (non-pedantic) gcc will |
| not cast away C<const>, returning a C<void *>. Macros C<MUTABLE_SV(av)>, |
| C<MUTABLE_SV(cv)> etc build on this, casting to C<AV *> etc without |
| casting away C<const>. This allows proper compile-time auditing of |
| C<const> correctness in the core, and helped picked up some errors |
| (now fixed). |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Macros C<mPUSHs()> and C<mXPUSHs()> have been added, for pushing SVs on the |
| stack and mortalizing them. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Use of the private structure C<mro_meta> has changed slightly. Nothing |
| outside the core should be accessing this directly anyway. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A new tool, F<Porting/expand-macro.pl> has been added, that allows you |
| to view how a C preprocessor macro would be expanded when compiled. |
| This is handy when trying to decode the macro hell that is the perl |
| guts. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Testing |
| |
| =head2 Testing improvements |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item Parallel tests |
| |
| The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on |
| Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in |
| your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run |
| C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as |
| |
| TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel |
| |
| An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because |
| L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test |
| scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to |
| interact with their job schedulers. |
| |
| Note that currently some test scripts may fail when run in parallel (most |
| notably C<ext/IO/t/io_dir.t>). If necessary run just the failing scripts |
| again sequentially and see if the failures go away. |
| |
| =item Test harness flexibility |
| |
| It's now possible to override C<PERL5OPT> and friends in F<t/TEST> |
| |
| =item Test watchdog |
| |
| Several tests that have the potential to hang forever if they fail now |
| incorporate a "watchdog" functionality that will kill them after a timeout, |
| which helps ensure that C<make test> and C<make test_harness> run to |
| completion automatically. |
| |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 New Tests |
| |
| Perl's developers have added a number of new tests to the core. |
| In addition to the items listed below, many modules updated from CPAN |
| incorporate new tests. |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Significant cleanups to core tests to ensure that language and |
| interpreter features are not used before they're tested. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<make test_porting> now runs a number of important pre-commit checks |
| which might be of use to anyone working on the Perl core. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/porting/podcheck.t> automatically checks the well-formedness of |
| POD found in all .pl, .pm and .pod files in the F<MANIFEST>, other than in |
| dual-lifed modules which are primarily maintained outside the Perl core. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/porting/manifest.t> now tests that all files listed in MANIFEST |
| are present. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/while_readdir.t> tests that a bare readdir in while loop sets $_. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/comp/retainedlines.t> checks that the debugger can retain source |
| lines from C<eval>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/io/perlio_fail.t> checks that bad layers fail. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/io/perlio_leaks.t> checks that PerlIO layers are not leaking. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/io/perlio_open.t> checks that certain special forms of open work. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/io/perlio.t> includes general PerlIO tests. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/io/pvbm.t> checks that there is no unexpected interaction between |
| the internal types C<PVBM> and C<PVGV>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/mro/package_aliases.t> checks that mro works properly in the presence |
| of aliased packages. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/dbm.t> tests C<dbmopen> and C<dbmclose>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/index_thr.t> tests the interaction of C<index> and threads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/pat_thr.t> tests the interaction of esoteric patterns and threads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/qr_gc.t> tests that C<qr> doesn't leak. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/reg_email_thr.t> tests the interaction of regex recursion and threads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/regexp_qr_embed_thr.t> tests the interaction of patterns with |
| embedded C<qr//> and threads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/regexp_unicode_prop.t> tests Unicode properties in regular |
| expressions. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/regexp_unicode_prop_thr.t> tests the interaction of Unicode |
| properties and threads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/reg_nc_tie.t> tests the tied methods of C<Tie::Hash::NamedCapture>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/reg_posixcc.t> checks that POSIX character classes behave |
