mingw/html/pod/perl586delta.html

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  13 <big><strong><span class="block">&nbsp;perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6</span></strong></big>
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  17 <p><a name="__index__"></a></p>
  18 <!-- INDEX BEGIN -->
  19
  20 <ul>
  21
  22         <li><a href="#name">NAME</a></li>
  23         <li><a href="#description">DESCRIPTION</a></li>
  24         <li><a href="#incompatible_changes">Incompatible Changes</a></li>
  25         <li><a href="#core_enhancements">Core Enhancements</a></li>
  26         <li><a href="#modules_and_pragmata">Modules and Pragmata</a></li>
  27         <li><a href="#utility_changes">Utility Changes</a></li>
  28         <li><a href="#performance_enhancements">Performance Enhancements</a></li>
  29         <li><a href="#selected_bug_fixes">Selected Bug Fixes</a></li>
  30         <li><a href="#new_or_changed_diagnostics">New or Changed Diagnostics</a></li>
  31         <li><a href="#changed_internals">Changed Internals</a></li>
  32         <li><a href="#new_tests">New Tests</a></li>
  33         <li><a href="#reporting_bugs">Reporting Bugs</a></li>
  34         <li><a href="#see_also">SEE ALSO</a></li>
  35 </ul>
  36 <!-- INDEX END -->
  37
  38 <hr />
  39 <p>
  40 </p>
  41 <h1><a name="name">NAME</a></h1>
  42 <p>perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6</p>
  43 <p>
  44 </p>
  45 <hr />
  46 <h1><a name="description">DESCRIPTION</a></h1>
  47 <p>This document describes differences between the 5.8.5 release and
  48 the 5.8.6 release.</p>
  49 <p>
  50 </p>
  51 <hr />
  52 <h1><a name="incompatible_changes">Incompatible Changes</a></h1>
  53 <p>There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.5.</p>
  54 <p>
  55 </p>
  56 <hr />
  57 <h1><a name="core_enhancements">Core Enhancements</a></h1>
  58 <p>The perl interpreter is now more tolerant of UTF-16-encoded scripts.</p>
  59 <p>On Win32, Perl can now use non-IFS compatible LSPs, which allows Perl to
  60 work in conjunction with firewalls such as McAfee Guardian. For full details
  61 see the file <em>README.win32</em>, particularly if you're running Win95.</p>
  62 <p>
  63 </p>
  64 <hr />
  65 <h1><a name="modules_and_pragmata">Modules and Pragmata</a></h1>
  66 <ul>
  67 <li>
  68 <p>With the <code>base</code> pragma, an intermediate class with no fields used to messes
  69 up private fields in the base class. This has been fixed.</p>
  70 </li>
  71 <li>
  72 <p>Cwd upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)</p>
  73 </li>
  74 <li>
  75 <p>Devel::PPPort upgraded to version 3.03</p>
  76 </li>
  77 <li>
  78 <p>File::Spec upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)</p>
  79 </li>
  80 <li>
  81 <p>Encode upgraded to version 2.08</p>
  82 </li>
  83 <li>
  84 <p>ExtUtils::MakeMaker remains at version 6.17, as later stable releases currently
  85 available on CPAN have some issues with core modules on some core platforms.</p>
  86 </li>
  87 <li>
  88 <p>I18N::LangTags upgraded to version 0.35</p>
  89 </li>
  90 <li>
  91 <p>Math::BigInt upgraded to version 1.73</p>
  92 </li>
  93 <li>
  94 <p>Math::BigRat upgraded to version 0.13</p>
  95 </li>
  96 <li>
  97 <p>MIME::Base64 upgraded to version 3.05</p>
  98 </li>
  99 <li>
 100 <p>POSIX::sigprocmask function can now retrieve the current signal mask without
 101 also setting it.</p>
 102 </li>
 103 <li>
 104 <p>Time::HiRes upgraded to version 1.65</p>
 105 </li>
 106 </ul>
 107 <p>
 108 </p>
 109 <hr />
 110 <h1><a name="utility_changes">Utility Changes</a></h1>
 111 <p>Perl has a new -dt command-line flag, which enables threads support in the
 112 debugger.</p>
 113 <p>
 114 </p>
 115 <hr />
 116 <h1><a name="performance_enhancements">Performance Enhancements</a></h1>
 117 <p><code>reverse sort ...</code> is now optimized to sort in reverse, avoiding the
 118 generation of a temporary intermediate list.</p>
 119 <p><code>for (reverse @foo)</code> now iterates in reverse, avoiding the generation of a
 120 temporary reversed list.</p>
 121 <p>
 122 </p>
 123 <hr />
 124 <h1><a name="selected_bug_fixes">Selected Bug Fixes</a></h1>
 125 <p>The regexp engine is now more robust when given invalid utf8 input, as is
 126 sometimes generated by buggy XS modules.</p>
 127 <p><code>foreach</code> on threads::shared array used to be able to crash Perl. This bug
 128 has now been fixed.</p>
