a2p
accept
access
acct
addftinfo
addr2line
adjtime
afmtodit
after
aio_cancel
aio_error
aio_read
aio_return
aio_suspend
aio_waitcomplete
aio_write
alias
aliases
alloc
anvil
append
apply
apropos
ar
array
as
asa
asn1parse
at
atq
atrm
attemptckalloc
attemptckrealloc
authlib
authtest
autopoint
awk
b64decode
b64encode
basename
batch
bc
bdes
bell
bg
bgerror
biff
big5
binary
bind
bindkey
bindtags
bindtextdomain
bio
bitmap
blowfish
bn
bootparams
bootptab
bounce
brandelf
break
breaksw
brk
bsdiff
bsdtar
bsnmpd
bspatch
bthost
btsockstat
buffer
builtin
builtins
bunzip2
button
byacc
bzcat
bzegrep
bzfgrep
bzgrep
bzip2
c2ph
c89
c99
ca
cal
calendar
canvas
cap_mkdb
case
cat
catch
catman
cc
cd
cdcontrol
chdir
checkbutton
checknr
chflags
chfn
chgrp
chio
chkey
chmod
chown
chpass
chroot
chsh
ci
ciphers
ckalloc
ckdist
ckfree
ckrealloc
cksum
cleanup
clear
clipboard
clock
clock_getres
clock_gettime
clock_settime
close
cmp
co
col
colcrt
colldef
colors
colrm
column
comm
command
compile_et
complete
compress
concat
config
connect
console
continue
core
courierlogger
couriertcpd
cp
cpan
cpio
cpp
creat
crl
crontab
crunchgen
crunchide
crypt
crypto
csh
csplit
ctags
ctm
ctm_dequeue
ctm_rmail
ctm_smail
cu
cursor
cursors
cut
cvs
date
dbiprof
dbiproxy
dc
dcgettext
dcngettext
dd
dde
default
defer
deliverquota
des
destroy
devfs
df
dgettext
dgst
dh
dhparam
dialog
diff
diff3
dig
dir
dirent
dirname
dirs
discard
disktab
dngettext
do
domainname
done
dprofpp
dsa
dsaparam
dtmfdecode
du
dup
dup2
eaccess
ec
ecdsa
echo
echotc
ecparam
ed
edit
editrc
ee
egrep
elf
elfdump
elif
else
enc
enc2xs
encoding
end
endif
endsw
engine
enigma
entry
env
envsubst
eof
eqn
err
errno
error
errstr
esac
ethers
euc
eui64
eval
event
evp
ex
exec
execve
exit
expand
export
exports
expr
extattr
extattr_delete_fd
extattr_delete_file
extattr_get_fd
extattr_get_file
extattr_set_fd
extattr_set_file
f77
false
famm
famx
fblocked
fbtab
fc
fchdir
fchflags
fchmod
fchown
fcntl
fconfigure
fcopy
fdescfs
fdformat
fdread
fdwrite
fetch
fg
fgrep
fhopen
fhstat
fhstatfs
fi
file
file2c
fileevent
filename
filetest
find
find2perl
finger
flex
flock
flush
fmt
focus
fold
font
fontedit
for
foreach
fork
format
forward
fpathconf
frame
from
fs
fstab
fstat
fstatfs
fsync
ftp
ftpchroot
ftpusers
ftruncate
futimes
g711conv
gb2312
gb18030
gbk
gcc
gcore
gcov
gdb
gencat
gendsa
genrsa
gensnmptree
getconf
getdents
getdirentries
getdtablesize
getegid
geteuid
getfacl
getfh
getfsstat
getgid
getgroups
getitimer
getlogin
getopt
getopts
getpeername
getpgid
getpgrp
getpid
getppid
getpriority
getresgid
getresuid
getrlimit
getrusage
gets
getsid
getsockname
getsockopt
gettext
gettextize
gettimeofday
gettytab
getuid
glob
global
gmake
goto
gperf
gprof
grab
grep
grid
grn
grodvi
groff
groff_font
groff_out
groff_tmac
grog
grolbp
grolj4
grops
grotty
group
groups
gunzip
gzcat
gzexe
gzip
h2ph
h2xs
hash
hashstat
hd
head
help2man
hesinfo
hexdump
history
host
hostname
hosts
hosts_access
hosts_options
hpftodit
http
hup
i386_get_ioperm
i386_get_ldt
i386_set_ioperm
i386_set_ldt
i386_vm86
iconv
id
ident
idprio
if
ifnames253
ifnames259
image
imapd
incr
indent
indxbib
info
infokey
inode
install
instmodsh
interp
intro
introduction
ioctl
ipcrm
ipcs
ipf
ipftest
ipnat
ippool
ipresend
issetugid
jail
jail_attach
jobid
jobs
join
jot
kbdcontrol
kbdmap
kcon
kdestroy
kdump
kenv
kevent
keycap
keylogin
keylogout
keymap
keysyms
kgdb
kill
killall
killpg
kinit
kldfind
kldfirstmod
kldload
