Change 13078 by jhi@alpha on 2001/11/18 17:37:31
Pass 1 at perldelta.pod: sort the section contents
together, drop all but the 5.7.2 known problems,
leave the 5.7.1 security note since that's the
fullest explanation (update the date on that).
Affected files ...
.... //depot/perl/pod/perldelta.pod#254 edit
Differences ...
==== //depot/perl/pod/perldelta.pod#254 (text) ====
Index: perl/pod/perldelta.pod
--- perl/pod/perldelta.pod.~1~ Sun Nov 18 10:45:06 2001
+++ perl/pod/perldelta.pod Sun Nov 18 10:45:06 2001
@@ -7,44 +7,12 @@
This document describes differences between the 5.6.0 release and the
5.8.0 release.
-=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed
-
-A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component
-of Perl has been identified. suidperl is neither built nor installed
-by default. As of September the 2nd, 2000, the only known vulnerable
-platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and
-various vendors have been alerted about the vulnerability.
-
-The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security
-exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux
-platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which
-when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in
-a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you
-don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if
-suidperl is not installed, you are safe.
-
-The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from
-the Perl 5.7.0 release, so that particular vulnerability isn't there
-anymore. However, further security vulnerabilities are,
-unfortunately, always possible. The suidperl code is being reviewed
-and if deemed too risky to continue to be supported, it may be
-completely removed from future releases. In any case, suidperl should
-only be used by security experts who know exactly what they are doing
-and why they are using suidperl instead of some other solution such as
-sudo (see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/).
-
=head1 Incompatible Changes
=over 4
=item *
-Arrays now always interpolate into double-quoted strings:
-constructs like "foo@bar" now always assume C<@bar> is an array,
-whether or not the compiler has seen use of C<@bar>.
-
-=item *
-
The semantics of bless(REF, REF) were unclear and until someone proves
it to make some sense, it is forbidden.
@@ -101,823 +69,132 @@
the interface was a mistake. Sorry about that. For similar
functionality, see pack('U0', ...) and pack('C0', ...).
-=back
-
-=head1 Core Enhancements
-
-=over 4
-
=item *
-C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass
-in multiple arguments.)
+Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that
+depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new
+algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order.
+More details are in L</"Performance Enhancements">.
=item *
-my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works.
-
-=item *
-
-C<no Module;> now works even if there is no "sub unimport" in the Module.
-
-=item *
-
-The numerical comparison operators return C<undef> if either operand
-is a NaN. Previously the behaviour was unspecified.
-
-=item *
-
-C<pack('U0a*', ...)> can now be used to force a string to UTF8.
-
-=item *
-
-prototype(\&) is now available.
-
-=item *
-
-There is now an UNTIE method.
+The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted
+alphabetically to be csh-compliant. (bsd_glob() does still sort platform
+natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.)
=back
-=head1 Modules and Pragmata
+=head2 64-bit platforms and malloc
-=head2 New Modules
+If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no more being
+used because it simply does not work with 8-byte pointers. Also,
+usually the system malloc on such platforms are much better optimized
+for such large memory models than the Perl malloc.
-=over 4
+=head2 AIX Dynaloading
-=item *
+The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native
+dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This
+change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled
+modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other
+applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface.
-File::Temp allows one to create temporary files and directories in an
-easy, portable, and secure way.
+=head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS
-=item *
+The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being
+statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient
+TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test
+Perl in such configurations.
-Storable gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the
-storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and
-compact binary format.
+=head2 Different Definition of the Unicode Character Classes \p{In...}
-=back
+As suggested by the Unicode consortium, the Unicode character classes
+now prefer I<scripts> as opposed to I<blocks> (as defined by Unicode);
+in Perl, when the C<\p{In....}> and the C<\p{In....}> regular expression
+constructs are used. This has changed the definition of some of those
+character classes.
-=head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata
+The difference between scripts and blocks is that scripts are the
+glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while the blocks
+are more artificial groupings of 256 characters based on the Unicode
+numbering.
-=over 4
+In general this change results in more inclusive Unicode character
+classes, but changes to the other direction also do take place:
+for example while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin
+characters and their various diacritic-adorned versions, it
+does not include the various punctuation or digits (since they
+are not solely C<Latin>).
-=item *
+Changes in the character class semantics may have happened if a script
+and a block happen to have the same name, for example C<Hebrew>.
+In such cases the script wins and C<\p{InHebrew}> now means the script
+definition of Hebrew. The block definition in still available,
+though, by appending C<Block> to the name: C<\p{InHebrewBlock}> means
+what C<\p{InHebrew}> meant in perl 5.6.0. For the full list
+of affected character classes, see L<perlunicode/Blocks>.
-The following independently supported modules have been updated to
-newer versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, Getopt::Long,
-the podlators bundle, Pod::LaTeX, Pod::Parser, Term::ANSIColor, Test.
+=head2 Deprecations
-=item *
+The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird
+use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0
+and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be
+implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather
+ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash
+use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain
+available.
-Bug fixes and minor enhancements have been applied to B::Deparse,
-Data::Dumper, IO::Poll, IO::Socket::INET, Math::BigFloat,
-Math::Complex, Math::Trig, Net::protoent, the re pragma, SelfLoader,
-Sys::SysLog, Test::Harness, Text::Wrap, UNIVERSAL, and the warnings
-pragma.
+The syntaxes C<@a->[...]> and C<@h->{...}> have now been deprecated.
-=item *
+The suidperl is also considered to be too much a risk to continue
+maintaining and the suidperl code is likely to be removed in a future
+release.
-The attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments.
+The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument has been
+deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its
+implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to
+disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead.
-=item *
+The chdir(undef) and chdir('') behaviors to match chdir() has been
+deprecated. In future versions, chdir(undef) and chdir('') will
+simply fail.
-AutoLoader can now be disabled with C<no AutoLoader;>,
-
-=item *
-
-The English module can now be used without the infamous performance
-hit by saying
-
- use English '-no_performance_hit';
-
-(Assuming, of course, that one doesn't need the troublesome variables
-C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and
-C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>.
-
-=item *
-
-File::Find now has pre- and post-processing callbacks. It also
-correctly changes directories when chasing symbolic links. Callbacks
-(naughtily) exiting with "next;" instead of "return;" now work.
-
-=item *
-
-File::Glob::glob() renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob() to avoid
-prototype mismatch with CORE::glob().
-
-=item *
-
-IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors.
-
-=item *
-
-use lib now works identically to @INC. Removing directories
-with 'no lib' now works.
-
-=item *
-
-C<%INC> now localised in a Safe compartment so that use/require work.
-
-=item *
-
-The Shell module now has an OO interface.
-
-=back
+=head1 Core Enhancements
-=head1 Utility Changes
-
=over 4
=item *
-The Emacs perl mode (emacs/cperl-mode.el) has been updated to version
-4.31.
+C<perl -d:Module=arg,arg,arg> now works (previously one couldn't pass
+in multiple arguments.)
=item *
-Perlbug is now much more robust. It also sends the bug report to
-perl.org, not perl.com.
+my __PACKAGE__ $obj now works.
=item *
-The perlcc utility has been rewritten and its user interface (that is,
-command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc.
+C<no Module;> now works even if there is no "sub unimport" in the Module.
=item *
-The xsubpp utility for extension writers now understands POD
-documentation embedded in the *.xs files.
+The numerical comparison operators return C<undef> if either operand
+is a NaN. Previously the behaviour was unspecified.
-=back
-
-=head1 New Documentation
-
-=over 4
-
=item *
-perl56delta details the changes between the 5.005 release and the
-5.6.0 release.
+C<pack('U0a*', ...)> can now be used to force a string to UTF8.
=item *
-perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial.
+prototype(\&) is now available.
=item *
-perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms.
