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| 127 | .\} |
| 128 | .rm #[ #] #H #V #F C |
| 129 | .\" ======================================================================== |
| 130 | .\" |
| 131 | .IX Title "PERL571DELTA 1" |
| 132 | .TH PERL571DELTA 1 "2002-06-08" "perl v5.8.0" "Perl Programmers Reference Guide" |
| 133 | .SH "NAME" |
| 134 | perl571delta \- what's new for perl v5.7.1 |
| 135 | .SH "DESCRIPTION" |
| 136 | .IX Header "DESCRIPTION" |
| 137 | This document describes differences between the 5.7.0 release and the |
| 138 | 5.7.1 release. |
| 139 | .PP |
| 140 | (To view the differences between the 5.6.0 release and the 5.7.0 |
| 141 | release, see perl570delta.) |
| 142 | .SH "Security Vulnerability Closed" |
| 143 | .IX Header "Security Vulnerability Closed" |
| 144 | (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.) |
| 145 | .PP |
| 146 | A potential security vulnerability in the optional suidperl component |
| 147 | of Perl was identified in August 2000. suidperl is neither built nor |
| 148 | installed by default. As of April 2001 the only known vulnerable |
| 149 | platform is Linux, most likely all Linux distributions. \s-1CERT\s0 and |
| 150 | various vendors and distributors have been alerted about the vulnerability. |
| 151 | See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl\-2000\-08\-05/sperl\-2000\-08\-05.txt |
| 152 | for more information. |
| 153 | .PP |
| 154 | The problem was caused by Perl trying to report a suspected security |
| 155 | exploit attempt using an external program, /bin/mail. On Linux |
| 156 | platforms the /bin/mail program had an undocumented feature which |
| 157 | when combined with suidperl gave access to a root shell, resulting in |
| 158 | a serious compromise instead of reporting the exploit attempt. If you |
| 159 | don't have /bin/mail, or if you have 'safe setuid scripts', or if |
| 160 | suidperl is not installed, you are safe. |
| 161 | .PP |
| 162 | The exploit attempt reporting feature has been completely removed from |
| 163 | all the Perl 5.7 releases (and will be gone also from the maintenance |
| 164 | release 5.6.1), so that particular vulnerability isn't there anymore. |
| 165 | However, further security vulnerabilities are, unfortunately, always |
| 166 | possible. The suidperl code is being reviewed and if deemed too risky |
| 167 | to continue to be supported, it may be completely removed from future |
| 168 | releases. In any case, suidperl should only be used by security |
| 169 | experts who know exactly what they are doing and why they are using |
| 170 | suidperl instead of some other solution such as sudo |
| 171 | ( see http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ). |
| 172 | .SH "Incompatible Changes" |
| 173 | .IX Header "Incompatible Changes" |
| 174 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 175 | Although \*(L"you shouldn't do that\*(R", it was possible to write code that |
| 176 | depends on Perl's hashed key order (Data::Dumper does this). The new |
| 177 | algorithm \*(L"One\-at\-a\-Time\*(R" produces a different hashed key order. |
| 178 | More details are in \*(L"Performance Enhancements\*(R". |
| 179 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 180 | The list of filenames from \fIglob()\fR (or <...>) is now by default sorted |
| 181 | alphabetically to be csh\-compliant. (\fIbsd_glob()\fR does still sort platform |
| 182 | natively, \s-1ASCII\s0 or \s-1EBCDIC\s0, unless \s-1GLOB_ALPHASORT\s0 is specified.) |
| 183 | .SH "Core Enhancements" |
| 184 | .IX Header "Core Enhancements" |
| 185 | .Sh "\s-1AUTOLOAD\s0 Is Now Lvaluable" |
| 186 | .IX Subsection "AUTOLOAD Is Now Lvaluable" |
| 187 | \&\s-1AUTOLOAD\s0 is now lvaluable, meaning that you can add the :lvalue attribute |
| 188 | to \s-1AUTOLOAD\s0 subroutines and you can assign to the \s-1AUTOLOAD\s0 return value. |
| 189 | .Sh "PerlIO is Now The Default" |
| 190 | .IX Subsection "PerlIO is Now The Default" |
| 191 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 192 | \&\s-1IO\s0 is now by default done via PerlIO rather than system's \*(L"stdio\*(R". |
| 193 | PerlIO allows \*(L"layers\*(R" to be \*(L"pushed\*(R" onto a file handle to alter the |
| 194 | handle's behaviour. Layers can be specified at open time via 3\-arg |
| 195 | form of open: |
| 196 | .Sp |
| 197 | .Vb 1 |
| 198 | \& open($fh,'>:crlf :utf8', $path) || ... |
| 199 | .Ve |
| 200 | .Sp |
| 201 | or on already opened handles via extended \f(CW\*(C`binmode\*(C'\fR: |
| 202 | .Sp |
| 203 | .Vb 1 |
| 204 | \& binmode($fh,':encoding(iso-8859-7)'); |
| 205 | .Ve |
| 206 | .Sp |
| 207 | The built-in layers are: unix (low level read/write), stdio (as in |
| 208 | previous Perls), perlio (re\-implementation of stdio buffering in a |
| 209 | portable manner), crlf (does \s-1CRLF\s0 <=> \*(L"\en\*(R" translation as on Win32, |
| 210 | but available on any platform). A mmap layer may be available if |
| 211 | platform supports it (mostly UNIXes). |
| 212 | .Sp |
| 213 | Layers to be applied by default may be specified via the 'open' pragma. |
| 214 | .Sp |
| 215 | See \*(L"Installation and Configuration Improvements\*(R" for the effects |
| 216 | of PerlIO on your architecture name. |
| 217 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 218 | File handles can be marked as accepting Perl's internal encoding of Unicode |
| 219 | (\s-1UTF\-8\s0 or UTF-EBCDIC depending on platform) by a pseudo layer \*(L":utf8\*(R" : |
| 220 | .Sp |
| 221 | .Vb 1 |
| 222 | \& open($fh,">:utf8","Uni.txt"); |
| 223 | .Ve |
| 224 | .Sp |
| 225 | Note for \s-1EBCDIC\s0 users: the pseudo layer \*(L":utf8\*(R" is erroneously named |
| 226 | for you since it's not \s-1UTF\-8\s0 what you will be getting but instead |
| 227 | \&\s-1UTF\-EBCDIC\s0. See perlunicode, utf8, and |
| 228 | http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/ for more information. |
| 229 | In future releases this naming may change. |