kldnext
kldstat
kldsym
kldunload
klist
kpasswd
kqueue
kse
kse_create
kse_exit
kse_release
kse_switchin
kse_thr_interrupt
kse_wakeup
ktrace
label
labelframe
lam
lappend
last
lastcomm
lastlog
lchflags
lchmod
lchown
ld
ldap
ldapadd
ldapcompare
ldapdelete
ldapmodify
ldapmodrdn
ldappasswd
ldapsearch
ldapwhoami
ldd
leave
less
lesskey
lex
lgetfh
lhash
libnetcfg
library
limit
limits
lindex
link
linprocfs
linsert
lint
lio_listio
list
listbox
listen
lj4_font
lkbib
llength
lmtp
ln
load
loadfont
local
locale
locate
lock
lockf
log
logger
login
logins
logname
logout
look
lookbib
lorder
lower
lp
lpq
lpr
lprm
lptest
lrange
lreplace
ls
lsearch
lseek
lset
lsort
lstat
lsvfs
lutimes
lynx
m4
madvise
magic
mail
maildiracl
maildirkw
maildirmake
mailq
mailx
make
makeinfo
makewhatis
man
manpath
master
mc
mcedit
mcview
md2
md4
md5
mdc2
memory
menu
menubar
menubutton
merge
mesg
message
mincore
minherit
minigzip
mkdep
mkdir
mkfifo
mkimapdcert
mklocale
mknod
mkpop3dcert
mkstr
mktemp
mlock
mlockall
mmap
mmroff
modfind
modfnext
modnext
modstat
moduli
more
motd
mount
mprotect
mptable
msdos
msdosfs
msgattrib
msgcat
msgcmp
msgcomm
msgconv
msgen
msgexec
msgfilter
msgfmt
msggrep
msginit
msgmerge
msgs
msgunfmt
msguniq
mskanji
msql2mysql
msync
mt
munlock
munlockall
munmap
mv
myisamchk
myisamlog
myisampack
mysql
mysqlaccess
mysqladmin
mysqlbinlog
mysqlcheck
mysqld
mysqldump
mysqld_multi
mysqld_safe
mysqlhotcopy
mysqlimport
mysqlshow
mysql_config
mysql_fix_privilege_tables
mysql_zap
namespace
nanosleep
nawk
nc
ncal
ncplist
ncplogin
ncplogout
neqn
netconfig
netgroup
netid
netstat
networks
newaliases
newgrp
nex
nfsstat
nfssvc
ngettext
nice
nl
nm
nmount
nohup
nologin
notify
nroff
nseq
nslookup
ntp_adjtime
ntp_gettime
nvi
nview
objcopy
objdump
objformat
ocsp
od
onintr
open
openssl
opieaccess
opieinfo
opiekey
opiekeys
opiepasswd
option
options
oqmgr
pack
package
packagens
pagesize
palette
pam_auth
panedwindow
parray
passwd
paste
patch
pathchk
pathconf
pawd
pax
pbm
pcre
pcreapi
pcrebuild
pcrecallout
pcrecompat
pcrecpp
pcregrep
pcrematching
pcrepartial
pcrepattern
pcreperform
pcreposix
pcreprecompile
pcresample
pcretest
perl
perl56delta
perl58delta
perl561delta
perl570delta
perl571delta
perl572delta
perl573delta
perl581delta
perl582delta
perl583delta
perl584delta
perl585delta
perl586delta
perl587delta
perl588delta
perl5004delta
perl5005delta
perlaix
perlamiga
perlapi
perlapio
perlapollo
perlartistic
perlbeos
perlbook
perlboot
perlbot
perlbs2000
perlbug
perlcall
perlcc
perlce
perlcheat
perlclib
perlcn
perlcompile
perlcygwin
perldata
perldbmfilter
perldebguts
perldebtut
perldebug
perldelta
perldgux
perldiag
perldoc
perldos
perldsc
perlebcdic
perlembed
perlepoc
perlfaq
perlfaq1
perlfaq2
perlfaq3
perlfaq4
perlfaq5
perlfaq6
perlfaq7
perlfaq8
perlfaq9
perlfilter
perlfork
perlform
perlfreebsd
perlfunc
perlglossary
perlgpl
perlguts
perlhack
perlhist
perlhpux
perlhurd
perlintern
perlintro
perliol
perlipc
perlirix
perlivp
perljp
perlko
perllexwarn
perllinux
perllocale
perllol
perlmachten
perlmacos
perlmacosx
perlmint
perlmod
perlmodinstall
perlmodlib
perlmodstyle
perlmpeix
perlnetware
perlnewmod
perlnumber
perlobj
perlop
perlopenbsd
perlopentut
perlos2
perlos390
perlos400
perlothrtut
perlpacktut
perlplan9
perlpod
perlpodspec
perlport
perlqnx
perlre
perlref
perlreftut
perlrequick
perlreref
perlretut
perlrun
perlsec
perlsolaris
perlstyle
perlsub
perlsyn
perlthrtut
perltie
perltoc
perltodo
perltooc