-Note that unfortunately EBCDIC platforms that used to supported back in
-Perl 5.005 are still unsupported by Perl 5.7.0; the plan, however, is to
-bring them back to the fold.
-
-=item *
-
-perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module.
-
-=item *
-
-perlposix-bc explains using Perl on the POSIX-BC platform
-(an EBCDIC mainframe platform).
-
-=item *
-
-perlretut is a regular expression tutorial.
-
-=item *
-
-perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide.
-Yes, much quicker than perlretut.
-
-=item *
-
-perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl
-distribution.
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Performance Enhancements
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-map() that changes the size of the list should now work faster.
-
-=item *
-
-sort() has been changed to use mergesort internally as opposed to the
-earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may result in slightly
-slower sorting times, but in general the speedup should be at least
-20%. Additional bonuses are that the worst case behaviour of sort()
-is now better (in computer science terms it now runs in time O(N log N),
-as opposed to quicksort's Theta(N**2) worst-case run time behaviour),
-and that sort() is now stable (meaning that elements with identical
-keys will stay ordered as they were before the sort).
+There is now an UNTIE method.
=back
-=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
-
-=head2 Generic Improvements
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-INSTALL now explains how you can configure Perl to use 64-bit
-integers even on non-64-bit platforms.
-
-=item *
-
-Policy.sh policy change: if you are reusing a Policy.sh file
-(see INSTALL) and you use Configure -Dprefix=/foo/bar and in the old
-Policy $prefix eq $siteprefix and $prefix eq $vendorprefix, all of
-them will now be changed to the new prefix, /foo/bar. (Previously
-only $prefix changed.) If you do not like this new behaviour,
-specify prefix, siteprefix, and vendorprefix explicitly.
-
-=item *
-
-A new optional location for Perl libraries, otherlibdirs, is available.
-It can be used for example for vendor add-ons without disturbing Perl's
-own library directories.
-
-=item *
-
-In many platforms the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to
-build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems
-to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler
-'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead.
-
-=item *
-
-gcc needs to closely track the operating system release to avoid
-build problems. If Configure finds that gcc was built for a different
-operating system release than is running, it now gives a clearly visible
-warning that there may be trouble ahead.
-
-=item *
-
-If binary compatibility with the 5.005 release is not wanted, Configure
-no longer suggests including the 5.005 modules in @INC.
-
-=item *
-
-Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively.
-
-=item *
-
-configure.gnu now works with options with whitespace in them.
-
-=item *
-
-installperl now outputs everything to STDERR.
-
-=item *
-
-$Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically (this is more robust
-with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries for
-more than one binary platform.)
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code,
-condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks
-line number, the C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, all debugger output now
-goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set.
-
-=item *
-
-C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works.
-
-=item *
-
-Lexical warnings now propagating correctly between scopes.
-
-=item *
-
-Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works.
-
-=item *
-
-Fixed numerous memory leaks, especially in eval "".
-
-=item *
-
-Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to
-return 27406, instead of 27047).
-
-=item *
-
-Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be
-more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number.
-
-=item *
-
-our() variables will not cause "will not stay shared" warnings.
-
-=item *
-
-pack "Z" now correctly terminates the string with "\0".
-
-=item *
-
-Fix password routines which in some shadow password platforms
-(e.g. HP-UX) caused getpwent() to return every other entry.
-
-=item *
-
-printf() no longer resets the numeric locale to "C".
-
-=item *
-
-C<q(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>.
-
-=item *
-
-Printing quads (64-bit integers) with printf/sprintf now works
-without the q L ll prefixes (assuming you are on a quad-capable platform).
-
-=item *
-
-Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work.
-
-=item *
-
-scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context.
-
-=item *
-
-sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context
-(they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself).
-
-=item *
-
-Changed the POSIX character class C<[[:space:]]> to include the (very
-rare) vertical tab character. Added a new POSIX-ish character class
-C<[[:blank:]]> which stands for horizontal whitespace (currently,
-the space and the tab).
-
-=item *
-
-$AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses
-in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe.
-
-=item *
-
-Allow read-only string on left hand side of non-modifying tr///.
-
-=item *
-
-Several Unicode fixes (but still not perfect).
-
-=over 8
-
-=item *
-
-BOMs (byte order marks) in the beginning of Perl files
-(scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped.
-UTF-16 (UCS-2) encoded Perl files should now be read correctly.
-
-=item *
-
-The character tables have been updated to Unicode 3.0.1.
-
-=item *
-
-chr() for values greater than 127 now create utf8 when under use
-utf8.
-
-=item *
-
-Comparing with utf8 data does not magically upgrade non-utf8 data into
-utf8.
-
-=item *
-
-C<IsAlnum>, C<IsAlpha>, and C<IsWord> now match titlecase.
-
-=item *
-
-Concatenation with the C<.> operator or via variable interpolation,
-C<eq>, C<substr>, C<reverse>, C<quotemeta>, the C<x> operator,
-substitution with C<s///>, single-quoted UTF8, should now work--in
-theory.
-
-=item *
-
-The C<tr///> operator now works I<slightly> better but is still rather
-broken. Note that the C<tr///CU> functionality has been removed (but
-see pack('U0', ...)).
-
-=item *
-
-vec() now refuses to deal with characters >255.
-
-=item *
-
-Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes like C<IsDigit>.
-
-=back
-
-=item *
-
-UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke
-the Tk extension with 5.6.0.)
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-BSDI 4.*
-
-Perl now works on post-4.0 BSD/OSes.
-
-=item *
-
-All BSDs
-
-Setting C<$0> now works (as much as possible; see perlvar for details).
-
-=item *
-
-Cygwin
-
-Numerous updates; currently synchronised with Cygwin 1.1.4.
-
-=item *
-
-EPOC
-
-EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc.
-
-=item *
-
-FreeBSD 3.*
-
-Perl now works on post-3.0 FreeBSDs.
-
-=item *
-
-HP-UX
-
-README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now almost works.
-
-=item *
-
-IRIX
-
-Numerous compilation flag and hint enhancements; accidental mixing
-of 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (a doomed attempt) made much harder.
-
-=item *
-
-Linux
-
-Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL).
-
-=item *
-
-MacOS Classic
-
-Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in MacOS Classic should
-now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and
-the missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing
-list for details.
-
-=item *
-
-MPE/iX
-
-MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix.
-
-=item *
-
-NetBSD/sparc
-
-Perl now works on NetBSD/sparc.
-
-=item *
-
-OS/2
-
-Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL).
-
-=item *
-
-Solaris
-
-64-bitness using the Sun Workshop compiler now works.
-
-=item *
-
-Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1)
-
-The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}.
-Allow compiling with gcc (previously explicitly forbidden). Compiling
-with gcc still not recommended because buggy code results, even with
-gcc 2.95.2.
-
-=item *
-
-Unicos
-
-Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either
-during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime;
-now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using
-only 46 bit integers for speed.
-
-=item *
-
-VMS
-
-chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY
-(see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc.
-
-=item *
-
-Windows
-
-=over 8
-
-=item *
-
-accept() no longer leaks memory.
-
-=item *
-
-Better chdir() return value for a non-existent directory.
-
-=item *
-
-New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses.
-
-=item *
-
-$ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C.
-
-=item *
-
-A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN.
-
-=item *
-
-Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry.
-
-=item *
-
-Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one.
-
-=item *
-
-Fake signal handling reenabled, bugs and all.
-
-=item *
-
-Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run
-concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.)
-
-=item *
-
-C<File::Spec->tmpdir()> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp
-(works better when perl is running as service).
-
-=item *
-
-Better UNC path handling under ithreads.
-
-=item *
-
-wait() and waitpid() now work much better.
-
-=item *
-
-winsock handle leak fixed.
-
-=back
-
-=back
-
-=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
-
-All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully
-easier to understand both because the error message now comes before
-the failed regex and because the point of failure is now clearly
-marked.