| consistently. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/re.t> checks that exportable C<re> functions in F<universal.c> work. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/setpgrpstack.t> checks that C<setpgrp> works. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/substr_thr.t> tests the interaction of C<substr> and threads. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/upgrade.t> checks that upgrading and assigning scalars works. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/uni/lex_utf8.t> checks that Unicode in the lexer works. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/uni/tie.t> checks that Unicode and C<tie> work. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/comp/final_line_num.t> tests whether line numbers are correct at EOF |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/comp/form_scope.t> tests format scoping. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/comp/line_debug.t> tests whether C<< @{"_<$file"} >> works. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/filetest_t.t> tests if -t file test works. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/qr.t> tests C<qr>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/utf8cache.t> tests malfunctions of the utf8 cache. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/re/uniprops.t> test unicodes C<\p{}> regex constructs. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/filehandle.t> tests some suitably portable filetest operators |
| to check that they work as expected, particularly in the light of some |
| internal changes made in how filehandles are blessed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<t/op/time_loop.t> tests that unix times greater than C<2**63>, which |
| can now be handed to C<gmtime> and C<localtime>, do not cause an internal |
| overflow or an excessively long loop. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| |
| =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics |
| |
| =head2 New Diagnostics |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| SV allocation tracing has been added to the diagnostics enabled by C<-Dm>. |
| The tracing can alternatively output via the C<PERL_MEM_LOG> mechanism, if |
| that was enabled when the F<perl> binary was compiled. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Smartmatch resolution tracing has been added as a new diagnostic. Use |
| C<-DM> to enable it. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A new debugging flag C<-DB> now dumps subroutine definitions, leaving |
| C<-Dx> for its original purpose of dumping syntax trees. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl 5.12 provides a number of new diagnostic messages to help you write |
| better code. See L<perldiag> for details of these new messages. |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Bad plugin affecting keyword '%s'> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<gmtime(%.0f) too large> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Lexing code attempted to stuff non-Latin-1 character into Latin-1 input> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Lexing code internal error (%s)> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<localtime(%.0f) too large> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Overloaded dereference did not return a reference> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Overloaded qr did not return a REGEXP> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Perl_pmflag() is deprecated, and will be removed from the XS API> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<lvalue attribute ignored after the subroutine has been defined> |
| |
| This new warning is issued when one attempts to mark a subroutine as |
| lvalue after it has been defined. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now warns you if C<++> or C<--> are unable to change the value |
| because it's beyond the limit of representation. |
| |
| This uses a new warnings category: "imprecision". |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<lc>, C<uc>, C<lcfirst>, and C<ucfirst> warn when passed undef. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Show constant in "Useless use of a constant in void context"> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Prototype after '%s'> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<panic: sv_chop %s> |
| |
| This new fatal error occurs when the C routine C<Perl_sv_chop()> was |
| passed a position that is not within the scalar's string buffer. This |
| could be caused by buggy XS code, and at this point recovery is not |
| possible. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The fatal error C<Malformed UTF-8 returned by \N> is now produced if the |
| C<charnames> handler returns malformed UTF-8. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| If an unresolved named character or sequence was encountered when |
| compiling a regex pattern then the fatal error C<\N{NAME} must be resolved |
| by the lexer> is now produced. This can happen, for example, when using a |
| single-quotish context like C<$re = '\N{SPACE}'; /$re/;>. See L<perldiag> |
| for more examples of how the lexer can get bypassed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Invalid hexadecimal number in \N{U+...}> is a new fatal error |
| triggered when the character constant represented by C<...> is not a |
| valid hexadecimal number. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The new meaning of C<\N> as C<[^\n]> is not valid in a bracketed character |
| class, just like C<.> in a character class loses its special meaning, |
| and will cause the fatal error C<\N in a character class must be a named |
| character: \N{...}>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The rules on what is legal for the C<...> in C<\N{...}> have been |
| tightened up so that unless the C<...> begins with an alphabetic |
| character and continues with a combination of alphanumerics, dashes, |
| spaces, parentheses or colons then the warning C<Deprecated character(s) |
| in \N{...} starting at '%s'> is now issued. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The warning C<Using just the first characters returned by \N{}> will |
| be issued if the C<charnames> handler returns a sequence of characters |
| which exceeds the limit of the number of characters that can be used. The |
| message will indicate which characters were used and which were discarded. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Changed Diagnostics |
| |
| A number of existing diagnostic messages have been improved or corrected: |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A new warning category C<illegalproto> allows finer-grained control of |