perltoot
perltrap
perltru64
perltw
perlunicode
perluniintro
perlutil
perluts
perlvar
perlvmesa
perlvms
perlvos
perlwin32
perlxs
perlxstut
perror
pfbtops
pftp
pgrep
phones
photo
pic
pickup
piconv
pid
pipe
pkcs7
pkcs8
pkcs12
pkg_add
pkg_check
pkg_create
pkg_delete
pkg_info
pkg_sign
pkg_version
pkill
pl2pm
place
pod2html
pod2latex
pod2man
pod2text
pod2usage
podchecker
podselect
poll
popd
popup
posix_madvise
postalias
postcat
postconf
postdrop
postfix
postkick
postlock
postlog
postmap
postqueue
postsuper
pr
pread
preadv
printcap
printenv
printf
proc
procfs
profil
protocols
prove
proxymap
ps
psed
psroff
pstruct
ptrace
publickey
pushd
puts
pwd
pwrite
pwritev
qmgr
qmqpd
quota
quotactl
radiobutton
raise
rand
ranlib
rcp
rcs
rcsclean
rcsdiff
rcsfile
rcsfreeze
rcsintro
rcsmerge
read
readelf
readlink
readonly
readv
realpath
reboot
recv
recvfrom
recvmsg
red
ree
refer
regexp
registry
regsub
rehash
remote
rename
repeat
replace
req
reset
resolver
resource
return
rev
revoke
rfcomm_sppd
rfork
rhosts
ripemd
ripemd160
rlog
rlogin
rm
rmd160
rmdir
rpc
rpcgen
rs
rsa
rsautl
rsh
rtld
rtprio
rup
ruptime
rusers
rwall
rwho
s2p
safe
sasl
sasldblistusers2
saslpasswd2
sbrk
scache
scale
scan
sched
sched_getparam
sched_getscheduler
sched_get_priority_max
sched_get_priority_min
sched_rr_get_interval
sched_setparam
sched_setscheduler
sched_yield
scon
scp
script
scrollbar
sdiff
sed
seek
select
selection
semctl
semget
semop
send
sendbug
sendfile
sendmail
sendmsg
sendto
services
sess_id
set
setegid
setenv
seteuid
setfacl
setgid
setgroups
setitimer
setlogin
setpgid
setpgrp
setpriority
setregid
setresgid
setresuid
setreuid
setrlimit
setsid
setsockopt
settc
settimeofday
setty
setuid
setvar
sftp
sh
sha
sha1
sha256
shar
shells
shift
shmat
shmctl
shmdt
shmget
showq
shutdown
sigaction
sigaltstack
sigblock
sigmask
sigpause
sigpending
sigprocmask
sigreturn
sigsetmask
sigstack
sigsuspend
sigvec
sigwait
size
slapadd
slapcat
slapd
slapdn
slapindex
slappasswd
slaptest
sleep
slogin
slurpd
smbutil
smime
smtp
smtpd
socket
socketpair
sockstat
soelim
sort
source
spawn
speed
spinbox
spkac
splain
split
squid
squid_ldap_auth
squid_ldap_group
squid_unix_group
sscop
ssh
sshd_config
ssh_config
stab
startslip
stat
statfs
stop
string
strings
strip
stty
su
subst
sum
suspend
swapoff
swapon
switch
symlink
sync
sysarch
syscall
sysconftool
sysconftoolcheck
systat
s_client
s_server
s_time
tabs
tail
talk
tar
tbl
tclsh
tcltest
tclvars
tcopy
tcpdump
tcpslice
tcsh
tee
tell
telltc
telnet
term
termcap
terminfo
test
texindex
texinfo
text
textdomain
tfmtodit
tftp
then
threads
time
tip
tk
tkerror
tkvars
tkwait
tlsmgr
tmac
top
toplevel
touch
tput
tr
trace
trafshow
trap
troff
true
truncate
truss
tset
tsort
tty
ttys
type
tzfile
ui
ul
ulimit
umask
unalias
uname
uncomplete
uncompress
undelete
unexpand
unhash
unifdef
unifdefall
uniq
units
unknown
unlimit
unlink
unmount
unset
unsetenv
until
unvis
update
uplevel
uptime
upvar
usbhidaction
usbhidctl
users
utf8
utimes
utmp
utrace
uudecode
uuencode
uuidgen
vacation
variable
verify
version
vfork
vgrind
vgrindefs
vi
vidcontrol
vidfont
view
virtual
vis
vt220keys
vwait
w
wait
wait3
wait4
waitpid
wall
wc
wget
what
whatis
where
whereis
which
while
who
whoami
whois
window
winfo
wish
wm
write
writev
wtmp
x509
xargs
xgettext
xmlwf
xstr
xsubpp
yacc
yes
ypcat
ypchfn
ypchpass
ypchsh
ypmatch
yppasswd
ypwhich
yyfix
zcat
zcmp
zdiff
zegrep
zfgrep
zforce
zgrep
zmore
znew
_exit
__syscall
 