-
-The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings
-drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package,
-for example C<STDIN> instead of <main::STDIN>.
-
-The "Unrecognized escape" warning has been extended to include C<\8>,
-C<\9>, and C<\_>. There is no need to escape any of the C<\w> characters.
-
-=head1 Changed Internals
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-perlapi.pod (a companion to perlguts) now attempts to document the
-internal API.
-
-=item *
-
-You can now build a really minimal perl called microperl.
-Building microperl does not require even running Configure;
-C<make -f Makefile.micro> should be enough. Beware: microperl makes
-many assumptions, some of which may be too bold; the resulting
-executable may crash or otherwise misbehave in wondrous ways.
-For careful hackers only.
-
-=item *
-
-Added rsignal(), whichsig(), do_join() to the publicised API.
-
-=item *
-
-Made possible to propagate customised exceptions via croak()ing.
-
-=item *
-
-Added is_utf8_char(), is_utf8_string(), bytes_to_utf8(), and utf8_to_bytes().
-
-=item *
-
-Now xsubs can have attributes just like subs.
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Known Problems
-
-=head2 Unicode Support Still Far From Perfect
-
-We're working on it. Stay tuned.
-
-=head2 EBCDIC Still A Lost Platform
-
-The plan is to bring them back.
-
-=head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles
-
-Certain extensions like mod_perl and BSD::Resource are known to have
-issues with `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file
-offsets default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to
-compile at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no
-good solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate
-non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config
-hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are
-having problems can try configuring themselves without the
-largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the
-solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether
-one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at
-all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is
-platform-dependent.
-
-=head2 ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'
-
-Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead.
-
-=head2 Test lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails In LP64-Configured HP-UX
-
-If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the
-subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the
-subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the
-subtest 9 failed.
-
-=head2 Long Doubles Still Don't Work In Solaris
-
-The experimental long double support is still very much so in Solaris.
-(Other platforms like Linux and Tru64 are beginning to solidify in
-this area.)
-
-=head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48
-
-No known fix.
-
-=head2 Storable tests fail in some platforms
-
-If any Storable tests fail the use of Storable is not advisable.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-Many Storable tests fail on AIX configured with 64 bit integers.
-
-So far unidentified problems break Storable in AIX if Perl is
-configured to use 64 bit integers. AIX in 32-bit mode works and
-other 64-bit platforms work with Storable.
-
-=item *
-
-DOS DJGPP may hang when testing Storable.
-
-=item *
-
-st-06compat fails in UNICOS and UNICOS/mk.
-
-This means that you cannot read old (pre-Storable-0.7) Storable images
-made in other platforms.
-
-=item *
-
-st-store.t and st-retrieve may fail with Compaq C 6.2 on OpenVMS Alpha 7.2.
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Threads Are Still Experimental
-
-Multithreading is still an experimental feature. Some platforms
-emit the following message for lib/thr5005
-
- #
- # This is a KNOWN FAILURE, and one of the reasons why threading
- # is still an experimental feature. It is here to stop people
- # from deploying threads in production. ;-)
- #
-
-and another known thread-related warning is
-
- pragma/overload......Unbalanced saves: 3 more saves than restores
- panic: magic_mutexfree during global destruction.
- ok
- lib/selfloader.......Unbalanced saves: 3 more saves than restores
- panic: magic_mutexfree during global destruction.
- ok
- lib/st-dclone........Unbalanced saves: 3 more saves than restores
- panic: magic_mutexfree during global destruction.
- ok
-
-=head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental
-
-The compiler suite is slowly getting better but is nowhere near
-working order yet. The backend part that has seen perhaps the most
-progress is the bytecode compiler.
-
-=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed
-
-(This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)
-
-A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component
-of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor
-installed by default. As of April 2001 the only known vulnerable
-platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and
-various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability.
-See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt
-for more information.
-
-The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security
-exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux
-platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which
-when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in
-a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you
-don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if
-suidperl is not installed, you are safe.
-
-The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from
-all the Perl 5.7 releases (and will be gone also from the maintenance
-release 5.6.1), so that particular vulnerability isn't there anymore.
-However, further security vulnerabilities are, unfortunately, always
-possible. The suidperl code is being reviewed and if deemed too risky
-to continue to be supported, it may be completely removed from future
-releases. In any case, suidperl should only be used by security
-experts who know exactly what they are doing and why they are using
-suidperl instead of some other solution such as sudo (see
-http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/).
-
-=head1 Incompatible Changes
-
-=over 4
-
-=item *
-
-Although "you shouldn't do that", it was possible to write code that
-depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new
-algorithm "One-at-a-Time" produces a different hashed key order.
-More details are in L</"Performance Enhancements">.
-
-=item *
-
-The list of filenames from glob() (or <...>) is now by default sorted
-alphabetically to be csh-compliant. (bsd_glob() does still sort platform
-natively, ASCII or EBCDIC, unless GLOB_ALPHASORT is specified.)
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Core Enhancements
-
=head2 AUTOLOAD Is Now Lvaluable
AUTOLOAD is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute
@@ -1055,6 +332,79 @@
Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments
could corrupt Perl's internal state.
+=head2 Understanding of Numbers
+
+In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's
+understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in
+many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()>
+and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their
+deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers.
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants
+have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore
+B<between digits>.
+
+=item *
+
+GMAGIC (right-hand side magic) could in many cases such as string
+concatenation be invoked too many times.
+
+=item *
+
+Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved
+correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they
+were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code.
+
+=item *
+
+Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that
+were declared before the lexicals.
+
+=item *
+
+Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context.
+
+=item *
+
+The C<op_clear> and C<op_null> are now exported.
+
+=item *
+
+A new special regular expression variable has been introduced:
+C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch).
+
+=item *
+
+L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the
+file timestamps to the current time.
+
+=item *
+
+The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and
+Markov chain input.
+
+=item *
+
+C<eval "v200"> now works.
+
+=item *
+
+VMS now works under PerlIO.
+
+=item *
+
+END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block.
+The execution of END blocks is now controlled by
+PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new
+behaviour for perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See
+L<perlembed>.
+
+=back
+
=head1 Modules and Pragmata
=head2 New Modules
@@ -1063,6 +413,17 @@
=item *
+File::Temp allows one to create temporary files and directories in an
+easy, portable, and secure way.
+
+=item *
+
+Storable gives persistence to Perl data structures by allowing the
+storage and retrieval of Perl data to and from files in a fast and
+compact binary format.
+
+=item *
+
B::Concise, by Stephen McCamant, is a new compiler backend for
walking the Perl syntax tree, printing concise info about ops.
The output is highly customisable.
@@ -1285,6 +646,74 @@
typemaps. Nothing gets installed but for extension writers the code
is worth studying.
+=item *
+
+L<Attribute::Handlers> - Simpler definition of attribute handlers
+
+=item *
+
+L<ExtUtils::Constant> - generate XS code to import C header constants
+
+=item *
+
+L<I18N::Langinfo> - query locale information
+
+=item *
+
+L<I18N::LangTags> - functions for dealing with RFC3066-style language tags
+
+=item *
+
+L<libnet> - a collection of perl5 modules related to network programming
+
+Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure.
+
+=item *
+
+L<List::Util> - selection of general-utility list subroutines
+
+=item *
+
+L<Locale::Maketext> - framework for localization
+
+=item *
+
+L<Memoize> - Make your functions faster by trading space for time
+
+=item *
+
+L<NEXT> - pseudo-class for method redispatch
+
+=item *
+
+L<Scalar::Util> - selection of general-utility scalar subroutines
+
+=item *
+
+L<Test::More> - yet another framework for writing test scripts
+
+=item *
+
+L<Test::Simple> - Basic utilities for writing tests
+
+=item *
+
+L<Time::HiRes> - high resolution ualarm, usleep, and gettimeofday
+
+=item *
+
+L<Time::Piece> - Object Oriented time objects
+
+(Previously known as L<Time::Object>.)