| 230 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 231 | File handles can translate character encodings from/to Perl's internal |
| 232 | Unicode form on read/write via the \*(L":\fIencoding()\fR\*(R" layer. |
| 233 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 234 | File handles can be opened to \*(L"in memory\*(R" files held in Perl scalars via: |
| 235 | .Sp |
| 236 | .Vb 1 |
| 237 | \& open($fh,'>', \e$variable) || ... |
| 238 | .Ve |
| 239 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 240 | Anonymous temporary files are available without need to |
| 241 | \&'use FileHandle' or other module via |
| 242 | .Sp |
| 243 | .Vb 1 |
| 244 | \& open($fh,"+>", undef) || ... |
| 245 | .Ve |
| 246 | .Sp |
| 247 | That is a literal undef, not an undefined value. |
| 248 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 249 | The list form of \f(CW\*(C`open\*(C'\fR is now implemented for pipes (at least on \s-1UNIX\s0): |
| 250 | .Sp |
| 251 | .Vb 1 |
| 252 | \& open($fh,"-|", 'cat', '/etc/motd') |
| 253 | .Ve |
| 254 | .Sp |
| 255 | creates a pipe, and runs the equivalent of exec('cat', '/etc/motd') in |
| 256 | the child process. |
| 257 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 258 | The following builtin functions are now overridable: \fIchop()\fR, \fIchomp()\fR, |
| 259 | \&\fIeach()\fR, \fIkeys()\fR, \fIpop()\fR, \fIpush()\fR, \fIshift()\fR, \fIsplice()\fR, \fIunshift()\fR. |
| 260 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 261 | Formats now support zero-padded decimal fields. |
| 262 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 263 | Perl now tries internally to use integer values in numeric conversions |
| 264 | and basic arithmetics (+ \- * /) if the arguments are integers, and |
| 265 | tries also to keep the results stored internally as integers. |
| 266 | This change leads into often slightly faster and always less lossy |
| 267 | arithmetics. (Previously Perl always preferred floating point numbers |
| 268 | in its math.) |
| 269 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 270 | The \fIprintf()\fR and \fIsprintf()\fR now support parameter reordering using the |
| 271 | \&\f(CW\*(C`%\ed+\e$\*(C'\fR and \f(CW\*(C`*\ed+\e$\*(C'\fR syntaxes. For example |
| 272 | .Sp |
| 273 | .Vb 1 |
| 274 | \& print "%2\e$s %1\e$s\en", "foo", "bar"; |
| 275 | .Ve |
| 276 | .Sp |
| 277 | will print \*(L"bar foo\en\*(R"; This feature helps in writing |
| 278 | internationalised software. |
| 279 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 280 | Unicode in general should be now much more usable. Unicode can be |
| 281 | used in hash keys, Unicode in regular expressions should work now, |
| 282 | Unicode in tr/// should work now (though tr/// seems to be a |
| 283 | particularly tricky to get right, so you have been warned) |
| 284 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 285 | The Unicode Character Database coming with Perl has been upgraded |
| 286 | to Unicode 3.1. For more information, see http://www.unicode.org/ , |
| 287 | and http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr27/ |
| 288 | .Sp |
| 289 | For developers interested in enhancing Perl's Unicode capabilities: |
| 290 | almost all the \s-1UCD\s0 files are included with the Perl distribution in |
| 291 | the lib/unicode subdirectory. The most notable omission, for space |
| 292 | considerations, is the Unihan database. |
| 293 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 294 | The Unicode character classes \ep{Blank} and \ep{SpacePerl} have been |
| 295 | added. \*(L"Blank\*(R" is like C \fIisblank()\fR, that is, it contains only |
| 296 | \&\*(L"horizontal whitespace\*(R" (the space character is, the newline isn't), |
| 297 | and the \*(L"SpacePerl\*(R" is the Unicode equivalent of \f(CW\*(C`\es\*(C'\fR (\ep{Space} |
| 298 | isn't, since that includes the vertical tabulator character, whereas |
| 299 | \&\f(CW\*(C`\es\*(C'\fR doesn't.) |
| 300 | .Sh "Signals Are Now Safe" |
| 301 | .IX Subsection "Signals Are Now Safe" |
| 302 | Perl used to be fragile in that signals arriving at inopportune moments |
| 303 | could corrupt Perl's internal state. |
| 304 | .SH "Modules and Pragmata" |
| 305 | .IX Header "Modules and Pragmata" |
| 306 | .Sh "New Modules" |
| 307 | .IX Subsection "New Modules" |
| 308 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 309 | B::Concise, by Stephen McCamant, is a new compiler backend for |
| 310 | walking the Perl syntax tree, printing concise info about ops. |
| 311 | The output is highly customisable. |
| 312 | .Sp |
| 313 | See B::Concise for more information. |
| 314 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 315 | Class::ISA, by Sean Burke, for reporting the search path for a |
| 316 | class's \s-1ISA\s0 tree, has been added. |
| 317 | .Sp |
| 318 | See Class::ISA for more information. |
| 319 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 320 | Cwd has now a split personality: if possible, an extension is used, |
| 321 | (this will hopefully be both faster and more secure and robust) but |
| 322 | if not possible, the familiar Perl library implementation is used. |
| 323 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 324 | Digest, a frontend module for calculating digests (checksums), |
| 325 | from Gisle Aas, has been added. |
| 326 | .Sp |
| 327 | See Digest for more information. |
| 328 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 329 | Digest::MD5 for calculating \s-1MD5\s0 digests (checksums), by Gisle Aas, |
| 330 | has been added. |
| 331 | .Sp |
| 332 | .Vb 1 |
| 333 | \& use Digest::MD5 'md5_hex'; |
| 334 | .Ve |
| 335 | .Sp |
| 336 | .Vb 1 |
| 337 | \& $digest = md5_hex("Thirsty Camel"); |
| 338 | .Ve |
| 339 | .Sp |
| 340 | .Vb 1 |
| 341 | \& print $digest, "\en"; # 01d19d9d2045e005c3f1b80e8b164de1 |
| 342 | .Ve |
| 343 | .Sp |
| 344 | \&\s-1NOTE:\s0 the \s-1MD5\s0 backward compatibility module is deliberately not |