FreeBSD/Linux/UNIX General Commands Manual
Hypertext Man Pages
perl572delta
 
PERL572DELTA(1)        Perl Programmers Reference Guide        PERL572DELTA(1)



NAME
       perl572delta - what's new for perl v5.7.2

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes differences between the 5.7.1 release and the
       5.7.2 release.

       (To view the differences between the 5.6.0 release and the 5.7.0
       release, see perl570delta.  To view the differences between the 5.7.0
       release and the 5.7.1 release, see perl571delta.)

Security Vulnerability Closed
       (This change was already made in 5.7.0 but bears repeating here.)

       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.

       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.

       See http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/sperl-2000-08-05/sperl-2000-08-05.txt
       for more information.

Incompatible Changes
       64-bit platforms and malloc

       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, usu-
       ally the system malloc on such platforms are much better optimized for
       such large memory models than the Perl malloc.

       AIX Dynaloading

       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 mod-
       ules.  The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other
       applications like modperl which are using the AIX native interface.

       Socket Extension Dynamic in VMS

       The Socket extension is now dynamically loaded instead of being stati-
       cally 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.

       Different Definition of the Unicode Character Classes \p{In...}

       As suggested by the Unicode consortium, the Unicode character classes
       now prefer scripts as opposed to blocks (as defined by Unicode); in
       Perl, when the "\p{In....}" and the "\p{In....}" regular expression
       constructs are used.  This has changed the definition of some of those
       character classes.

       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 num-
       bering.

       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 "Latin" includes all the Latin characters and
       their various diacritic-adorned versions, it does not include the vari-
       ous punctuation or digits (since they are not solely "Latin").