+
+=item *
+
+L<Time::Seconds> - a simple API to convert seconds to other date values
+
+=item *
+
+L<UnicodeCD> - Unicode Character Database
+
=back
=head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata
@@ -1293,6 +722,67 @@
=item *
+The following independently supported modules have been updated to
+newer versions from CPAN: CGI, CPAN, DB_File, File::Spec, Getopt::Long,
+the podlators bundle, Pod::LaTeX, Pod::Parser, Term::ANSIColor, Test.
+
+=item *
+
+Bug fixes and minor enhancements have been applied to B::Deparse,
+Data::Dumper, IO::Poll, IO::Socket::INET, Math::BigFloat,
+Math::Complex, Math::Trig, Net::protoent, the re pragma, SelfLoader,
+Sys::SysLog, Test::Harness, Text::Wrap, UNIVERSAL, and the warnings
+pragma.
+
+=item *
+
+The attributes::reftype() now works on tied arguments.
+
+=item *
+
+AutoLoader can now be disabled with C<no AutoLoader;>,
+
+=item *
+
+The English module can now be used without the infamous performance
+hit by saying
+
+ use English '-no_performance_hit';
+
+(Assuming, of course, that one doesn't need the troublesome variables
+C<$`>, C<$&>, or C<$'>.) Also, introduced C<@LAST_MATCH_START> and
+C<@LAST_MATCH_END> English aliases for C<@-> and C<@+>.
+
+=item *
+
+File::Find now has pre- and post-processing callbacks. It also
+correctly changes directories when chasing symbolic links. Callbacks
+(naughtily) exiting with "next;" instead of "return;" now work.
+
+=item *
+
+File::Glob::glob() renamed to File::Glob::bsd_glob() to avoid
+prototype mismatch with CORE::glob().
+
+=item *
+
+IPC::Open3 now allows the use of numeric file descriptors.
+
+=item *
+
+use lib now works identically to @INC. Removing directories
+with 'no lib' now works.
+
+=item *
+
+C<%INC> now localised in a Safe compartment so that use/require work.
+
+=item *
+
+The Shell module now has an OO interface.
+
+=item *
+
B::Deparse should be now more robust. It still far from providing a full
round trip for any random piece of Perl code, though, and is under active
development: expect more robustness in 5.7.2.
@@ -1363,24 +853,50 @@
CPAN, CGI, DB_File, File::Temp, Getopt::Long, Pod::Man, Pod::Text,
Storable, Text-Tabs+Wrap.
-=head1 Performance Enhancements
+=item *
+
+L<B::Deparse> module has been significantly enhanced. It now
+can deparse almost all of the standard test suite (so that the
+tests still succeed). There is a make target "test.deparse"
+for trying this out.
+
+=item *
+
+L<Class::Struct> now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor
+is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument.
+
+=item *
+
+L<Cwd> extension is now (even) faster.
+
+=item *
+
+L<DB_File> extension has been updated to version 1.77.
+
+=item *
+
+L<Fcntl>, L<Socket>, and L<Sys::Syslog> have been rewritten to use the
+new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>).
+
+=item *
+
+L<File::Find> is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made
+more portable.
+
+=item *
-=over 4
+L<File::Glob> now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the
+size of the returned list of filenames.
=item *
-Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm
-(http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html). This algorithm is
-reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than
-the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by
-Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of
-all 3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the
-DIEHARD random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this
-change has not affected the overall speed of Perl.
+L<IO::Socket::INET> now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning
+that the operating system will make one up.)
=item *
-unshift() should now be noticeably faster.
+The L<vars> pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables.
+(Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.)
=back
@@ -1390,6 +906,26 @@
=item *
+The Emacs perl mode (emacs/cperl-mode.el) has been updated to version
+4.31.
+
+=item *
+
+Perlbug is now much more robust. It also sends the bug report to
+perl.org, not perl.com.
+
+=item *
+
+The perlcc utility has been rewritten and its user interface (that is,
+command line) is much more like that of the UNIX C compiler, cc.
+
+=item *
+
+The xsubpp utility for extension writers now understands POD
+documentation embedded in the *.xs files.
+
+=item *
+
h2xs now produces template README.
=item *
@@ -1401,10 +937,82 @@
xsubpp now supports OUT keyword.
+=item *
+
+The F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster.
+
+=item *
+
+L<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs.
+
+=item *
+
+L<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect
+newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is
+more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a
+prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined),
+less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the
+old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants),
+and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your
+extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy).
+L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs.
+
+=item *
+
+L<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet.
+
+=item *
+
+The F<Pod::Html> (and thusly L<pod2html>) now allows specifying
+a cache directory.
+
=back
=head1 New Documentation
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+perl56delta details the changes between the 5.005 release and the
+5.6.0 release.
+
+=item *
+
+perldebtut is a Perl debugging tutorial.
+
+=item *
+
+perlebcdic contains considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms.
+Note that unfortunately EBCDIC platforms that used to supported back in
+Perl 5.005 are still unsupported by Perl 5.7.0; the plan, however, is to
+bring them back to the fold.
+
+=item *
+
+perlnewmod tells about writing and submitting a new module.
+
+=item *
+
+perlposix-bc explains using Perl on the POSIX-BC platform
+(an EBCDIC mainframe platform).
+
+=item *
+
+perlretut is a regular expression tutorial.
+
+=item *
+
+perlrequick is a regular expressions quick-start guide.
+Yes, much quicker than perlretut.
+
+=item *
+
+perlutil explains the command line utilities packaged with the Perl
+distribution.
+
+=back
+
=head2 perlclib
Internal replacements for standard C library functions.
@@ -1458,12 +1066,135 @@
Documentation on how to use the Perl source repository has been added.
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13> is an article about software localization,
+originally published in The Perl Journal #13, republished here with
+kind permission.
+
+=item *
+
+More README.$PLATFORM files have been converted into pod, which also
+means that they also be installed as perl$PLATFORM documentation
+files. The new files are L<perlapollo>, L<perlbeos>, L<perldgux>,
+L<perlhurd>, L<perlmint>, L<perlnetware>, L<perlplan9>, L<perlqnx>,
+and L<perltru64>.
+
+=item *
+
+The F<Todo> and F<Todo-5.6> files have been merged into L<perltodo>.
+
+=item *
+
+Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in
+L<perlhack>. There is a make target "perl.gprof" for generating a
+gprofiled Perl executable.
+
+=back
+
+=head1 Performance Enhancements
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+map() that changes the size of the list should now work faster.
+
+=item *
+
+sort() has been changed to use mergesort internally as opposed to the
+earlier quicksort. For very small lists this may result in slightly
+slower sorting times, but in general the speedup should be at least
+20%. Additional bonuses are that the worst case behaviour of sort()
+is now better (in computer science terms it now runs in time O(N log N),
+as opposed to quicksort's Theta(N**2) worst-case run time behaviour),
+and that sort() is now stable (meaning that elements with identical
+keys will stay ordered as they were before the sort).
+
+=item *
+
+Hashes now use Bob Jenkins "One-at-a-Time" hashing key algorithm
+(http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html). This algorithm is
+reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than
+the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by
+Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of
+all 3-char printable ASCII keys comes much closer to passing the
+DIEHARD random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this
+change has not affected the overall speed of Perl.
+
+=item *
+
+unshift() should now be noticeably faster.
+
+=back
+
=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
+=head2 Generic Improvements
+
=over 4
=item *
+INSTALL now explains how you can configure Perl to use 64-bit
+integers even on non-64-bit platforms.
+
+=item *
+
+Policy.sh policy change: if you are reusing a Policy.sh file
+(see INSTALL) and you use Configure -Dprefix=/foo/bar and in the old
+Policy $prefix eq $siteprefix and $prefix eq $vendorprefix, all of
+them will now be changed to the new prefix, /foo/bar. (Previously
+only $prefix changed.) If you do not like this new behaviour,
+specify prefix, siteprefix, and vendorprefix explicitly.