| 345 | included since its use is discouraged. |
| 346 | .Sp |
| 347 | See Digest::MD5 for more information. |
| 348 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 349 | Encode, by Nick Ing\-Simmons, provides a mechanism to translate |
| 350 | between different character encodings. Support for Unicode, |
| 351 | ISO\-8859\-*, \s-1ASCII\s0, CP*, \s-1KOI8\-R\s0, and three variants of \s-1EBCDIC\s0 are |
| 352 | compiled in to the module. Several other encodings (like Japanese, |
| 353 | Chinese, and MacIntosh encodings) are included and will be loaded at |
| 354 | runtime. |
| 355 | .Sp |
| 356 | Any encoding supported by Encode module is also available to the |
| 357 | \&\*(L":\fIencoding()\fR\*(R" layer if PerlIO is used. |
| 358 | .Sp |
| 359 | See Encode for more information. |
| 360 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 361 | Filter::Simple is an easy-to-use frontend to Filter::Util::Call, |
| 362 | from Damian Conway. |
| 363 | .Sp |
| 364 | .Vb 1 |
| 365 | \& # in MyFilter.pm: |
| 366 | .Ve |
| 367 | .Sp |
| 368 | .Vb 1 |
| 369 | \& package MyFilter; |
| 370 | .Ve |
| 371 | .Sp |
| 372 | .Vb 5 |
| 373 | \& use Filter::Simple sub { |
| 374 | \& while (my ($from, $to) = splice @_, 0, 2) { |
| 375 | \& s/$from/$to/g; |
| 376 | \& } |
| 377 | \& }; |
| 378 | .Ve |
| 379 | .Sp |
| 380 | .Vb 1 |
| 381 | \& 1; |
| 382 | .Ve |
| 383 | .Sp |
| 384 | .Vb 1 |
| 385 | \& # in user's code: |
| 386 | .Ve |
| 387 | .Sp |
| 388 | .Vb 1 |
| 389 | \& use MyFilter qr/red/ => 'green'; |
| 390 | .Ve |
| 391 | .Sp |
| 392 | .Vb 2 |
| 393 | \& print "red\en"; # this code is filtered, will print "green\en" |
| 394 | \& print "bored\en"; # this code is filtered, will print "bogreen\en" |
| 395 | .Ve |
| 396 | .Sp |
| 397 | .Vb 1 |
| 398 | \& no MyFilter; |
| 399 | .Ve |
| 400 | .Sp |
| 401 | .Vb 1 |
| 402 | \& print "red\en"; # this code is not filtered, will print "red\en" |
| 403 | .Ve |
| 404 | .Sp |
| 405 | See Filter::Simple for more information. |
| 406 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 407 | Filter::Util::Call, by Paul Marquess, provides you with the |
| 408 | framework to write \fISource Filters\fR in Perl. For most uses |
| 409 | the frontend Filter::Simple is to be preferred. |
| 410 | See Filter::Util::Call for more information. |
| 411 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 412 | Locale::Constants, Locale::Country, Locale::Currency, and Locale::Language, |
| 413 | from Neil Bowers, have been added. They provide the codes for various |
| 414 | locale standards, such as \*(L"fr\*(R" for France, \*(L"usd\*(R" for \s-1US\s0 Dollar, and |
| 415 | \&\*(L"jp\*(R" for Japanese. |
| 416 | .Sp |
| 417 | .Vb 1 |
| 418 | \& use Locale::Country; |
| 419 | .Ve |
| 420 | .Sp |
| 421 | .Vb 2 |
| 422 | \& $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan' |
| 423 | \& $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no' |
| 424 | .Ve |
| 425 | .Sp |
| 426 | See Locale::Constants, Locale::Country, Locale::Currency, |
| 427 | and Locale::Language for more information. |
| 428 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 429 | MIME::Base64, by Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data in base64. |
| 430 | .Sp |
| 431 | .Vb 1 |
| 432 | \& use MIME::Base64; |
| 433 | .Ve |
| 434 | .Sp |
| 435 | .Vb 2 |
| 436 | \& $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame'); |
| 437 | \& $decoded = decode_base64($encoded); |
| 438 | .Ve |
| 439 | .Sp |
| 440 | .Vb 1 |
| 441 | \& print $encoded, "\en"; # "QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==" |
| 442 | .Ve |
| 443 | .Sp |
| 444 | See MIME::Base64 for more information. |
| 445 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 446 | MIME::QuotedPrint, by Gisle Aas, allows you to encode data in |
| 447 | quoted-printable encoding. |
| 448 | .Sp |
| 449 | .Vb 1 |
| 450 | \& use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
| 451 | .Ve |
| 452 | .Sp |
| 453 | .Vb 2 |
| 454 | \& $encoded = encode_qp("Smiley in Unicode: \ex{263a}"); |
| 455 | \& $decoded = decode_qp($encoded); |
| 456 | .Ve |
| 457 | .Sp |
| 458 | .Vb 1 |
| 459 | \& print $encoded, "\en"; # "Smiley in Unicode: =263A" |
| 460 | .Ve |
| 461 | .Sp |
| 462 | MIME::QuotedPrint has been enhanced to provide the basic methods |
| 463 | necessary to use it with PerlIO::Via as in : |
| 464 | .Sp |
| 465 | .Vb 2 |
| 466 | \& use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
| 467 | \& open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path) |
| 468 | .Ve |
| 469 | .Sp |
| 470 | See MIME::QuotedPrint for more information. |
| 471 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 472 | PerlIO::Scalar, by Nick Ing\-Simmons, provides the implementation of |
| 473 | \&\s-1IO\s0 to \*(L"in memory\*(R" Perl scalars as discussed above. It also serves as |
| 474 | an example of a loadable layer. Other future possibilities include |
| 475 | PerlIO::Array and PerlIO::Code. See PerlIO::Scalar for more |
| 476 | information. |
| 477 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 478 | PerlIO::Via, by Nick Ing\-Simmons, acts as a PerlIO layer and wraps |
| 479 | PerlIO layer functionality provided by a class (typically implemented |
| 480 | in perl code). |
| 481 | .Sp |
| 482 | .Vb 2 |
| 483 | \& use MIME::QuotedPrint; |
| 484 | \& open($fh,">Via(MIME::QuotedPrint)",$path) |
| 485 | .Ve |
| 486 | .Sp |
| 487 | This will automatically convert everything output to \f(CW$fh\fR |
| 488 | to Quoted\-Printable. See PerlIO::Via for more information. |
| 489 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 490 | Pod::Text::Overstrike, by Joe Smith, has been added. |
| 491 | It converts \s-1POD\s0 data to formatted overstrike text. |
| 492 | See Pod::Text::Overstrike for more information. |
| 493 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 494 | Switch from Damian Conway has been added. Just by saying |
| 495 | .Sp |