       Changes in the character class semantics may have happened if a script
       and a block happen to have the same name, for example "Hebrew".	In
       such cases the script wins and "\p{InHebrew}" now means the script def-
       inition of Hebrew.  The block definition in still available, though, by
       appending "Block" to the name: "\p{InHebrewBlock}" means what
       "\p{InHebrew}" meant in perl 5.6.0.  For the full list of affected
       character classes, see "Blocks" in perlunicode.

       Deprecations

       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 "fields" pragma interface will remain available.

       The syntaxes "@a->[...]" and  "@h->{...}" have now been deprecated.

       The suidperl is also considered to be too much a risk to continue main-
       taining and the suidperl code is likely to be removed in a future
       release.

       The "package;" syntax ("package" without an argument has been depre-
       cated.  Its semantics were never that clear and its implementation even
       less so.  If you have used that feature to disallow all but fully qual-
       ified variables, "use strict;" instead.

       The chdir(undef) and chdir('') behaviors to match chdir() has been dep-
       recated.  In future versions, chdir(undef) and chdir('') will simply
       fail.

Core Enhancements
       In general a lot of fixing has happened in the area of Perl's under-
       standing of numbers, both integer and floating point.  Since in many
       systems the standard number parsing functions like "strtoul()" and
       "atof()" seem to have bugs, Perl tries to work around their deficien-
       cies.  This results hopefully in more accurate numbers.

       o   The rules for allowing underscores (underbars) in numeric constants
	   have been relaxed and simplified: now you can have an underscore
	   between digits.

       o   GMAGIC (right-hand side magic) could in many cases such as string
	   concatenation be invoked too many times.

       o   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.

       o   Lexicals II: lexicals leaked at file scope into subroutines that
	   were declared before the lexicals.

       o   Lvalue subroutines can now return "undef" in list context.

       o   The "op_clear" and "op_null" are now exported.

       o   A new special regular expression variable has been introduced: $^N,
	   which contains the most-recently closed group (submatch).

       o   utime now supports "utime undef, undef, @files" to change the file
	   timestamps to the current time.

       o   The Perl parser has been stress tested using both random input and
	   Markov chain input.

       o   "eval "v200"" now works.

       o   VMS now works under PerlIO.

       o   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 perlembed.

Modules and Pragmata
       New Modules and Distributions


       o   Attribute::Handlers - Simpler definition of attribute handlers

       o   ExtUtils::Constant - generate XS code to import C header constants

       o   I18N::Langinfo - query locale information

       o   I18N::LangTags - functions for dealing with RFC3066-style language
	   tags

       o   libnet - a collection of perl5 modules related to network program-
	   ming

	   Perl installation leaves libnet unconfigured, use libnetcfg to con-
	   figure.

       o   List::Util - selection of general-utility list subroutines

       o   Locale::Maketext - framework for localization

       o   Memoize - Make your functions faster by trading space for time

       o   NEXT - pseudo-class for method redispatch

       o   Scalar::Util - selection of general-utility scalar subroutines

       o   Test::More - yet another framework for writing test scripts

       o   Test::Simple - Basic utilities for writing tests

       o   Time::HiRes - high resolution ualarm, usleep, and gettimeofday

       o   Time::Piece - Object Oriented time objects

	   (Previously known as Time::Object.)

       o   Time::Seconds - a simple API to convert seconds to other date val-
	   ues

       o   UnicodeCD - Unicode Character Database

       Updated And Improved Modules and Pragmata


       o   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.

       o   Class::Struct now assigns the array/hash element if the accessor is
	   called with an array/hash element as the sole argument.

       o   Cwd extension is now (even) faster.

       o   DB_File extension has been updated to version 1.77.

       o   Fcntl, Socket, and Sys::Syslog have been rewritten to use the new-
	   style constant dispatch section (see ExtUtils::Constant).

       o   File::Find is now (again) reentrant.  It also has been made more
	   portable.

       o   File::Glob now supports "GLOB_LIMIT" constant to limit the size of
	   the returned list of filenames.

       o   IO::Socket::INET now supports "LocalPort" of zero (usually meaning
	   that the operating system will make one up.)

       o   The vars pragma now supports declaring fully qualified variables.
	   (Something that "our()" does not and will not support.)