+
+=item *
+
+A new optional location for Perl libraries, otherlibdirs, is available.
+It can be used for example for vendor add-ons without disturbing Perl's
+own library directories.
+
+=item *
+
+In many platforms the vendor-supplied 'cc' is too stripped-down to
+build Perl (basically, 'cc' doesn't do ANSI C). If this seems
+to be the case and 'cc' does not seem to be the GNU C compiler
+'gcc', an automatic attempt is made to find and use 'gcc' instead.
+
+=item *
+
+gcc needs to closely track the operating system release to avoid
+build problems. If Configure finds that gcc was built for a different
+operating system release than is running, it now gives a clearly visible
+warning that there may be trouble ahead.
+
+=item *
+
+If binary compatibility with the 5.005 release is not wanted, Configure
+no longer suggests including the 5.005 modules in @INC.
+
+=item *
+
+Configure C<-S> can now run non-interactively.
+
+=item *
+
+configure.gnu now works with options with whitespace in them.
+
+=item *
+
+installperl now outputs everything to STDERR.
+
+=item *
+
+$Config{byteorder} is now computed dynamically (this is more robust
+with "fat binaries" where an executable image contains binaries for
+more than one binary platform.)
+
+=item *
+
Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, "-perlio" doesn't
get appended to the $Config{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore.
Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command
@@ -1492,6 +1223,32 @@
have been added, see L<perlhack> for more information about pixie and
Third Degree.
+=item *
+
+In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be
+somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure
+parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>.
+
+=item *
+
+The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the
+DB_File extension) was built is now available as
+C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}>
+from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG
+DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C.
+
+=item *
+
+The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads
+(C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the
+Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>).
+
+=item *
+
+The C<B::Deparse> compiler backend has been so significantly improved
+that almost the whole Perl test suite passes after being deparsed. A
+make target has been added to help in further testing: C<make test.deparse>.
+
=back
=head2 New Or Improved Platforms
@@ -1547,834 +1304,719 @@
support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default,
however, you must specify -Dusedl in the arguments of Configure.
-=back
+=item *
-=head2 Generic Improvements
-
-=over 4
+AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the
+long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>.
=item *
-Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm)
-when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x,
-which needs them.
+AtheOS (http://www.atheos.cx/) is a new platform.
=item *
-Some new Configure symbols, useful for extension writers:
+DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>.
-=over 8
+=item *
-=item d_cmsghdr
+DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2.
-For struct cmsghdr.
+=item *
-=item d_fcntl_can_lock
+Several MacOS (Classic) portability patches have been applied. We
+hope to get a fully working port by 5.8.0. (The remaining problems
+relate to the changed IO model of Perl.) See L<perlmacos>.
-Whether fcntl() can be used for file locking.
+=item *
-=item d_fsync
+MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+
+filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.)
-=item d_getitimer
+=item *
-=item d_getpagsz
+NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>.
-For getpagesize(), though you should prefer POSIX::sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE))
+=item *
-=item d_msghdr_s
+The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported.
-For struct msghdr.
+=back
-=item need_va_copy
+=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-Whether one needs to use Perl_va_copy() to copy varargs.
+=over 4
-=item d_readv
+=item *
-=item d_recvmsg
+Several debugger fixes: exit code now reflects the script exit code,
+condition C<"0"> now treated correctly, the C<d> command now checks
+line number, the C<$.> no longer gets corrupted, all debugger output now
+goes correctly to the socket if RemotePort is set.
-=item d_sendmsg
+=item *
-=item sig_size
+C<*foo{FORMAT}> now works.
-The number of elements in an array needed to hold all the available signals.
+=item *
-=item d_sockatmark
+Lexical warnings now propagating correctly between scopes.
-=item d_strtoq
+=item *
-=item d_u32align
+Line renumbering with eval and C<#line> now works.
-Whether one needs to access character data aligned by U32 sized pointers.
+=item *
-=item d_ualarm
-
-=item d_usleep
+Fixed numerous memory leaks, especially in eval "".
-=back
-
=item *
-Removed Configure symbols: the PDP-11 memory model settings: huge,
-large, medium, models.
+Modulus of unsigned numbers now works (4063328477 % 65535 used to
+return 27406, instead of 27047).
=item *
-SOCKS support is now much more robust.
+Some "not a number" warnings introduced in 5.6.0 eliminated to be
+more compatible with 5.005. Infinity is now recognised as a number.
=item *
-If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside
-of the source directory by
-
- mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
- cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
- sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
-
-This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
-pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
-unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
-
- make all test
-
-and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
-
-=back
+our() variables will not cause "will not stay shared" warnings.
-=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-
-Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been hunted down.
-Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite a bit.
-
-=over 4
-
=item *
-chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in
-reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order.
+pack "Z" now correctly terminates the string with "\0".
=item *
-The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable.
+Fix password routines which in some shadow password platforms
+(e.g. HP-UX) caused getpwent() to return every other entry.
=item *
-mkdir() now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name,
-as mandated by POSIX.
+printf() no longer resets the numeric locale to "C".
=item *
-Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with our().
+C<q(a\\b)> now parses correctly as C<'a\\b'>.
=item *
-The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments
-to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options.
+Printing quads (64-bit integers) with printf/sprintf now works
+without the q L ll prefixes (assuming you are on a quad-capable platform).
=item *
-The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does
-not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the
-behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation.
+Regular expressions on references and overloaded scalars now work.
=item *
-All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional.
+scalar() now forces scalar context even when used in void context.
=item *
-Tie::ARRAY SPLICE method was broken.
+sort() arguments are now compiled in the right wantarray context
+(they were accidentally using the context of the sort() itself).
=item *
-vec() now tries to work with characters <= 255 when possible, but it leaves
-higher character values in place. In that case, if vec() was used to modify
-the string, it is no longer considered to be utf8-encoded.
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
+Changed the POSIX character class C<[[:space:]]> to include the (very
+rare) vertical tab character. Added a new POSIX-ish character class
+C<[[:blank:]]> which stands for horizontal whitespace (currently,
+the space and the tab).
-=over 4
-
=item *
-Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using
-accept(), revcfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and getsockname().
+$AUTOLOAD, sort(), lock(), and spawning subprocesses
+in multiple threads simultaneously are now thread-safe.
=item *
-Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O.
+Allow read-only string on left hand side of non-modifying tr///.
=item *
-Windows
+Several Unicode fixes (but still not perfect).
=over 8
=item *
-Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl.
-However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those
-generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++).
+BOMs (byte order marks) in the beginning of Perl files
+(scripts, modules) should now be transparently skipped.
+UTF-16 (UCS-2) encoded Perl files should now be read correctly.
=item *
-Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root.
-Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed.
+The character tables have been updated to Unicode 3.0.1.
=item *
-Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
+chr() for values greater than 127 now create utf8 when under use
+utf8.
=item *
-HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html
+Comparing with utf8 data does not magically upgrade non-utf8 data into
+utf8.
=item *
-The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features
-enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular binary distribution).
+C<IsAlnum>, C<IsAlpha>, and C<IsWord> now match titlecase.
-=back
+=item *
-=back
+Concatenation with the C<.> operator or via variable interpolation,
+C<eq>, C<substr>, C<reverse>, C<quotemeta>, the C<x> operator,
+substitution with C<s///>, single-quoted UTF8, should now work--in
+theory.
-=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
+=item *
-Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your
-Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace
-tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables,
-respectively.
-
-=over 4
+The C<tr///> operator now works I<slightly> better but is still rather
+broken. Note that the C<tr///CU> functionality has been removed (but
+see pack('U0', ...)).
=item *
-If an attempt to use a (non-blessed) reference as an array index
-is made, a warning is given.
+vec() now refuses to deal with characters >255.