 129 <p>A regexp in <code>STDOUT</code>'s destructor used to coredump, because the regexp pad
 130 was already freed. This has been fixed.</p>
 131 <p><a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_goto"><code>goto &amp;</code></a> is now more robust - bugs in deep recursion and chained <a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_goto"><code>goto &amp;</code></a>
 132 have been fixed.</p>
 133 <p>Using <code>delete</code> on an array no longer leaks memory. A <a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_pop"><code>pop</code></a> of an item from a
 134 shared array reference no longer causes a leak.</p>
 135 <p><code>eval_sv()</code> failing a taint test could corrupt the stack - this has been
 136 fixed.</p>
 137 <p>On platforms with 64 bit pointers numeric comparison operators used to
 138 erroneously compare the addresses of references that are overloaded, rather
 139 than using the overloaded values. This has been fixed.</p>
 140 <p><a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_read"><code>read</code></a> into a UTF8-encoded buffer with an offset off the end of the buffer
 141 no longer mis-calculates buffer lengths.</p>
 142 <p>Although Perl has promised since version 5.8 that <a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_sort"><code>sort()</code></a> would be
 143 stable, the two cases <a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_sort"><code>sort {$b cmp $a}</code></a> and <a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlfunc.html#item_sort"><code>sort {$b &lt;=&gt; $a}</code></a> could
 144 produce non-stable sorts.   This is corrected in perl5.8.6.</p>
 145 <p>Localising <a href="file://C|\msysgit\mingw\html/pod/perlvar.html#item___d"><code>$^D</code></a> no longer generates a diagnostic message about valid -D
 146 flags.</p>
 147 <p>
 148 </p>
 149 <hr />
 150 <h1><a name="new_or_changed_diagnostics">New or Changed Diagnostics</a></h1>
 151 <p>For -t and -T,
 152    Too late for ``-T'' option
 153 has been changed to the more informative
 154    ``-T'' is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line</p>
 155 <p>
 156 </p>
 157 <hr />
 158 <h1><a name="changed_internals">Changed Internals</a></h1>
 159 <p>From now on all applications embedding perl will behave as if perl
 160 were compiled with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV.  See ``Environment access'' in
 161 the <em>INSTALL</em> file for details.</p>
 162 <p>Most <code>C</code> source files now have comments at the top explaining their purpose,
 163 which should help anyone wishing to get an overview of the implementation.</p>
 164 <p>
 165 </p>
 166 <hr />
 167 <h1><a name="new_tests">New Tests</a></h1>
 168 <p>There are significantly more tests for the <code>B</code> suite of modules.</p>
 169 <p>
 170 </p>
 171 <hr />
 172 <h1><a name="reporting_bugs">Reporting Bugs</a></h1>
 173 <p>If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
 174 recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
 175 bug database at <a href="http://bugs.perl.org.">http://bugs.perl.org.</a>  There may also be
 176 information at <a href="http://www.perl.org,">http://www.perl.org,</a> the Perl Home Page.</p>
 177 <p>If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the <strong>perlbug</strong>
 178 program included with your release.  Be sure to trim your bug down
 179 to a tiny but sufficient test case.  Your bug report, along with the
 180 output of <code>perl -V</code>, will be sent off to <a href="mailto:perlbug@perl.org">perlbug@perl.org</a> to be
 181 analysed by the Perl porting team.  You can browse and search
 182 the Perl 5 bugs at <a href="http://bugs.perl.org/">http://bugs.perl.org/</a></p>
 183 <p>
 184 </p>
 185 <hr />
 186 <h1><a name="see_also">SEE ALSO</a></h1>
 187 <p>The <em>Changes</em> file for exhaustive details on what changed.</p>
 188 <p>The <em>INSTALL</em> file for how to build Perl.</p>
 189 <p>The <em>README</em> file for general stuff.</p>
 190 <p>The <em>Artistic</em> and <em>Copying</em> files for copyright information.</p>
 191 <table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
 192 <tr><td class="block" style="background-color: #cccccc" valign="middle">
 193 <big><strong><span class="block">&nbsp;perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6</span></strong></big>
 194 </td></tr>
 195 </table>
 196
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