Utility Changes
       o   The emacs/e2ctags.pl is now much faster.

       o   h2ph now supports C trigraphs.

       o   h2xs uses the new 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 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 con-
	   stants), and slightly faster, you might want to consider regenerat-
	   ing your extension code (the new scheme makes regenerating easy).
	   h2xs now also supports C trigraphs.

       o   libnetcfg has been added to configure the libnet.

       o   The Pod::Html (and thusly pod2html) now allows specifying a cache
	   directory.

New Documentation
       o   Locale::Maketext::TPJ13 is an article about software localization,
	   originally published in The Perl Journal #13, republished here with
	   kind permission.

       o   More README.$PLATFORM files have been converted into pod, which
	   also means that they also be installed as perl$PLATFORM documenta-
	   tion files.	The new files are perlapollo, perlbeos, perldgux,
	   perlhurd, perlmint, perlnetware, perlplan9, perlqnx, and perltru64.

       o   The Todo and Todo-5.6 files have been merged into perltodo.

       o   Use of the gprof tool to profile Perl has been documented in perl-
	   hack.  There is a make target "perl.gprof" for generating a gpro-
	   filed Perl executable.

Installation and Configuration Improvements
       New Or Improved Platforms


       o   AIX should now work better with gcc, threads, and 64-bitness.  Also
	   the long doubles support in AIX should be better now.  See perlaix.

       o   AtheOS ( http://www.atheos.cx/ ) is a new platform.

       o   DG/UX platform now supports the 5.005-style threads.  See perldgux.

       o   DYNIX/ptx platform (a.k.a. dynixptx) is supported at or near osvers
	   4.5.2.

       o   Several Mac OS (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 perlmacos.

       o   Mac OS X (or Darwin) should now be able to build Perl even on HFS+
	   filesystems.  (The case-insensitivity confused the Perl build
	   process.)

       o   NetWare from Novell is now supported.  See perlnetware.

       o   The Amdahl UTS UNIX mainframe platform is now supported.

       Generic Improvements


       o   In AFS installations one can configure the root of the AFS to be
	   somewhere else than the default /afs by using the Configure parame-
	   ter "-Dafsroot=/some/where/else".

       o   The version of Berkeley DB used when the Perl (and, presumably, the
	   DB_File extension) was built is now available as @Config{qw(db_ver-
	   sion_major db_version_minor db_version_patch)} from Perl and as
	   "DB_VERSION_MAJOR_CFG DB_VERSION_MINOR_CFG DB_VERSION_PATCH_CFG"
	   from C.

       o   The Thread extension is now not built at all under ithreads ("Con-
	   figure -Duseithreads") because it wouldn't work anyway (the Thread
	   extension requires being Configured with "-Duse5005threads").

       o   The "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:
	   "make test.deparse".

Selected Bug Fixes
       o    The autouse pragma didn't work for Multi::Part::Function::Names.

       o    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.

       o    dprofpp -R didn't work.

       o    PERL5OPT with embedded spaces didn't work.

       o    Sys::Syslog ignored the "LOG_AUTH" constant.

       Platform Specific Changes and Fixes


       o   Some versions of glibc have a broken modfl().  This affects builds
	   with "-Duselongdouble".  This version of Perl detects this broken-
	   ness and has a workaround for it.  The glibc release 2.2.2 is known
	   to have fixed the modfl() bug.

New or Changed Diagnostics
       o   In the regular expression diagnostics the "<< HERE" marker intro-
	   duced in 5.7.0 has been changed to be "<-- HERE" since too many
	   people found the "<<" to be too similar to here-document starters.

       o   If you try to "pack" in perlfunc a number less than 0 or larger
	   than 255 using the "C" format you will get an optional warning.
	   Similarly for the "c" format and a number less than -128 or more
	   than 127.

       o   Certain regex modifiers such as "(?o)" make sense only if applied
	   to the entire regex.  You will an optional warning if you try to do
	   otherwise.

       o   Using arrays or hashes as references (e.g. "%foo->{bar}" has been
	   deprecated for a while.  Now you will get an optional warning.

Source Code Enhancements
       MAGIC constants

       The MAGIC constants (e.g. 'P') have been macrofied (e.g.
       "PERL_MAGIC_TIED") for better source code readability and maintainabil-
       ity.

       Better commented code

       perly.c, sv.c, and sv.h have now been extensively commented.