=item *
-C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift)
-now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled
-code.
+Zero entries were missing from the Unicode classes like C<IsDigit>.
=back
-=head1 Changed Internals
+=item *
-=over 4
+UNIVERSAL::isa no longer caches methods incorrectly. (This broke
+the Tk extension with 5.6.0.)
=item *
-Some new APIs: ptr_table_clear(), ptr_table_free(), sv_setref_uv().
-For the full list of the available APIs see L<perlapi>.
+Configure no longer includes the DBM libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm)
+when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x,
+which needs them.
=item *
-dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's
-a no-op) and the latter replaced with dSP.
+Some new Configure symbols, useful for extension writers:
-=item *
+=over 8
-Perl now uses system malloc instead of Perl malloc on all 64-bit
-platforms, and even in some not-always-64-bit platforms like AIX,
-IRIX, and Solaris. This change breaks backward compatibility but
-Perl's malloc has problems with large address spaces and also the
-speed of vendors' malloc is generally better in large address space
-machines (Perl's malloc is mostly tuned for space).
+=item d_cmsghdr
-=back
+For struct cmsghdr.
-=head1 New Tests
+=item d_fcntl_can_lock
-Many new tests have been added. The most notable is probably the
-lib/1_compile: it is very notable because running it takes quite a
-long time -- it test compiles all the Perl modules in the distribution.
-Please be patient.
+Whether fcntl() can be used for file locking.
-=head1 Known Problems
+=item d_fsync
-Note that unlike other sections in this document (which describe
-changes since 5.7.0) this section is cumulative containing known
-problems for all the 5.7 releases.
+=item d_getitimer
-=head2 AIX vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl
+=item d_getpagsz
-The AIX C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code,
-resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests
-are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least
-vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly.
-"lslpp -L|grep vac.C" will tell you the vac version.
+For getpagesize(), though you should prefer POSIX::sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE))
-=head2 lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'
+=item d_msghdr_s
-Don't panic. Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead.
+For struct msghdr.
-=head2 lib/io_multihomed Fails In LP64-Configured HP-UX
+=item need_va_copy
-The lib/io_multihomed test may hang in HP-UX if Perl has been
-configured to be 64-bit. Because other 64-bit platforms do not hang in
-this test, HP-UX is suspect. All other tests pass in 64-bit HP-UX. The
-test attempts to create and connect to "multihomed" sockets (sockets
-which have multiple IP addresses).
+Whether one needs to use Perl_va_copy() to copy varargs.
-=head2 Test lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails In LP64-Configured HP-UX
+=item d_readv
-If perl is configured with -Duse64bitall, the successful result of the
-subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the
-subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the
-subtest 9 failed.
+=item d_recvmsg
-=head2 lib/b test 19
+=item d_sendmsg
-The test fails on various platforms (PA64 and IA64 are known), but the
-exact cause is still being investigated.
+=item sig_size
-=head2 Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48
+The number of elements in an array needed to hold all the available signals.
-No known fix.
+=item d_sockatmark
-=head2 sigaction test 13 in VMS
+=item d_strtoq
-The test is known to fail; whether it's because of VMS of because
-of faulty test is not known.
+=item d_u32align
-=head2 sprintf tests 129 and 130
+Whether one needs to access character data aligned by U32 sized pointers.
-The op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 are known to fail on some platforms.
-Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop-UX.
-The failing platforms do not comply with the ANSI C Standard, line
-19ff on page 134 of ANSI X3.159 1989 to be exact. (They produce
-something else than "1" and "-1" when formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using
-the printf format "%.0f", most often they produce "0" and "-0".)
+=item d_ualarm
-=head2 Failure of Thread tests
+=item d_usleep
-The subtests 19 and 20 of lib/thr5005.t test are known to fail due to
-fundamental problems in the 5.005 threading implementation. These are
-not new failures--Perl 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have
-these tests. (Note that support for 5.005-style threading remains
-experimental.)
+=back
-=head2 Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory
+=item *
- use Tie::Hash;
- tie my %tie_hash => 'Tie::StdHash';
+Removed Configure symbols: the PDP-11 memory model settings: huge,
+large, medium, models.
- ...
+=item *
- local($tie_hash{Foo}) = 1; # leaks
+SOCKS support is now much more robust.
-Code like the above is known to leak memory every time the local()
-is executed.
+=item *
-=head2 Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden
+If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside
+of the source directory by
-Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and
-hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting
-frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is
-for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt).
+ mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
+ cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
+ sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
-=head2 Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles
+This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
+pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
+unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
-Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with
-`largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets
-default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile
-at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good
-solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate
-non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the %Config
-hash (e.g., $Config{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are
-having problems can try configuring themselves without the
-largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the
-solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether
-one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at
-all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is
-platform-dependent.
+ make all test
-=head2 The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental
+and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
-The compiler suite is slowly getting better but is nowhere near
-working order yet.
+=back
-=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed
+=head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
-(This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)
+=over 4
-A security vulnerability affecting all Perl versions prior to 5.6.1
-was found in August 2000. The vulnerability does not affect default
-installations and as far as is known affects only the Linux platform.
+=item *
-You should upgrade your Perl to 5.6.1 as soon as possible. Patches
-for earlier releases exist but using the patches require full
-recompilation from the source code anyway, so 5.6.1 is your best
-choice.
+BSDI 4.*
-See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt
-for more information.
+Perl now works on post-4.0 BSD/OSes.
-=head1 Incompatible Changes
+=item *
-=head2 64-bit platforms and malloc
+All BSDs
-If your pointers are 64 bits wide, the Perl malloc is no more being
-used because it simply does not work with 8-byte pointers. Also,
-usually the system malloc on such platforms are much better optimized
-for such large memory models than the Perl malloc.
+Setting C<$0> now works (as much as possible; see perlvar for details).
-=head2 AIX Dynaloading
+=item *
-The AIX dynaloading now uses in AIX releases 4.3 and newer the native
-dlopen interface of AIX instead of the old emulated interface. This
-change will probably break backward compatibility with compiled
-modules. The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other
-applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface.
+Cygwin
-=head2 Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS
+Numerous updates; currently synchronised with Cygwin 1.1.4.
-The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being
-statically built in. This may or may not be a problem with ancient
-TCP/IP stacks of VMS: we do not know since we weren't able to test
-Perl in such configurations.
+=item *
-=head2 Different Definition of the Unicode Character Classes \p{In...}
+EPOC
-As suggested by the Unicode consortium, the Unicode character classes
-now prefer I<scripts> as opposed to I<blocks> (as defined by Unicode);
-in Perl, when the C<\p{In....}> and the C<\p{In....}> regular expression
-constructs are used. This has changed the definition of some of those
-character classes.
+EPOC update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.epoc.
-The difference between scripts and blocks is that scripts are the
-glyphs used by a language or a group of languages, while the blocks
-are more artificial groupings of 256 characters based on the Unicode
-numbering.
+=item *
-In general this change results in more inclusive Unicode character
-classes, but changes to the other direction also do take place:
-for example while the script C<Latin> includes all the Latin
-characters and their various diacritic-adorned versions, it
-does not include the various punctuation or digits (since they
-are not solely C<Latin>).
+FreeBSD 3.*
-Changes in the character class semantics may have happened if a script
-and a block happen to have the same name, for example C<Hebrew>.
-In such cases the script wins and C<\p{InHebrew}> now means the script
-definition of Hebrew. The block definition in still available,
-though, by appending C<Block> to the name: C<\p{InHebrewBlock}> means
-what C<\p{InHebrew}> meant in perl 5.6.0. For the full list
-of affected character classes, see L<perlunicode/Blocks>.
+Perl now works on post-3.0 FreeBSDs.