| warnings around function prototypes. |
| |
| The two warnings: |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item C<Illegal character in prototype for %s : %s> |
| |
| =item C<Prototype after '%c' for %s : %s> |
| |
| =back |
| |
| have been moved from the C<syntax> top-level warnings category into a new |
| first-level category, C<illegalproto>. These two warnings are currently |
| the only ones emitted during parsing of an invalid/illegal prototype, |
| so one can now use |
| |
| no warnings 'illegalproto'; |
| |
| to suppress only those, but not other syntax-related warnings. Warnings |
| where prototypes are changed, ignored, or not met are still in the |
| C<prototype> category as before. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Deep recursion on subroutine "%s"> |
| |
| It is now possible to change the depth threshold for this warning from the |
| default of 100, by recompiling the F<perl> binary, setting the C |
| pre-processor macro C<PERL_SUB_DEPTH_WARN> to the desired value. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Illegal character in prototype> warning is now more precise |
| when reporting illegal characters after _ |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| mro merging error messages are now very similar to those produced by |
| L<Algorithm::C3>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Amelioration of the error message "Unrecognized character %s in column %d" |
| |
| Changes the error message to "Unrecognized character %s; marked by E<lt>-- |
| HERE after %sE<lt>-- HERE near column %d". This should make it a little |
| simpler to spot and correct the suspicious character. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now explicitly points to C<$.> when it causes an uninitialized |
| warning for ranges in scalar context. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<split> now warns when called in void context. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<printf>-style functions called with too few arguments will now issue the |
| warning C<"Missing argument in %s"> [perl #71000] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now properly returns a syntax error instead of segfaulting |
| if C<each>, C<keys>, or C<values> is used without an argument. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<tell()> now fails properly if called without an argument and when no |
| previous file was read. |
| |
| C<tell()> now returns C<-1>, and sets errno to C<EBADF>, thus restoring |
| the 5.8.x behaviour. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<overload> no longer implicitly unsets fallback on repeated 'use |
| overload' lines. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| POSIX::strftime() can now handle Unicode characters in the format string. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The C<syntax> category was removed from 5 warnings that should only be in |
| C<deprecated>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Three fatal C<pack>/C<unpack> error messages have been normalized to |
| C<panic: %s> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Unicode character is illegal> has been rephrased to be more accurate |
| |
| It now reads C<Unicode non-character is illegal in interchange> and the |
| perldiag documentation has been expanded a bit. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Currently, all but the first of the several characters that the |
| C<charnames> handler may return are discarded when used in a regular |
| expression pattern bracketed character class. If this happens then the |
| warning C<Using just the first character returned by \N{} in character |
| class> will be issued. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The warning C<Missing right brace on \N{} or unescaped left brace after |
| \N. Assuming the latter> will be issued if Perl encounters a C<\N{> |
| but doesn't find a matching C<}>. In this case Perl doesn't know if it |
| was mistakenly omitted, or if "match non-newline" followed by "match |
| a C<{>" was desired. It assumes the latter because that is actually a |
| valid interpretation as written, unlike the other case. If you meant |
| the former, you need to add the matching right brace. If you did mean |
| the latter, you can silence this warning by writing instead C<\N\{>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<gmtime> and C<localtime> called with numbers smaller than they can |
| reliably handle will now issue the warnings C<gmtime(%.0f) too small> |
| and C<localtime(%.0f) too small>. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| The following diagnostic messages have been removed: |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Runaway format> |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<Can't locate package %s for the parents of %s> |
| |
| In general this warning it only got produced in |
| conjunction with other warnings, and removing it allowed an ISA lookup |
| optimisation to be added. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<v-string in use/require is non-portable> |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Utility Changes |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<h2ph> now looks in C<include-fixed> too, which is a recent addition |
| to gcc's search path. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<h2xs> no longer incorrectly treats enum values like macros. |
| It also now handles C++ style comments (C<//>) properly in enums. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<perl5db.pl> now supports C<LVALUE> subroutines. Additionally, the |
| debugger now correctly handles proxy constant subroutines, and |
| subroutine stubs. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<perlbug> now uses C<%Module::CoreList::bug_tracker> to print out |
| upstream bug tracker URLs. If a user identifies a particular module |
| as the topic of their bug report and we're able to divine the URL for |
| its upstream bug tracker, perlbug now provide a message to the user |