       Regex pre-/post-compilation items matched up

       The regex compiler now maintains a structure that identifies nodes in
       the compiled bytecode with the corresponding syntactic features of the
       original regex expression.  The information is attached to the new
       "offsets" member of the "struct regexp". See perldebguts for more com-
       plete information.

       gcc -Wall

       The C code has been made much more "gcc -Wall" clean.  Some warning
       messages still remain, though, so if you are compiling with gcc you
       will see some warnings about dubious practices.	The warnings are being
       worked on.

New Tests
       Several new tests have been added, especially for the 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.)

Known Problems
       Note that unlike other sections in this document (which describe
       changes since 5.7.0) this section is cumulative containing known prob-
       lems for all the 5.7 releases.

       AIX


       o   In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
	   may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
	   In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with the
	   libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library has
	   an obscure bug where the various functions related to time (such as
	   time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and therefore in
	   AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.

       o   vac 5.0.0.0 May Produce Buggy Code For Perl

	   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.

       Amiga Perl Invoking Mystery

       One cannot call Perl using the "volume:" syntax, that is, "perl -v"
       works, but for example "bin:perl -v" doesn't.  The exact reason is
       known but the current suspect is the ixemul library.

       lib/ftmp-security tests warn 'system possibly insecure'

       Don't panic.  Read INSTALL 'make test' section instead.

       Cygwin intermittent failures of lib/Memoize/t/expire_file 11 and 12

       The subtests 11 and 12 sometimes fail and sometimes work.

       HP-UX lib/io_multihomed Fails When LP64-Configured

       The lib/io_multihomed test may hang in HP-UX if Perl has been config-
       ured 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).

       HP-UX lib/posix Subtest 9 Fails When LP64-Configured

       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.

       Linux With Sfio Fails op/misc Test 48

       No known fix.

       OS/390

       OS/390 has rather many test failures but the situation is actually bet-
       ter than it was in 5.6.0, it's just that so many new modules and tests
       have been added.

	Failed Test			Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
	-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
	../ext/B/Deparse.t			      14    1	7.14%  14
	../ext/B/Showlex.t			       1    1 100.00%  1
	../ext/Encode/Encode/Tcl.t		     610   13	2.13%  592 594 596 598
								       600 602 604-610
	../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_unix.t	 113 28928     5    3  60.00%  3-5
	../ext/POSIX/POSIX.t			      29    1	3.45%  14
	../ext/Storable/t/lock.t	 255 65280     5    3  60.00%  3-5
	../lib/locale.t 		 129 33024   117   19  16.24%  99-117
	../lib/warnings.t			     434    1	0.23%  75
	../lib/ExtUtils.t			      27    1	3.70%  25
	../lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigintpm.t 	    1190    1	0.08%  1145
	../lib/Unicode/UCD.t			      81   48  59.26%  1-16 49-64 66-81
	../lib/User/pwent.t			       9    1  11.11%  4
	op/pat.t				     660    6	0.91%  242-243 424-425
								       626-627
	op/split.t			   0	 9    ??   ??	    %  ??
	op/taint.t				     174    3	1.72%  156 162 168
	op/tr.t 				      70    3	4.29%  50 58-59
	Failed 16/422 test scripts, 96.21% okay. 105/23251 subtests failed, 99.55% okay.

       op/sprintf tests 129 and 130

       The op/sprintf tests 129 and 130 are known to fail on some platforms.
       Examples include any platform using sfio, and Compaq/Tandem's Non-
       Stop-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 other than "1" and "-1" when formatting 0.6 and -0.6 using
       the printf format "%.0f", most often they produce "0" and "-0".)

       Failure of Thread tests

       Note that support for 5.005-style threading remains experimental.

       The following tests 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.

	 lib/autouse.t		       4
	 t/lib/thr5005.t	       19-20

       UNICOS


       o   ext/POSIX/sigaction subtests 6 and 13 may fail.

       o   lib/ExtUtils may spuriously claim that subtest 28 failed, which is
	   interesting since the test only has 27 tests.

       o   Numerous numerical test failures

	     op/numconvert		   209,210,217,218
	     op/override		   7
	     ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes	   9
	     lib/Math/BigInt/t/bigintpm    1145
	     lib/Math/Trig		   25

	   These tests fail because of yet unresolved floating point inaccura-
	   cies.