-=head2 Deprecations
+=item *
-The current user-visible implementation of pseudo-hashes (the weird
-use of the first array element) is deprecated starting from Perl 5.8.0
-and will be removed in Perl 5.10.0, and the feature will be
-implemented differently. Not only is the current interface rather
-ugly, but the current implementation slows down normal array and hash
-use quite noticeably. The C<fields> pragma interface will remain
-available.
+HP-UX
-The syntaxes C<@a->[...]> and C<@h->{...}> have now been deprecated.
+README.hpux updated; C<Configure -Duse64bitall> now almost works.
-The suidperl is also considered to be too much a risk to continue
-maintaining and the suidperl code is likely to be removed in a future
-release.
+=item *
-The C<package;> syntax (C<package> without an argument has been
-deprecated. Its semantics were never that clear and its
-implementation even less so. If you have used that feature to
-disallow all but fully qualified variables, C<use strict;> instead.
+IRIX
-The chdir(undef) and chdir('') behaviors to match chdir() has been
-deprecated. In future versions, chdir(undef) and chdir('') will
-simply fail.
+Numerous compilation flag and hint enhancements; accidental mixing
+of 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (a doomed attempt) made much harder.
-=head1 Core Enhancements
+=item *
-In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's
-understanding of numbers, both integer and floating point. Since in
-many systems the standard number parsing functions like C<strtoul()>
-and C<atof()> seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their
-deficiencies. This results hopefully in more accurate numbers.
+Linux
-=over 4
+Long doubles should now work (see INSTALL).
=item *
-The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants
-have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore
-B<between digits>.
+MacOS Classic
+
+Compilation of the standard Perl distribution in MacOS Classic should
+now work if you have the Metrowerks development environment and
+the missing Mac-specific toolkit bits. Contact the macperl mailing
+list for details.
=item *
-GMAGIC (right-hand side magic) could in many cases such as string
-concatenation be invoked too many times.
+MPE/iX
+
+MPE/iX update after Perl 5.6.0. See README.mpeix.
=item *
-Lexicals I: lexicals outside an eval "" weren't resolved
-correctly inside a subroutine definition inside the eval "" if they
-were not already referenced in the top level of the eval""ed code.
+NetBSD/sparc
+
+Perl now works on NetBSD/sparc.
=item *
-Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that
-were declared before the lexicals.
+OS/2
+
+Now works with usethreads (see INSTALL).
=item *
-Lvalue subroutines can now return C<undef> in list context.
+Solaris
+
+64-bitness using the Sun Workshop compiler now works.
=item *
-The C<op_clear> and C<op_null> are now exported.
+Tru64 (aka Digital UNIX, aka DEC OSF/1)
+
+The operating system version letter now recorded in $Config{osvers}.
+Allow compiling with gcc (previously explicitly forbidden). Compiling
+with gcc still not recommended because buggy code results, even with
+gcc 2.95.2.
=item *
-A new special regular expression variable has been introduced:
-C<$^N>, which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch).
+Unicos
+
+Fixed various alignment problems that lead into core dumps either
+during build or later; no longer dies on math errors at runtime;
+now using full quad integers (64 bits), previously was using
+only 46 bit integers for speed.
=item *
-L<utime> now supports C<utime undef, undef, @files> to change the
-file timestamps to the current time.
+VMS
+
+chdir() now works better despite a CRT bug; now works with MULTIPLICITY
+(see INSTALL); now works with Perl's malloc.
=item *
-The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and
-Markov chain input.
+Windows
+
+=over 8
=item *
-C<eval "v200"> now works.
+accept() no longer leaks memory.
=item *
-VMS now works under PerlIO.
+Better chdir() return value for a non-existent directory.
=item *
-END blocks are now run even if you exit/die in a BEGIN block.
-The execution of END blocks is now controlled by
-PL_exit_flags & PERL_EXIT_DESTRUCT_END. This enables the new
-behaviour for perl embedders. This will default in 5.10. See
-L<perlembed>.
-
-=back
+New %ENV entries now propagate to subprocesses.
-=head1 Modules and Pragmata
-
-=head2 New Modules and Distributions
-
-=over 4
-
=item *
-L<Attribute::Handlers> - Simpler definition of attribute handlers
+$ENV{LIB} now used to search for libs under Visual C.
=item *
-L<ExtUtils::Constant> - generate XS code to import C header constants
+A failed (pseudo)fork now returns undef and sets errno to EAGAIN.
=item *
-L<I18N::Langinfo> - query locale information
+Allow REG_EXPAND_SZ keys in the registry.
=item *
-L<I18N::LangTags> - functions for dealing with RFC3066-style language tags
+Can now send() from all threads, not just the first one.
=item *
-L<libnet> - a collection of perl5 modules related to network programming
+Fake signal handling reenabled, bugs and all.
-Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use F<libnetcfg> to configure.
-
=item *
-L<List::Util> - selection of general-utility list subroutines
+Less stack reserved per thread so that more threads can run
+concurrently. (Still 16M per thread.)
=item *
-L<Locale::Maketext> - framework for localization
+C<File::Spec->tmpdir()> now prefers C:/temp over /tmp
+(works better when perl is running as service).
=item *
-L<Memoize> - Make your functions faster by trading space for time
+Better UNC path handling under ithreads.
=item *
-L<NEXT> - pseudo-class for method redispatch
+wait() and waitpid() now work much better.
=item *
-L<Scalar::Util> - selection of general-utility scalar subroutines
+winsock handle leak fixed.
-=item *
+=back
-L<Test::More> - yet another framework for writing test scripts
+=back
-=item *
+=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
-L<Test::Simple> - Basic utilities for writing tests
+All regular expression compilation error messages are now hopefully
+easier to understand both because the error message now comes before
+the failed regex and because the point of failure is now clearly
+marked.
-=item *
+The various "opened only for", "on closed", "never opened" warnings
+drop the C<main::> prefix for filehandles in the C<main> package,
+for example C<STDIN> instead of <main::STDIN>.
-L<Time::HiRes> - high resolution ualarm, usleep, and gettimeofday
+The "Unrecognized escape" warning has been extended to include C<\8>,
+C<\9>, and C<\_>. There is no need to escape any of the C<\w> characters.
-=item *
+=over 4
-L<Time::Piece> - Object Oriented time objects
-
-(Previously known as L<Time::Object>.)
+Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your
+Perl with debugging, you can use the -DT and -DR options to trace
+tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables,
+respectively.
=item *
-L<Time::Seconds> - a simple API to convert seconds to other date values
+If an attempt to use a (non-blessed) reference as an array index
+is made, a warning is given.
=item *
-L<UnicodeCD> - Unicode Character Database
+C<push @a;> and C<unshift @a;> (with no values to push or unshift)
+now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled
+code.
=back
-=head2 Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata
+=head1 Changed Internals
=over 4
=item *
-L<B::Deparse> module has been significantly enhanced. It now
-can deparse almost all of the standard test suite (so that the
-tests still succeed). There is a make target "test.deparse"
-for trying this out.
+perlapi.pod (a companion to perlguts) now attempts to document the
+internal API.
=item *
-L<Class::Struct> now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor
-is called with an array/hash element as the B<sole> argument.
+You can now build a really minimal perl called microperl.
+Building microperl does not require even running Configure;
+C<make -f Makefile.micro> should be enough. Beware: microperl makes
+many assumptions, some of which may be too bold; the resulting
+executable may crash or otherwise misbehave in wondrous ways.
+For careful hackers only.
=item *
-L<Cwd> extension is now (even) faster.
+Added rsignal(), whichsig(), do_join() to the publicised API.
=item *
-L<DB_File> extension has been updated to version 1.77.
+Made possible to propagate customised exceptions via croak()ing.
=item *
-L<Fcntl>, L<Socket>, and L<Sys::Syslog> have been rewritten to use the
-new-style constant dispatch section (see L<ExtUtils::Constant>).
+Added is_utf8_char(), is_utf8_string(), bytes_to_utf8(), and utf8_to_bytes().