| explaining that the core copies the CPAN version directly, and provide |
| the URL for reporting the bug directly to the upstream author. |
| |
| F<perlbug> no longer reports "Message sent" when it hasn't actually sent |
| the message |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<perlthanks> is a new utility for sending non-bug-reports to the |
| authors and maintainers of Perl. Getting nothing but bug reports can |
| become a bit demoralising. If Perl 5.12 works well for you, please try |
| out F<perlthanks>. It will make the developers smile. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl's developers have fixed bugs in F<a2p> having to do with the |
| C<match()> operator in list context. Additionally, F<a2p> no longer |
| generates code that uses the C<$[> variable. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Selected Bug Fixes |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| U+0FFFF is now a legal character in regular expressions. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| pp_qr now always returns a new regexp SV. Resolves RT #69852. |
| |
| Instead of returning a(nother) reference to the (pre-compiled) regexp |
| in the optree, use reg_temp_copy() to create a copy of it, and return a |
| reference to that. This resolves issues about Regexp::DESTROY not being |
| called in a timely fashion (the original bug tracked by RT #69852), as |
| well as bugs related to blessing regexps, and of assigning to regexps, |
| as described in correspondence added to the ticket. |
| |
| It transpires that we also need to undo the SvPVX() sharing when ithreads |
| cloning a Regexp SV, because mother_re is set to NULL, instead of a |
| cloned copy of the mother_re. This change might fix bugs with regexps |
| and threads in certain other situations, but as yet neither tests nor |
| bug reports have indicated any problems, so it might not actually be an |
| edge case that it's possible to reach. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Several compilation errors and segfaults when perl was built with C<-Dmad> |
| were fixed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Fixes for lexer API changes in 5.11.2 which broke NYTProf's savesrc option. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<-t> should only return TRUE for file handles connected to a TTY |
| |
| The Microsoft C version of C<isatty()> returns TRUE for all character mode |
| devices, including the F</dev/null>-style "nul" device and printers like |
| "lpt1". |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Fixed a regression caused by commit fafafbaf which caused a panic during |
| parameter passing [perl #70171] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| On systems which in-place edits without backup files, -i'*' now works as |
| the documentation says it does [perl #70802] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Saving and restoring magic flags no longer loses readonly flag. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The malformed syntax C<grep EXPR LIST> (note the missing comma) no longer |
| causes abrupt and total failure. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Regular expressions compiled with C<qr{}> literals properly set C<$'> when |
| matching again. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Using named subroutines with C<sort> should no longer lead to bus errors |
| [perl #71076] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Numerous bugfixes catch small issues caused by the recently-added Lexer API. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Smart match against C<@_> sometimes gave false negatives. [perl #71078] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<$@> may now be assigned a read-only value (without error or busting |
| the stack). |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<sort> called recursively from within an active comparison subroutine no |
| longer causes a bus error if run multiple times. [perl #71076] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Tie::Hash::NamedCapture::* will not abort if passed bad input (RT #71828) |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| @_ and $_ no longer leak under threads (RT #34342 and #41138, also |
| #70602, #70974) |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<-I> on shebang line now adds directories in front of @INC |
| as documented, and as does C<-I> when specified on the command-line. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<kill> is now fatal when called on non-numeric process identifiers. |
| Previously, an C<undef> process identifier would be interpreted as a |
| request to kill process 0, which would terminate the current process |
| group on POSIX systems. Since process identifiers are always integers, |
| killing a non-numeric process is now fatal. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| 5.10.0 inadvertently disabled an optimisation, which caused a measurable |
| performance drop in list assignment, such as is often used to assign |
| function parameters from C<@_>. The optimisation has been re-instated, and |
| the performance regression fixed. (This fix is also present in 5.10.1) |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Fixed memory leak on C<while (1) { map 1, 1 }> [RT #53038]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Some potential coredumps in PerlIO fixed [RT #57322,54828]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The debugger now works with lvalue subroutines. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The debugger's C<m> command was broken on modules that defined constants |
| [RT #61222]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<crypt> and string complement could return tainted values for untainted |
| arguments [RT #59998]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The C<-i>I<.suffix> command-line switch now recreates the file using |
| restricted permissions, before changing its mode to match the original |