| 496 | .Vb 1 |
| 497 | \& use Switch; |
| 498 | .Ve |
| 499 | .Sp |
| 500 | you have \f(CW\*(C`switch\*(C'\fR and \f(CW\*(C`case\*(C'\fR available in Perl. |
| 501 | .Sp |
| 502 | .Vb 1 |
| 503 | \& use Switch; |
| 504 | .Ve |
| 505 | .Sp |
| 506 | .Vb 1 |
| 507 | \& switch ($val) { |
| 508 | .Ve |
| 509 | .Sp |
| 510 | .Vb 11 |
| 511 | \& case 1 { print "number 1" } |
| 512 | \& case "a" { print "string a" } |
| 513 | \& case [1..10,42] { print "number in list" } |
| 514 | \& case (@array) { print "number in list" } |
| 515 | \& case /\ew+/ { print "pattern" } |
| 516 | \& case qr/\ew+/ { print "pattern" } |
| 517 | \& case (%hash) { print "entry in hash" } |
| 518 | \& case (\e%hash) { print "entry in hash" } |
| 519 | \& case (\e&sub) { print "arg to subroutine" } |
| 520 | \& else { print "previous case not true" } |
| 521 | \& } |
| 522 | .Ve |
| 523 | .Sp |
| 524 | See Switch for more information. |
| 525 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 526 | Text::Balanced from Damian Conway has been added, for |
| 527 | extracting delimited text sequences from strings. |
| 528 | .Sp |
| 529 | .Vb 1 |
| 530 | \& use Text::Balanced 'extract_delimited'; |
| 531 | .Ve |
| 532 | .Sp |
| 533 | .Vb 1 |
| 534 | \& ($a, $b) = extract_delimited("'never say never', he never said", "'", ''); |
| 535 | .Ve |
| 536 | .Sp |
| 537 | $a will be \*(L"'never say never'\*(R", \f(CW$b\fR will be ', he never said'. |
| 538 | .Sp |
| 539 | In addition to \fIextract_delimited()\fR there are also \fIextract_bracketed()\fR, |
| 540 | \&\fIextract_quotelike()\fR, \fIextract_codeblock()\fR, \fIextract_variable()\fR, |
| 541 | \&\fIextract_tagged()\fR, \fIextract_multiple()\fR, \fIgen_delimited_pat()\fR, and |
| 542 | \&\fIgen_extract_tagged()\fR. With these you can implement rather advanced |
| 543 | parsing algorithms. See Text::Balanced for more information. |
| 544 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 545 | Tie::RefHash::Nestable, by Edward Avis, allows storing hash references |
| 546 | (unlike the standard Tie::RefHash) The module is contained within |
| 547 | Tie::RefHash. |
| 548 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 549 | XS::Typemap, by Tim Jenness, is a test extension that exercises \s-1XS\s0 |
| 550 | typemaps. Nothing gets installed but for extension writers the code |
| 551 | is worth studying. |
| 552 | .Sh "Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata" |
| 553 | .IX Subsection "Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata" |
| 554 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 555 | B::Deparse should be now more robust. It still far from providing a full |
| 556 | round trip for any random piece of Perl code, though, and is under active |
| 557 | development: expect more robustness in 5.7.2. |
| 558 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 559 | Class::Struct can now define the classes in compile time. |
| 560 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 561 | Math::BigFloat has undergone much fixing, and in addition the \fIfmod()\fR |
| 562 | function now supports modulus operations. |
| 563 | .Sp |
| 564 | ( The fixed Math::BigFloat module is also available in \s-1CPAN\s0 for those |
| 565 | who can't upgrade their Perl: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/J/JP/JPEACOCK/ ) |
| 566 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 567 | Devel::Peek now has an interface for the Perl memory statistics |
| 568 | (this works only if you are using perl's malloc, and if you have |
| 569 | compiled with debugging). |
| 570 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 571 | IO::Socket has now \fIatmark()\fR method, which returns true if the socket |
| 572 | is positioned at the out-of-band mark. The method is also exportable |
| 573 | as a \fIsockatmark()\fR function. |
| 574 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 575 | IO::Socket::INET has support for ReusePort option (if your platform |
| 576 | supports it). The Reuse option now has an alias, ReuseAddr. For clarity |
| 577 | you may want to prefer ReuseAddr. |
| 578 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 579 | Net::Ping has been enhanced. There is now \*(L"external\*(R" protocol which |
| 580 | uses Net::Ping::External module which runs external \fIping\fR\|(1) and parses |
| 581 | the output. An alpha version of Net::Ping::External is available in |
| 582 | \&\s-1CPAN\s0 and in 5.7.2 the Net::Ping::External may be integrated to Perl. |
| 583 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 584 | The \f(CW\*(C`open\*(C'\fR pragma allows layers other than \*(L":raw\*(R" and \*(L":crlf\*(R" when |
| 585 | using PerlIO. |
| 586 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 587 | \&\fIPOSIX::sigaction()\fR is now much more flexible and robust. |
| 588 | You can now install coderef handlers, '\s-1DEFAULT\s0', and '\s-1IGNORE\s0' |
| 589 | handlers, installing new handlers was not atomic. |
| 590 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 591 | The Test module has been significantly enhanced. Its use is |
| 592 | greatly recommended for module writers. |
| 593 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 594 | The utf8:: name space (as in the pragma) provides various |
| 595 | Perl-callable functions to provide low level access to Perl's |
| 596 | internal Unicode representation. At the moment only \fIlength()\fR |
| 597 | has been implemented. |
| 598 | .PP |
| 599 | The following modules have been upgraded from the versions at \s-1CPAN:\s0 |
| 600 | \&\s-1CPAN\s0, \s-1CGI\s0, DB_File, File::Temp, Getopt::Long, Pod::Man, Pod::Text, |
| 601 | Storable, Text\-Tabs+Wrap. |
| 602 | .SH "Performance Enhancements" |
| 603 | .IX Header "Performance Enhancements" |
| 604 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 605 | Hashes now use Bob Jenkins \*(L"One\-at\-a\-Time\*(R" hashing key algorithm |