=item *
-L<File::Find> is now (again) reentrant. It also has been made
-more portable.
+Now xsubs can have attributes just like subs.
=item *
-L<File::Glob> now supports C<GLOB_LIMIT> constant to limit the
-size of the returned list of filenames.
+Some new APIs: ptr_table_clear(), ptr_table_free(), sv_setref_uv().
+For the full list of the available APIs see L<perlapi>.
=item *
-L<IO::Socket::INET> now supports C<LocalPort> of zero (usually meaning
-that the operating system will make one up.)
+dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's
+a no-op) and the latter replaced with dSP.
=item *
-The L<vars> pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables.
-(Something that C<our()> does not and will not support.)
+Perl now uses system malloc instead of Perl malloc on all 64-bit
+platforms, and even in some not-always-64-bit platforms like AIX,
+IRIX, and Solaris. This change breaks backward compatibility but
+Perl's malloc has problems with large address spaces and also the
+speed of vendors' malloc is generally better in large address space
+machines (Perl's malloc is mostly tuned for space).
=back
-=head1 Utility Changes
+=head1 Security Vulnerability Closed
-=over 4
+(This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)
-=item *
+A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component
+of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor
+installed by default. As of November 2001 the only known vulnerable
+platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. CERT and
+various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability.
+See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt
+for more information.
-The F<emacs/e2ctags.pl> is now much faster.
+The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security
+exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux
+platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which
+when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in
+a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you
+don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if
+suidperl is not installed, you are safe.
-=item *
+The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from
+Perl 5.8.0 (and the maintenance release 5.6.1, and it was removed also
+from all the Perl 5.7 releases), so that particular vulnerability
+isn't there anymore. However, further security vulnerabilities are,
+unfortunately, always possible. The suidperl code is being reviewed
+and if deemed too risky to continue to be supported, it may be
+completely removed from future releases. In any case, suidperl should
+only be used by security experts who know exactly what they are doing
+and why they are using suidperl instead of some other solution such as
+sudo (see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/).
-L<h2ph> now supports C trigraphs.
+=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-=item *
+Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been hunted down.
+Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite a bit.
-L<h2xs> uses the new L<ExtUtils::Constant> module which will affect
-newly created extensions that define constants. Since the new code is
-more correct (if you have two constants where the first one is a
-prefix of the second one, the first constant B<never> gets defined),
-less lossy (it uses integers for integer constant, as opposed to the
-old code that used floating point numbers even for integer constants),
-and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerating your
-extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy).
-L<h2xs> now also supports C trigraphs.
+=over 4
=item *
-L<libnetcfg> has been added to configure the libnet.
+chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in
+reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order.
=item *
-The F<Pod::Html> (and thusly L<pod2html>) now allows specifying
-a cache directory.
-
-=back
+The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable.
-=head1 New Documentation
-
-=over 4
-
=item *
-L<Locale::Maketext::TPJ13> is an article about software localization,
-originally published in The Perl Journal #13, republished here with
-kind permission.
+mkdir() now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name,
+as mandated by POSIX.
=item *
-More README.$PLATFORM files have been converted into pod, which also
-means that they also be installed as perl$PLATFORM documentation
-files. The new files are L<perlapollo>, L<perlbeos>, L<perldgux>,
-L<perlhurd>, L<perlmint>, L<perlnetware>, L<perlplan9>, L<perlqnx>,
-and L<perltru64>.
+Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with our().
=item *
-The F<Todo> and F<Todo-5.6> files have been merged into L<perltodo>.
+The PERL5OPT environment variable (for passing command line arguments
+to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options.
=item *
-Use of the F<gprof> tool to profile Perl has been documented in
-L<perlhack>. There is a make target "perl.gprof" for generating a
-gprofiled Perl executable.
-
-=back
+The tainting behaviour of sprintf() has been rationalized. It does
+not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the
+behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation.
-=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements
-
-=head2 New Or Improved Platforms
-
-=over 4
-
=item *
-AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness. Also the
-long doubles support in AIX should be better now. See L<perlaix>.
+All but the first argument of the IO syswrite() method are now optional.
=item *
-AtheOS (http://www.atheos.cx/) is a new platform.
+Tie::ARRAY SPLICE method was broken.
=item *
-DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads. See L<perldgux>.
+vec() now tries to work with characters <= 255 when possible, but it leaves
+higher character values in place. In that case, if vec() was used to modify
+the string, it is no longer considered to be utf8-encoded.
=item *
-DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers 4.5.2.
+The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names.
=item *
-Several MacOS (Classic) portability patches have been applied. We
-hope to get a fully working port by 5.8.0. (The remaining problems
-relate to the changed IO model of Perl.) See L<perlmacos>.
+The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as
+"0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35,
+in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This
+was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation
+where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now
+Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts.
=item *
-MacOS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+
-filesystems. (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build process.)
+L<dprofpp> -R didn't work.
=item *
-NetWare from Novell is now supported. See L<perlnetware>.
+PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work.
=item *
-The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported.
+L<Sys::Syslog> ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant.
=back
-=head2 Generic Improvements
+=head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
=over 4
=item *
-In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be
-somewhere else than the default F</afs> by using the Configure
-parameter C<-Dafsroot=/some/where/else>.
+Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds
+with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness
+and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have
+fixed the modfl() bug.
+
+=back
-=item *
+=head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
-The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the
-DB_File extension) was built is now available as
-C<@Config{qw(db_version_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)}>
-from Perl and as C<DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG
-DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG> from C.
+=over 4
=item *
-The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads
-(C<Configure -Duseithreads>) because it wouldn't work anyway (the
-Thread extension requires being Configured with C<-Duse5005threads>).
+Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using
+accept(), revcfrom() (in Perl: recv()), getpeername(), and getsockname().
=item *
-The C<B::Deparse> compiler backend has been so significantly improved
-that almost the whole Perl test suite passes after being deparsed. A
-make target has been added to help in further testing: C<make test.deparse>.
+Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O.
-=back
+=item *
-=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
+Windows
-=over 5
+=over 8
=item *
-The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names.
+Borland C++ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl.
+However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those
+generated by the other supported compilers (GCC and Visual C++).
=item *
-The behaviour of non-decimal but numeric string constants such as
-"0x23" was platform-dependent: in some platforms that was seen as 35,
-in some as 0, in some as a floating point number (don't ask). This
-was caused by Perl using the operating system libraries in a situation
-where the result of the string to number conversion is undefined: now
-Perl consistently handles such strings as zero in numeric contexts.
+Win32::GetCwd() correctly returns C:\ instead of C: when at the drive root.
+Other bugs in chdir() and Cwd::cwd() have also been fixed.
=item *
-L<dprofpp> -R didn't work.
+Duping socket handles with open(F, ">&MYSOCK") now works under Windows 9x.
=item *
-PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work.
+HTML files will be installed in c:\perl\html instead of c:\perl\lib\pod\html
=item *
-L<Sys::Syslog> ignored the C<LOG_AUTH> constant.
+The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features
+enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular binary distribution).
=back
-=head2 Platform Specific Changes and Fixes
+=head1 New Tests
-=over 4
+Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> subsection.
-=item *
-
-Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl(). This affects builds
-with C<-Duselongdouble>. This version of Perl detects this brokenness
-and has a workaround for it. The glibc release 2.2.2 is known to have
-fixed the modfl() bug.
-
-=back
+The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls.
+(This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved
+to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.)
=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
@@ -2432,14 +2074,6 @@
will see some warnings about dubious practices. The warnings are
being worked on.
-=head1 New Tests
-
-Several new tests have been added, especially for the F<lib> subsection.
-
-The tests are now reported in a different order than in earlier Perls.
-(This happens because the test scripts from under t/lib have been moved
-to be closer to the library/extension they are testing.)
-
=head1 Known Problems
Note that unlike other sections in this document (which describe
End of Patch.