| file. This eliminates a potential race condition [RT #60904]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| On some Unix systems, the value in C<$?> would not have the top bit set |
| (C<$? & 128>) even if the child core dumped. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Under some circumstances, C<$^R> could incorrectly become undefined |
| [RT #57042]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In the XS API, various hash functions, when passed a pre-computed hash where |
| the key is UTF-8, might result in an incorrect lookup. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| XS code including F<XSUB.h> before F<perl.h> gave a compile-time error |
| [RT #57176]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<< $object-E<gt>isa('Foo') >> would report false if the package C<Foo> |
| didn't exist, even if the object's C<@ISA> contained C<Foo>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Various bugs in the new-to 5.10.0 mro code, triggered by manipulating |
| C<@ISA>, have been found and fixed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Bitwise operations on references could crash the interpreter, e.g. |
| C<$x=\$y; $x |= "foo"> [RT #54956]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Patterns including alternation might be sensitive to the internal UTF-8 |
| representation, e.g. |
| |
| my $byte = chr(192); |
| my $utf8 = chr(192); utf8::upgrade($utf8); |
| $utf8 =~ /$byte|X}/i; # failed in 5.10.0 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Within UTF8-encoded Perl source files (i.e. where C<use utf8> is in |
| effect), double-quoted literal strings could be corrupted where a C<\xNN>, |
| C<\0NNN> or C<\N{}> is followed by a literal character with ordinal value |
| greater than 255 [RT #59908]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<B::Deparse> failed to correctly deparse various constructs: |
| C<readpipe STRING> [RT #62428], C<CORE::require(STRING)> [RT #62488], |
| C<sub foo(_)> [RT #62484]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Using C<setpgrp> with no arguments could corrupt the perl stack. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The block form of C<eval> is now specifically trappable by C<Safe> and |
| C<ops>. Previously it was erroneously treated like string C<eval>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In 5.10.0, the two characters C<[~> were sometimes parsed as the smart |
| match operator (C<~~>) [RT #63854]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In 5.10.0, the C<*> quantifier in patterns was sometimes treated as |
| C<{0,32767}> [RT #60034, #60464]. For example, this match would fail: |
| |
| ("ab" x 32768) =~ /^(ab)*$/ |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<shmget> was limited to a 32 bit segment size on a 64 bit OS [RT #63924]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Using C<next> or C<last> to exit a C<given> block no longer produces a |
| spurious warning like the following: |
| |
| Exiting given via last at foo.pl line 123 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Assigning a format to a glob could corrupt the format; e.g.: |
| |
| *bar=*foo{FORMAT}; # foo format now bad |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Attempting to coerce a typeglob to a string or number could cause an |
| assertion failure. The correct error message is now generated, |
| C<Can't coerce GLOB to I<$type>>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Under C<use filetest 'access'>, C<-x> was using the wrong access |
| mode. This has been fixed [RT #49003]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<length> on a tied scalar that returned a Unicode value would not be |
| correct the first time. This has been fixed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Using an array C<tie> inside in array C<tie> could SEGV. This has been |
| fixed. [RT #51636] |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A race condition inside C<PerlIOStdio_close()> has been identified and |
| fixed. This used to cause various threading issues, including SEGVs. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In C<unpack>, the use of C<()> groups in scalar context was internally |
| placing a list on the interpreter's stack, which manifested in various |
| ways, including SEGVs. This is now fixed [RT #50256]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Magic was called twice in C<substr>, C<\&$x>, C<tie $x, $m> and C<chop>. |
| These have all been fixed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A 5.10.0 optimisation to clear the temporary stack within the implicit |
| loop of C<s///ge> has been reverted, as it turned out to be the cause of |
| obscure bugs in seemingly unrelated parts of the interpreter [commit |
| ef0d4e17921ee3de]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The line numbers for warnings inside C<elsif> are now correct. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The C<..> operator now works correctly with ranges whose ends are at or |
| close to the values of the smallest and largest integers. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<binmode STDIN, ':raw'> could lead to segmentation faults on some platforms. |
| This has been fixed [RT #54828]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| An off-by-one error meant that C<index $str, ...> was effectively being |
| executed as C<index "$str\0", ...>. This has been fixed [RT #53746]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Various leaks associated with named captures in regexes have been fixed |
| [RT #57024]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| A weak reference to a hash would leak. This was affecting C<DBI> |
| [RT #56908]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Using (?|) in a regex could cause a segfault [RT #59734]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Use of a UTF-8 C<tr//> within a closure could cause a segfault [RT #61520]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Calling C<Perl_sv_chop()> or otherwise upgrading an SV could result in an |
