I forgot to CC the announcement yesterday to the OS X list; my apologies! ActivePerl 5.10.0.1001 is available for OS X too. So if you don't want to build Perl 5.10 yourself, you can just install ActivePerl to play with the cool new Perl 5.10 features.
It will install into /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.10, so it will not interfere with the system Perl, nor with any ActivePerl 5.8 you may have installed already. Cheers, -Jan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Perl 5.10.0 has been released today, the first in the 5.10.x major version series, after a five year long development process. Coincidentally today is also the 20th anniversary of the very first release of Perl 1 to the public. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ActiveState is pleased to announce ActivePerl 5.10.0 Build 1001, a complete, ready-to-install Perl distribution for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, and AIX. This build is based on the release version of Perl 5.10.0. For detailed information or to download this release, see: http://www.activestate.com/Products/activeperl New in ActivePerl 5.10.0 Build 1001 =================================== Some exciting new features to look for: * The new switch statement and smart-match operator The new smart-matching operator ~~ compares two expressions with each other; the exact nature of the match is being determined by the types of both expressions: matching a string and hash will return if the hash contains a key equal to the string; matching a regular expression against an array will return if any element of the array matched successfully against the regexp etc. The new switch statement will smart-match a single expression repeatedly against a list of other expression until one matches. For example: given($foo) { when ("foo") { say '$foo is the string "foo"'; } when ([1,3,5,7,9]) { say '$foo is an odd digit'; continue; # Fall through } when ($_ < 100) { say '$foo is numerically less than 100'; } default { die q(I don't know what to do with $foo); } } * Defined-or operator The new defined-or operator // allows you to write $a // $b instead of repeating the first argument as in defined $a ? $a : $b Also the statement $c //= $d; can now be used instead of $c = $d unless defined $c; * Many improvements to the regular expression engine, including: The regular expression engine is no longer recursive, meaning that patterns that used to overflow the stack will either die with useful explanations, or run to completion, which, since they were able to blow the stack before, will likely take a very long time to happen. - It is now possible to write recursive patterns that are easy to read (for a regular expression), and are executed in an efficient manner. - It is now possible to name capturing parenthesis in a pattern and refer to the captured contents by name. The naming syntax is (?<NAME>....). It's possible to backreference to a named buffer with the \k<NAME> syntax. After the match the named capture groups are accessible via the %+ hash: my $value = "foo 42"; if ($value =~ /^(?<name>\w+) \s* (?<number>\d+)$/x) { say "Name $+{name} and Number $+{number}"; } - possessive quantifiers - backtracking control verbs - relative backreferences Other new features include: * new say() function * lexical $_ variable * _ prototype * UNITCHECK blocks * state variables * stacked filetest operators * byte-order modifiers for pack() and unpack() * Many bug fixes * Additional core modules * Extended documentation Download ActivePerl 5.10.0 Build 1001 now: http://www.activestate.com/Products/activeperl Getting Started =============== Whether you're a first-time user or a long-time fan, our free resources will help you get the most from ActivePerl. Mailing list archives: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Browse/Threaded/ActivePerl Feedback ======== Everyone is encouraged to participate in making Perl an even better language. For bugs related to ActiveState use: http://bugs.activestate.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=ActivePerl&version=1001 For bugs related directly to Perl please use the 'perlbug' utility. Enjoy!