| 606 | ( http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/doobs.html ). This algorithm is |
| 607 | reasonably fast while producing a much better spread of values than |
| 608 | the old hashing algorithm (originally by Chris Torek, later tweaked by |
| 609 | Ilya Zakharevich). Hash values output from the algorithm on a hash of |
| 610 | all 3\-char printable \s-1ASCII\s0 keys comes much closer to passing the |
| 611 | \&\s-1DIEHARD\s0 random number generation tests. According to perlbench, this |
| 612 | change has not affected the overall speed of Perl. |
| 613 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 614 | \&\fIunshift()\fR should now be noticeably faster. |
| 615 | .SH "Utility Changes" |
| 616 | .IX Header "Utility Changes" |
| 617 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 618 | h2xs now produces template \s-1README\s0. |
| 619 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 620 | s2p has been completely rewritten in Perl. (It is in fact a full |
| 621 | implementation of sed in Perl.) |
| 622 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 623 | xsubpp now supports \s-1OUT\s0 keyword. |
| 624 | .SH "New Documentation" |
| 625 | .IX Header "New Documentation" |
| 626 | .Sh "perlclib" |
| 627 | .IX Subsection "perlclib" |
| 628 | Internal replacements for standard C library functions. |
| 629 | (Interesting only for extension writers and Perl core hackers.) |
| 630 | .Sh "perliol" |
| 631 | .IX Subsection "perliol" |
| 632 | Internals of PerlIO with layers. |
| 633 | .Sh "\s-1README\s0.aix" |
| 634 | .IX Subsection "README.aix" |
| 635 | Documentation on compiling Perl on \s-1AIX\s0 has been added. \s-1AIX\s0 has |
| 636 | several different C compilers and getting the right patch level |
| 637 | is essential. On install \s-1README\s0.aix will be installed as perlaix. |
| 638 | .Sh "\s-1README\s0.bs2000" |
| 639 | .IX Subsection "README.bs2000" |
| 640 | Documentation on compiling Perl on the POSIX-BC platform (an \s-1EBCDIC\s0 |
| 641 | mainframe environment) has been added. |
| 642 | .PP |
| 643 | This was formerly known as \s-1README\s0.posix\-bc but the name was considered |
| 644 | to be too confusing (it has nothing to do with the \s-1POSIX\s0 module or the |
| 645 | \&\s-1POSIX\s0 standard). On install \s-1README\s0.bs2000 will be installed as perlbs2000. |
| 646 | .Sh "\s-1README\s0.macos" |
| 647 | .IX Subsection "README.macos" |
| 648 | In perl 5.7.1 (and in the 5.6.1) the MacPerl sources have been |
| 649 | synchronised with the standard Perl sources. To compile MacPerl |
| 650 | some additional steps are required, and this file documents those |
| 651 | steps. On install \s-1README\s0.macos will be installed as perlmacos. |
| 652 | .Sh "\s-1README\s0.mpeix" |
| 653 | .IX Subsection "README.mpeix" |
| 654 | The \s-1README\s0.mpeix has been podified, which means that this information |
| 655 | about compiling and using Perl on the MPE/iX miniframe platform will |
| 656 | be installed as perlmpeix. |
| 657 | .Sh "\s-1README\s0.solaris" |
| 658 | .IX Subsection "README.solaris" |
| 659 | \&\s-1README\s0.solaris has been created and Solaris wisdom from elsewhere |
| 660 | in the Perl documentation has been collected there. On install |
| 661 | \&\s-1README\s0.solaris will be installed as perlsolaris. |
| 662 | .Sh "\s-1README\s0.vos" |
| 663 | .IX Subsection "README.vos" |
| 664 | The \s-1README\s0.vos has been podified, which means that this information |
| 665 | about compiling and using Perl on the Stratus \s-1VOS\s0 miniframe platform |
| 666 | will be installed as perlvos. |
| 667 | .Sh "Porting/repository.pod" |
| 668 | .IX Subsection "Porting/repository.pod" |
| 669 | Documentation on how to use the Perl source repository has been added. |
| 670 | .SH "Installation and Configuration Improvements" |
| 671 | .IX Header "Installation and Configuration Improvements" |
| 672 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 673 | Because PerlIO is now the default on most platforms, \*(L"\-perlio\*(R" doesn't |
| 674 | get appended to the \f(CW$Config\fR{archname} (also known as $^O) anymore. |
| 675 | Instead, if you explicitly choose not to use perlio (Configure command |
| 676 | line option \-Uuseperlio), you will get \*(L"\-stdio\*(R" appended. |
| 677 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 678 | Another change related to the architecture name is that \*(L"\-64all\*(R" |
| 679 | (\-Duse64bitall, or \*(L"maximally 64\-bit\*(R") is appended only if your |
| 680 | pointers are 64 bits wide. (To be exact, the use64bitall is ignored.) |
| 681 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 682 | \&\s-1APPLLIB_EXP\s0, a less-know configuration-time definition, has been |
| 683 | documented. It can be used to prepend site-specific directories |
| 684 | to Perl's default search path (@INC), see \s-1INSTALL\s0 for information. |
| 685 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 686 | Building Berkeley \s-1DB3\s0 for compatibility modes for \s-1DB\s0, \s-1NDBM\s0, and \s-1ODBM\s0 |
| 687 | has been documented in \s-1INSTALL\s0. |
| 688 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 689 | If you are on \s-1IRIX\s0 or Tru64 platforms, new profiling/debugging options |
| 690 | have been added, see perlhack for more information about pixie and |
| 691 | Third Degree. |
| 692 | .Sh "New Or Improved Platforms" |
| 693 | .IX Subsection "New Or Improved Platforms" |
| 694 | For the list of platforms known to support Perl, |
| 695 | see \*(L"Supported Platforms\*(R" in perlport. |
| 696 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 697 | \&\s-1AIX\s0 dynamic loading should be now better supported. |
| 698 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 699 | After a long pause, AmigaOS has been verified to be happy with Perl. |
| 700 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 701 | \&\s-1EBCDIC\s0 platforms (z/OS, also known as \s-1OS/390\s0, \s-1POSIX\-BC\s0, and \s-1VM/ESA\s0) |