| unaligned 64-bit access on the SPARC architecture [RT #60574]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In the 5.10.0 release, C<inc_version_list> would incorrectly list |
| C<5.10.*> after C<5.8.*>; this affected the C<@INC> search order |
| [RT #67628]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In 5.10.0, C<pack "a*", $tainted_value> returned a non-tainted value |
| [RT #52552]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In 5.10.0, C<printf> and C<sprintf> could produce the fatal error |
| C<panic: utf8_mg_pos_cache_update> when printing UTF-8 strings |
| [RT #62666]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In the 5.10.0 release, a dynamically created C<AUTOLOAD> method might be |
| missed (method cache issue) [RT #60220,60232]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In the 5.10.0 release, a combination of C<use feature> and C<//ee> could |
| cause a memory leak [RT #63110]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<-C> on the shebang (C<#!>) line is once more permitted if it is also |
| specified on the command line. C<-C> on the shebang line used to be a |
| silent no-op I<if> it was not also on the command line, so perl 5.10.0 |
| disallowed it, which broke some scripts. Now perl checks whether it is |
| also on the command line and only dies if it is not [RT #67880]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| In 5.10.0, certain types of re-entrant regular expression could crash, |
| or cause the following assertion failure [RT #60508]: |
| |
| Assertion rx->sublen >= (s - rx->subbeg) + i failed |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now includes previously missing files from the Unicode Character |
| Database. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now honors C<TMPDIR> when opening an anonymous temporary file. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| |
| =head1 Platform Specific Changes |
| |
| Perl is incredibly portable. In general, if a platform has a C compiler, |
| someone has ported Perl to it (or will soon). We're happy to announce |
| that Perl 5.12 includes support for several new platforms. At the same |
| time, it's time to bid farewell to some (very) old friends. |
| |
| =head2 New Platforms |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item Haiku |
| |
| Perl's developers have merged patches from Haiku's maintainers. Perl |
| should now build on Haiku. |
| |
| =item MirOS BSD |
| |
| Perl should now build on MirOS BSD. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Discontinued Platforms |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item Domain/OS |
| |
| =item MiNT |
| |
| =item Tenon MachTen |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head2 Updated Platforms |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item AIX |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Removed F<libbsd> for AIX 5L and 6.1. Only C<flock()> was used from |
| F<libbsd>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Removed F<libgdbm> for AIX 5L and 6.1 if F<libgdbm> < 1.8.3-5 is |
| installed. The F<libgdbm> is delivered as an optional package with the |
| AIX Toolbox. Unfortunately the versions below 1.8.3-5 are broken. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Hints changes mean that AIX 4.2 should work again. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Cygwin |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl now supports IPv6 on Cygwin 1.7 and newer. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| On Cygwin we now strip the last number from the DLL. This has been the |
| behaviour in the cygwin.com build for years. The hints files have been |
| updated. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Darwin (Mac OS X) |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Skip testing the be_BY.CP1131 locale on Darwin 10 (Mac OS X 10.6), |
| as it's still buggy. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Correct infelicities in the regexp used to identify buggy locales |
| on Darwin 8 and 9 (Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, respectively). |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item DragonFly BSD |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Fix thread library selection [perl #69686] |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item FreeBSD |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The hints files now identify the correct threading libraries on FreeBSD 7 |
| and later. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Irix |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| We now work around a bizarre preprocessor bug in the Irix 6.5 compiler: |
| C<cc -E -> unfortunately goes into K&R mode, but C<cc -E file.c> doesn't. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item NetBSD |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Hints now supports versions 5.*. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item OpenVMS |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<-UDEBUGGING> is now the default on VMS. |
| |
| Like it has been everywhere else for ages and ages. Also make command-line |
| selection of -UDEBUGGING and -DDEBUGGING work in configure.com; before |
| the only way to turn it off was by saying no in answer to the interactive |
| question. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The default pipe buffer size on VMS has been updated to 8192 on 64-bit |
| systems. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Reads from the in-memory temporary files of C<PerlIO::scalar> used to fail |
| if C<$/> was set to a numeric reference (to indicate record-style reads). |
| This is now fixed. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| VMS now supports C<getgrgid>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Many improvements and cleanups have been made to the VMS file name handling |
| and conversion code. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Enabling the C<PERL_VMS_POSIX_EXIT> logical name now encodes a POSIX exit |
| status in a VMS condition value for better interaction with GNV's bash |