       UTS

       There are a few known test failures, see perluts.

       VMS

       Rather many tests are failing in VMS but that actually more tests suc-
       ceed in VMS than they used to, it's just that there are many, many more
       tests than there used to be.

       Here are the known failures from some compiler/platform combinations.

       DEC C V5.3-006 on OpenVMS VAX V6.2

	 [-.ext.list.util.t]tainted..............FAILED on test 3
	 [-.ext.posix]sigaction..................FAILED on test 7
	 [-.ext.time.hires]hires.................FAILED on test 14
	 [-.lib.file.find]taint..................FAILED on test 17
	 [-.lib.math.bigint.t]bigintpm...........FAILED on test 1183
	 [-.lib.test.simple.t]exit...............FAILED on test 1
	 [.lib]vmsish............................FAILED on test 13
	 [.op]sprintf............................FAILED on test 12
	 Failed 8/399 tests, 91.23% okay.

       DEC C V6.0-001 on OpenVMS Alpha V7.2-1 and Compaq C V6.2-008 on OpenVMS
       Alpha V7.1

	 [-.ext.list.util.t]tainted..............FAILED on test 3
	 [-.lib.file.find]taint..................FAILED on test 17
	 [-.lib.test.simple.t]exit...............FAILED on test 1
	 [.lib]vmsish............................FAILED on test 13
	 Failed 4/399 tests, 92.48% okay.

       Compaq C V6.4-005 on OpenVMS Alpha 7.2.1

	 [-.ext.b]showlex........................FAILED on test 1
	 [-.ext.list.util.t]tainted..............FAILED on test 3
	 [-.lib.file.find]taint..................FAILED on test 17
	 [-.lib.test.simple.t]exit...............FAILED on test 1
	 [.lib]vmsish............................FAILED on test 13
	 [.op]misc...............................FAILED on test 49
	 Failed 6/401 tests, 92.77% okay.

       Win32

       In multi-CPU boxes there are some problems with the I/O buffering: some
       output may appear twice.

       Localising a Tied Variable Leaks Memory

	   use Tie::Hash;
	   tie my %tie_hash => 'Tie::StdHash';

	   ...

	   local($tie_hash{Foo}) = 1; # leaks

       Code like the above is known to leak memory every time the local() is
       executed.

       Self-tying of Arrays and Hashes Is Forbidden

       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 frus-
       trated at the mysterious results (core dumps, most often) it is for now
       forbidden (you will get a fatal error even from an attempt).

       Variable Attributes are not Currently Usable for Tieing

       This limitation will hopefully be fixed in future.  (Subroutine
       attributes work fine for tieing, see Attribute::Handlers).

       Building Extensions Can Fail Because Of Largefiles

       Some extensions like mod_perl are known to have issues with `large-
       files', 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., $Con-
       fig{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.

       The Compiler Suite Is Still Experimental

       The compiler suite is slowly getting better but is nowhere near working
       order yet.

       The Long Double Support is Still Experimental

       The ability to configure Perl's numbers to use "long doubles", floating
       point numbers of hopefully better accuracy, is still experimental.  The
       implementations of long doubles are not yet widespread and the existing
       implementations are not quite mature or standardised, therefore trying
       to support them is a rare and moving target.  The gain of more preci-
       sion may also be offset by slowdown in computations (more bits to move
       around, and the operations are more likely to be executed by less opti-
       mised libraries).

Reporting Bugs
       If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
       recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug
       database at http://bugs.perl.org/  There may also be information at
       http://www.perl.com/perl/ , the Perl Home Page.

       If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug pro-
       gram included with your release.  Be sure to trim your bug down to a
       tiny but sufficient test case.  Your bug report, along with the output
       of "perl -V", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by
       the Perl porting team.

SEE ALSO
       The Changes file for exhaustive details on what changed.

       The INSTALL file for how to build Perl.

       The README file for general stuff.

       The Artistic and Copying files for copyright information.

HISTORY
       Written by Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>, with many contributions from
       The Perl Porters and Perl Users submitting feedback and patches.

       Send omissions or corrections to <perlbug@perl.org>.



perl v5.8.8			  2006-01-07		       PERL572DELTA(1)
=18879
+197
(68)