| 702 | have been regained. Many test suite tests still fail and the |
| 703 | co-existence of Unicode and \s-1EBCDIC\s0 isn't quite settled, but the |
| 704 | situation is much better than with Perl 5.6. See perlos390, |
| 705 | perlbs2000 (for \s-1POSIX\-BC\s0), and perlvmesa for more information. |
| 706 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 707 | Building perl with \-Duseithreads or \-Duse5005threads now works under |
| 708 | HP-UX 10.20 (previously it only worked under 10.30 or later). You will |
| 709 | need a thread library package installed. See \s-1README\s0.hpux. |
| 710 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 711 | Mac \s-1OS\s0 Classic (MacPerl has of course been available since |
| 712 | perl 5.004 but now the source code bases of standard Perl |
| 713 | and MacPerl have been synchronised) |
| 714 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 715 | \&\s-1NCR\s0 MP-RAS is now supported. |
| 716 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 717 | NonStop-UX is now supported. |
| 718 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 719 | Amdahl \s-1UTS\s0 is now supported. |
| 720 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 721 | z/OS (formerly known as \s-1OS/390\s0, formerly known as \s-1MVS\s0 \s-1OE\s0) has now |
| 722 | support for dynamic loading. This is not selected by default, |
| 723 | however, you must specify \-Dusedl in the arguments of Configure. |
| 724 | .Sh "Generic Improvements" |
| 725 | .IX Subsection "Generic Improvements" |
| 726 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 727 | Configure no longer includes the \s-1DBM\s0 libraries (dbm, gdbm, db, ndbm) |
| 728 | when building the Perl binary. The only exception to this is SunOS 4.x, |
| 729 | which needs them. |
| 730 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 731 | Some new Configure symbols, useful for extension writers: |
| 732 | .RS 4 |
| 733 | .IP "d_cmsghdr" 8 |
| 734 | .IX Item "d_cmsghdr" |
| 735 | For struct cmsghdr. |
| 736 | .IP "d_fcntl_can_lock" 8 |
| 737 | .IX Item "d_fcntl_can_lock" |
| 738 | Whether \fIfcntl()\fR can be used for file locking. |
| 739 | .IP "d_fsync" 8 |
| 740 | .IX Item "d_fsync" |
| 741 | .PD 0 |
| 742 | .IP "d_getitimer" 8 |
| 743 | .IX Item "d_getitimer" |
| 744 | .IP "d_getpagsz" 8 |
| 745 | .IX Item "d_getpagsz" |
| 746 | .PD |
| 747 | For \fIgetpagesize()\fR, though you should prefer POSIX::sysconf(_SC_PAGE_SIZE)) |
| 748 | .IP "d_msghdr_s" 8 |
| 749 | .IX Item "d_msghdr_s" |
| 750 | For struct msghdr. |
| 751 | .IP "need_va_copy" 8 |
| 752 | .IX Item "need_va_copy" |
| 753 | Whether one needs to use \fIPerl_va_copy()\fR to copy varargs. |
| 754 | .IP "d_readv" 8 |
| 755 | .IX Item "d_readv" |
| 756 | .PD 0 |
| 757 | .IP "d_recvmsg" 8 |
| 758 | .IX Item "d_recvmsg" |
| 759 | .IP "d_sendmsg" 8 |
| 760 | .IX Item "d_sendmsg" |
| 761 | .IP "sig_size" 8 |
| 762 | .IX Item "sig_size" |
| 763 | .PD |
| 764 | The number of elements in an array needed to hold all the available signals. |
| 765 | .IP "d_sockatmark" 8 |
| 766 | .IX Item "d_sockatmark" |
| 767 | .PD 0 |
| 768 | .IP "d_strtoq" 8 |
| 769 | .IX Item "d_strtoq" |
| 770 | .IP "d_u32align" 8 |
| 771 | .IX Item "d_u32align" |
| 772 | .PD |
| 773 | Whether one needs to access character data aligned by U32 sized pointers. |
| 774 | .IP "d_ualarm" 8 |
| 775 | .IX Item "d_ualarm" |
| 776 | .PD 0 |
| 777 | .IP "d_usleep" 8 |
| 778 | .IX Item "d_usleep" |
| 779 | .RE |
| 780 | .RS 4 |
| 781 | .RE |
| 782 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 783 | .PD |
| 784 | Removed Configure symbols: the \s-1PDP\-11\s0 memory model settings: huge, |
| 785 | large, medium, models. |
| 786 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 787 | \&\s-1SOCKS\s0 support is now much more robust. |
| 788 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 789 | If your file system supports symbolic links you can build Perl outside |
| 790 | of the source directory by |
| 791 | .Sp |
| 792 | .Vb 3 |
| 793 | \& mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory |
| 794 | \& cd /tmp/perl/build/directory |
| 795 | \& sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ... |
| 796 | .Ve |
| 797 | .Sp |
| 798 | This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links |
| 799 | pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left |
| 800 | unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say |
| 801 | .Sp |
| 802 | .Vb 1 |
| 803 | \& make all test |
| 804 | .Ve |
| 805 | .Sp |
| 806 | and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory. |
| 807 | .SH "Selected Bug Fixes" |
| 808 | .IX Header "Selected Bug Fixes" |
| 809 | Numerous memory leaks and uninitialized memory accesses have been hunted down. |
| 810 | Most importantly anonymous subs used to leak quite a bit. |
| 811 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 812 | chop(@list) in list context returned the characters chopped in |
| 813 | reverse order. This has been reversed to be in the right order. |
| 814 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 815 | The order of DESTROYs has been made more predictable. |
| 816 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 817 | \&\fImkdir()\fR now ignores trailing slashes in the directory name, |
| 818 | as mandated by \s-1POSIX\s0. |
| 819 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 820 | Attributes (like :shared) didn't work with \fIour()\fR. |
| 821 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 822 | The \s-1PERL5OPT\s0 environment variable (for passing command line arguments |
| 823 | to Perl) didn't work for more than a single group of options. |
| 824 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 825 | The tainting behaviour of \fIsprintf()\fR has been rationalized. It does |
| 826 | not taint the result of floating point formats anymore, making the |
| 827 | behaviour consistent with that of string interpolation. |