| shell and other utilities that depend on POSIX exit values. See |
| L<perlvms/"$?"> for details. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<File::Copy> now detects Unix compatibility mode on VMS. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Stratus VOS |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Various changes from Stratus have been merged in. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Symbian |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| There is now support for Symbian S60 3.2 SDK and S60 5.0 SDK. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =item Windows |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Perl 5.12 supports Windows 2000 and later. The supporting code for |
| legacy versions of Windows is still included, but will be removed |
| during the next development cycle. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Initial support for building Perl with MinGW-w64 is now available. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| F<perl.exe> now includes a manifest resource to specify the C<trustInfo> |
| settings for Windows Vista and later. Without this setting Windows |
| would treat F<perl.exe> as a legacy application and apply various |
| heuristics like redirecting access to protected file system areas |
| (like the "Program Files" folder) to the users "VirtualStore" |
| instead of generating a proper "permission denied" error. |
| |
| The manifest resource also requests the Microsoft Common-Controls |
| version 6.0 (themed controls introduced in Windows XP). Check out the |
| Win32::VisualStyles module on CPAN to switch back to old style |
| unthemed controls for legacy applications. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The C<-t> filetest operator now only returns true if the filehandle |
| is connected to a console window. In previous versions of Perl it |
| would return true for all character mode devices, including F<NUL> |
| and F<LPT1>. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The C<-p> filetest operator now works correctly, and the |
| Fcntl::S_IFIFO constant is defined when Perl is compiled with |
| Microsoft Visual C. In previous Perl versions C<-p> always |
| returned a false value, and the Fcntl::S_IFIFO constant |
| was not defined. |
| |
| This bug is specific to Microsoft Visual C and never affected |
| Perl binaries built with MinGW. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| The socket error codes are now more widely supported: The POSIX |
| module will define the symbolic names, like POSIX::EWOULDBLOCK, |
| and stringification of socket error codes in $! works as well |
| now; |
| |
| C:\>perl -MPOSIX -E "$!=POSIX::EWOULDBLOCK; say $!" |
| A non-blocking socket operation could not be completed immediately. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| flock() will now set sensible error codes in $!. Previous Perl versions |
| copied the value of $^E into $!, which caused much confusion. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| select() now supports all empty C<fd_set>s more correctly. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<'.\foo'> and C<'..\foo'> were treated differently than |
| C<'./foo'> and C<'../foo'> by C<do> and C<require> [RT #63492]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Improved message window handling means that C<alarm> and C<kill> messages |
| will no longer be dropped under race conditions. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Various bits of Perl's build infrastructure are no longer converted to |
| win32 line endings at release time. If this hurts you, please report the |
| problem with the L<perlbug> program included with perl. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =back |
| |
| |
| =head1 Known Problems |
| |
| This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions |
| from either 5.10.x or 5.8.x. |
| |
| =over 4 |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Some CPANPLUS tests may fail if there is a functioning file |
| F<../../cpanp-run-perl> outside your build directory. The failure |
| shouldn't imply there's a problem with the actual functional |
| software. The bug is already fixed in [RT #74188] and is scheduled for |
| inclusion in perl-v5.12.1. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| C<List::Util::first> misbehaves in the presence of a lexical C<$_> |
| (typically introduced by C<my $_> or implicitly by C<given>). The variable |
| which gets set for each iteration is the package variable C<$_>, not the |
| lexical C<$_> [RT #67694]. |
| |
| A similar issue may occur in other modules that provide functions which |
| take a block as their first argument, like |
| |
| foo { ... $_ ...} list |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Some regexes may run much more slowly when run in a child thread compared |
| with the thread the pattern was compiled into [RT #55600]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Things like C<"\N{LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FF}" =~ /\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER F}+/> |
| will appear to hang as they get into a very long running loop [RT #72998]. |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| Several porters have reported mysterious crashes when Perl's entire |
| test suite is run after a build on certain Windows 2000 systems. When |
| run by hand, the individual tests reportedly work fine. |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Errata |
| |
| =over |
| |
| =item * |
| |
| This one is actually a change introduced in 5.10.0, but it was missed |
| from that release's perldelta, so it is mentioned here instead. |
| |
| A bugfix related to the handling of the C</m> modifier and C<qr> resulted |
| in a change of behaviour between 5.8.x and 5.10.0: |
| |
| # matches in 5.8.x, doesn't match in 5.10.0 |
| $re = qr/^bar/; "foo\nbar" =~ /$re/m; |
| |
| =back |
| |
| =head1 Acknowledgements |
| |
| Perl 5.12.0 represents approximately two years of development since |
| Perl 5.10.0 and contains over 750,000 lines of changes across over |