| 828 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 829 | All but the first argument of the \s-1IO\s0 \fIsyswrite()\fR method are now optional. |
| 830 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 831 | Tie::ARRAY \s-1SPLICE\s0 method was broken. |
| 832 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 833 | \&\fIvec()\fR now tries to work with characters <= 255 when possible, but it leaves |
| 834 | higher character values in place. In that case, if \fIvec()\fR was used to modify |
| 835 | the string, it is no longer considered to be utf8\-encoded. |
| 836 | .Sh "Platform Specific Changes and Fixes" |
| 837 | .IX Subsection "Platform Specific Changes and Fixes" |
| 838 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 839 | Linux previously had problems related to sockaddrlen when using |
| 840 | \&\fIaccept()\fR, \fIrevcfrom()\fR (in Perl: \fIrecv()\fR), \fIgetpeername()\fR, and \fIgetsockname()\fR. |
| 841 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 842 | Previously DYNIX/ptx had problems in its Configure probe for non-blocking I/O. |
| 843 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 844 | Windows |
| 845 | .RS 4 |
| 846 | .IP "\(bu" 8 |
| 847 | Borland \*(C+ v5.5 is now a supported compiler that can build Perl. |
| 848 | However, the generated binaries continue to be incompatible with those |
| 849 | generated by the other supported compilers (\s-1GCC\s0 and Visual \*(C+). |
| 850 | .IP "\(bu" 8 |
| 851 | \&\fIWin32::GetCwd()\fR correctly returns C:\e instead of C: when at the drive root. |
| 852 | Other bugs in \fIchdir()\fR and \fICwd::cwd()\fR have also been fixed. |
| 853 | .IP "\(bu" 8 |
| 854 | Duping socket handles with open(F, \*(L">&MYSOCK\*(R") now works under Windows 9x. |
| 855 | .IP "\(bu" 8 |
| 856 | \&\s-1HTML\s0 files will be installed in c:\eperl\ehtml instead of c:\eperl\elib\epod\ehtml |
| 857 | .IP "\(bu" 8 |
| 858 | The makefiles now provide a single switch to bulk-enable all the features |
| 859 | enabled in ActiveState ActivePerl (a popular binary distribution). |
| 860 | .RE |
| 861 | .RS 4 |
| 862 | .RE |
| 863 | .SH "New or Changed Diagnostics" |
| 864 | .IX Header "New or Changed Diagnostics" |
| 865 | Two new debugging options have been added: if you have compiled your |
| 866 | Perl with debugging, you can use the \-DT and \-DR options to trace |
| 867 | tokenising and to add reference counts to displaying variables, |
| 868 | respectively. |
| 869 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 870 | If an attempt to use a (non\-blessed) reference as an array index |
| 871 | is made, a warning is given. |
| 872 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 873 | \&\f(CW\*(C`push @a;\*(C'\fR and \f(CW\*(C`unshift @a;\*(C'\fR (with no values to push or unshift) |
| 874 | now give a warning. This may be a problem for generated and evaled |
| 875 | code. |
| 876 | .SH "Changed Internals" |
| 877 | .IX Header "Changed Internals" |
| 878 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 879 | Some new APIs: \fIptr_table_clear()\fR, \fIptr_table_free()\fR, \fIsv_setref_uv()\fR. |
| 880 | For the full list of the available APIs see perlapi. |
| 881 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 882 | dTHR and djSP have been obsoleted; the former removed (because it's |
| 883 | a no\-op) and the latter replaced with dSP. |
| 884 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 885 | Perl now uses system malloc instead of Perl malloc on all 64\-bit |
| 886 | platforms, and even in some not\-always\-64\-bit platforms like \s-1AIX\s0, |
| 887 | \&\s-1IRIX\s0, and Solaris. This change breaks backward compatibility but |
| 888 | Perl's malloc has problems with large address spaces and also the |
| 889 | speed of vendors' malloc is generally better in large address space |
| 890 | machines (Perl's malloc is mostly tuned for space). |
| 891 | .SH "New Tests" |
| 892 | .IX Header "New Tests" |
| 893 | Many new tests have been added. The most notable is probably the |
| 894 | lib/1_compile: it is very notable because running it takes quite a |
| 895 | long time \*(-- it test compiles all the Perl modules in the distribution. |
| 896 | Please be patient. |
| 897 | .SH "Known Problems" |
| 898 | .IX Header "Known Problems" |
| 899 | Note that unlike other sections in this document (which describe |
| 900 | changes since 5.7.0) this section is cumulative containing known |
| 901 | problems for all the 5.7 releases. |
| 902 | .Sh "\s-1AIX\s0 vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl" |
| 903 | .IX Subsection "AIX vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl" |
| 904 | The \s-1AIX\s0 C compiler vac version 5.0.0.0 may produce buggy code, |
| 905 | resulting in few random tests failing, but when the failing tests |
| 906 | are run by hand, they succeed. We suggest upgrading to at least |
| 907 | vac version 5.0.1.0, that has been known to compile Perl correctly. |
| 908 | \&\*(L"lslpp \-L|grep vac.C\*(R" will tell you the vac version. |
| 909 | .Sh "lib/ftmp\-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'" |
| 910 | .IX Subsection "lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'" |
| 911 | Don't panic. Read \s-1INSTALL\s0 'make test' section instead. |
| 912 | .Sh "lib/io_multihomed Fails In LP64\-Configured HP-UX" |
| 913 | .IX Subsection "lib/io_multihomed Fails In LP64-Configured HP-UX" |
| 914 | The lib/io_multihomed test may hang in HP-UX if Perl has been |
| 915 | configured to be 64\-bit. Because other 64\-bit platforms do not hang in |
| 916 | this test, HP-UX is suspect. All other tests pass in 64\-bit \s-1HP\-UX\s0. The |
| 917 | test attempts to create and connect to \*(L"multihomed\*(R" sockets (sockets |
| 918 | which have multiple \s-1IP\s0 addresses). |
| 919 | .Sh "Test lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails In LP64\-Configured HP-UX" |