| 3,000 files from over 200 authors and committers. |
| |
| Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant |
| community of users and developers. The following people are known to |
| have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.12.0: |
| |
| Aaron Crane, Abe Timmerman, Abhijit Menon-Sen, Abigail, Adam Russell, |
| Adriano Ferreira, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Alan Grover, Alexandr |
| Ciornii, Alex Davies, Alex Vandiver, Andreas Koenig, Andrew Rodland, |
| andrew@sundale.net, Andy Armstrong, Andy Dougherty, Jose AUGUSTE-ETIENNE, |
| Benjamin Smith, Ben Morrow, bharanee rathna, Bo Borgerson, Bo Lindbergh, |
| Brad Gilbert, Bram, Brendan O'Dea, brian d foy, Charles Bailey, |
| Chip Salzenberg, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Christoph Lamprecht, Chris |
| Williams, chromatic, Claes Jakobsson, Craig A. Berry, Dan Dascalescu, |
| Daniel Frederick Crisman, Daniel M. Quinlan, Dan Jacobson, Dan Kogai, |
| Dave Mitchell, Dave Rolsky, David Cantrell, David Dick, David Golden, |
| David Mitchell, David M. Syzdek, David Nicol, David Wheeler, Dennis |
| Kaarsemaker, Dintelmann, Peter, Dominic Dunlop, Dr.Ruud, Duke Leto, |
| Enrico Sorcinelli, Eric Brine, Father Chrysostomos, Florian Ragwitz, |
| Frank Wiegand, Gabor Szabo, Gene Sullivan, Geoffrey T. Dairiki, George |
| Greer, Gerard Goossen, Gisle Aas, Goro Fuji, Graham Barr, Green, Paul, |
| Hans Dieter Pearcey, Harmen, H. Merijn Brand, Hugo van der Sanden, |
| Ian Goodacre, Igor Sutton, Ingo Weinhold, James Bence, James Mastros, |
| Jan Dubois, Jari Aalto, Jarkko Hietaniemi, Jay Hannah, Jerry Hedden, |
| Jesse Vincent, Jim Cromie, Jody Belka, John E. Malmberg, John Malmberg, |
| John Peacock, John Peacock via RT, John P. Linderman, John Wright, |
| Josh ben Jore, Jos I. Boumans, Karl Williamson, Kenichi Ishigaki, Ken |
| Williams, Kevin Brintnall, Kevin Ryde, Kurt Starsinic, Leon Brocard, |
| Lubomir Rintel, Luke Ross, Marcel Grünauer, Marcus Holland-Moritz, Mark |
| Jason Dominus, Marko Asplund, Martin Hasch, Mashrab Kuvatov, Matt Kraai, |
| Matt S Trout, Max Maischein, Michael Breen, Michael Cartmell, Michael |
| G Schwern, Michael Witten, Mike Giroux, Milosz Tanski, Moritz Lenz, |
| Nicholas Clark, Nick Cleaton, Niko Tyni, Offer Kaye, Osvaldo Villalon, |
| Paul Fenwick, Paul Gaborit, Paul Green, Paul Johnson, Paul Marquess, |
| Philip Hazel, Philippe Bruhat, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, Rainer Tammer, |
| Rajesh Mandalemula, Reini Urban, Renée Bäcker, Ricardo Signes, |
| Ricardo SIGNES, Richard Foley, Rich Rauenzahn, Rick Delaney, Risto |
| Kankkunen, Robert May, Roberto C. Sanchez, Robin Barker, SADAHIRO |
| Tomoyuki, Salvador Ortiz Garcia, Sam Vilain, Scott Lanning, Sébastien |
| Aperghis-Tramoni, Sérgio Durigan Júnior, Shlomi Fish, Simon 'corecode' |
| Schubert, Sisyphus, Slaven Rezic, Smylers, Steffen Müller, Steffen |
| Ullrich, Stepan Kasal, Steve Hay, Steven Schubiger, Steve Peters, Tels, |
| The Doctor, Tim Bunce, Tim Jenness, Todd Rinaldo, Tom Christiansen, |
| Tom Hukins, Tom Wyant, Tony Cook, Torsten Schoenfeld, Tye McQueen, |
| Vadim Konovalov, Vincent Pit, Hio YAMASHINA, Yasuhiro Matsumoto, |
| Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes, Yuval Kogman, Yves Orton, Zefram, Zsban Ambrus |
| |
| This is woefully incomplete as it's automatically generated from version |
| control history. In particular, it doesn't include the names of the |
| (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues in previous |
| versions of Perl that helped make Perl 5.12.0 better. For a more complete |
| list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please see the C<AUTHORS> |
| file in the Perl 5.12.0 distribution. |
| |
| Our "retired" pumpkings Nicholas Clark and Rafael Garcia-Suarez |
| deserve special thanks for their brilliant and substantive ongoing |
| contributions. Nicholas personally authored over 30% of the patches |
| since 5.10.0. Rafael comes in second in patch authorship with 11%, |
| but is first by a long shot in committing patches authored by others, |
| pushing 44% of the commits since 5.10.0 in this category, often after |
| providing considerable coaching to the patch authors. These statistics |
| in no way comprise all of their contributions, but express in shorthand |
| that we couldn't have done it without them. |
| |
| Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN |
| modules included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN |
| community for helping Perl to flourish. |
| |
| =head1 Reporting Bugs |
| |
| 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 L<http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/>. There may also be |
| information at L<http://www.perl.org/>, the Perl Home Page. |
| |
| If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> |
| 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 C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
| analyzed by the Perl porting team. |
| |
| If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it |
| inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send |
| it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription |
| unarchived mailing list, which includes |
| all the core committers, who will be able |
| to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help |
| co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all |
| platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for |
| security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently |
| distributed on CPAN. |
| |
| =head1 SEE ALSO |
| |
| The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view exhaustive details |
| on what changed. |
| |
| The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. |
| |
| The F<README> file for general stuff. |
| |
| The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. |
| |
| L<http://dev.perl.org/perl5/errata.html> for a list of issues |
| found after this release, as well as a list of CPAN modules known |
| to be incompatible with this release. |
| |
| =cut |