| 920 | .IX Subsection "Test lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails In LP64-Configured HP-UX" |
| 921 | If perl is configured with \-Duse64bitall, the successful result of the |
| 922 | subtest 10 of lib/posix may arrive before the successful result of the |
| 923 | subtest 9, which confuses the test harness so much that it thinks the |
| 924 | subtest 9 failed. |
| 925 | .Sh "lib/b test 19" |
| 926 | .IX Subsection "lib/b test 19" |
| 927 | The test fails on various platforms (\s-1PA64\s0 and \s-1IA64\s0 are known), but the |
| 928 | exact cause is still being investigated. |
| 929 | .Sh "Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48" |
| 930 | .IX Subsection "Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48" |
| 931 | No known fix. |
| 932 | .Sh "sigaction test 13 in \s-1VMS\s0" |
| 933 | .IX Subsection "sigaction test 13 in VMS" |
| 934 | The test is known to fail; whether it's because of \s-1VMS\s0 of because |
| 935 | of faulty test is not known. |
| 936 | .Sh "sprintf tests 129 and 130" |
| 937 | .IX Subsection "sprintf tests 129 and 130" |
| 938 | The op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 are known to fail on some platforms. |
| 939 | Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's NonStop\-UX. |
| 940 | The failing platforms do not comply with the \s-1ANSI\s0 C Standard, line |
| 941 | 19ff on page 134 of \s-1ANSI\s0 X3.159 1989 to be exact. (They produce |
| 942 | something else than \*(L"1\*(R" and \*(L"\-1\*(R" when formatting 0.6 and \-0.6 using |
| 943 | the printf format \*(L"%.0f\*(R", most often they produce \*(L"0\*(R" and \*(L"\-0\*(R".) |
| 944 | .Sh "Failure of Thread tests" |
| 945 | .IX Subsection "Failure of Thread tests" |
| 946 | The subtests 19 and 20 of lib/thr5005.t test are known to fail due to |
| 947 | fundamental problems in the 5.005 threading implementation. These are |
| 948 | not new failures\*(--Perl 5.005_0x has the same bugs, but didn't have |
| 949 | these tests. (Note that support for 5.005\-style threading remains |
| 950 | experimental.) |
| 951 | .Sh "Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory" |
| 952 | .IX Subsection "Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory" |
| 953 | .Vb 2 |
| 954 | \& use Tie::Hash; |
| 955 | \& tie my %tie_hash => 'Tie::StdHash'; |
| 956 | .Ve |
| 957 | .PP |
| 958 | .Vb 1 |
| 959 | \& ... |
| 960 | .Ve |
| 961 | .PP |
| 962 | .Vb 1 |
| 963 | \& local($tie_hash{Foo}) = 1; # leaks |
| 964 | .Ve |
| 965 | .PP |
| 966 | Code like the above is known to leak memory every time the \fIlocal()\fR |
| 967 | is executed. |
| 968 | .Sh "Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden" |
| 969 | .IX Subsection "Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden" |
| 970 | Self-tying of arrays and hashes is broken in rather deep and |
| 971 | hard-to-fix ways. As a stop-gap measure to avoid people from getting |
| 972 | frustrated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is |
| 973 | for now forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt). |
| 974 | .Sh "Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles" |
| 975 | .IX Subsection "Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles" |
| 976 | Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with |
| 977 | `largefiles', a change brought by Perl 5.6.0 in which file offsets |
| 978 | default to 64 bits wide, where supported. Modules may fail to compile |
| 979 | at all or compile and work incorrectly. Currently there is no good |
| 980 | solution for the problem, but Configure now provides appropriate |
| 981 | non-largefile ccflags, ldflags, libswanted, and libs in the \f(CW%Config\fR |
| 982 | hash (e.g., \f(CW$Config\fR{ccflags_nolargefiles}) so the extensions that are |
| 983 | having problems can try configuring themselves without the |
| 984 | largefileness. This is admittedly not a clean solution, and the |
| 985 | solution may not even work at all. One potential failure is whether |
| 986 | one can (or, if one can, whether it's a good idea) link together at |
| 987 | all binaries with different ideas about file offsets, all this is |
| 988 | platform\-dependent. |
| 989 | .Sh "The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental" |
| 990 | .IX Subsection "The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental" |
| 991 | The compiler suite is slowly getting better but is nowhere near |
| 992 | working order yet. |
| 993 | .SH "Reporting Bugs" |
| 994 | .IX Header "Reporting Bugs" |
| 995 | If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles |
| 996 | recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl |
| 997 | bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/ There may also be |
| 998 | information at http://www.perl.com/perl/ , the Perl Home Page. |
| 999 | .PP |
| 1000 | If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the \fBperlbug\fR |
| 1001 | program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down |
| 1002 | to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the |
| 1003 | output of \f(CW\*(C`perl \-V\*(C'\fR, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be |
| 1004 | analysed by the Perl porting team. |
| 1005 | .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| 1006 | .IX Header "SEE ALSO" |
| 1007 | The \fIChanges\fR file for exhaustive details on what changed. |
| 1008 | .PP |
| 1009 | The \fI\s-1INSTALL\s0\fR file for how to build Perl. |
| 1010 | .PP |
| 1011 | The \fI\s-1README\s0\fR file for general stuff. |
| 1012 | .PP |
| 1013 | The \fIArtistic\fR and \fICopying\fR files for copyright information. |
| 1014 | .SH "HISTORY" |
| 1015 | .IX Header "HISTORY" |
| 1016 | Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <\fIjhi@iki.fi\fR>, with many contributions |
| 1017 | from The Perl Porters and Perl Users submitting feedback and patches. |
| 1018 | .PP |
| 1019 | Send omissions or corrections to <\fIperlbug@perl.org\fR>. |