[ this is a template for a new perldelta file. Any text flagged as XXX needs to be processed before release. ]
perldelta - what is new for perl v5.15.2
This document describes differences between the 5.15.1 release and the 5.15.2 release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.15.0, first read perl5151delta, which describes differences between 5.15.0 and 5.15.1.
XXX Any important notices here
XXX New core language features go here. Summarise user-visible core language enhancements. Particularly prominent performance optimisations could go here, but most should go in the "Performance Enhancements" section.
[ List each enhancement as a =head2 entry ]
XXX Any security-related notices go here. In particular, any security vulnerabilities closed should be noted here rather than in the "Selected Bug Fixes" section.
[ List each security issue as a =head2 entry ]
XXX For a release on a stable branch, this section aspires to be:
There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.XXX.XXX
If any exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.[ List each incompatible change as a =head2 entry ]
UNIVERSAL::VERSION now return whatever is in $VERSION, instead of returning $VERSION converted to a version object and then to a string. As a result, it no longer parses the version when called without arguments, so it no longer dies in that case for malformed versions. This allows custom version number parsers to use ->VERSION to retrieve the version number, as was the case in Perl 5.8 [perl #95544].
XXX Any deprecated features, syntax, modules etc. should be listed here. In particular, deprecated modules should be listed here even if they are listed as an updated module in the "Modules and Pragmata" section.
[ List each deprecation as a =head2 entry ]
XXX Changes which enhance performance without changing behaviour go here. There may well be none in a stable release.
[ List each enhancement as a =item entry ]
XXX
XXX All changes to installed files in cpan/, dist/, ext/ and lib/ go here. If Module::CoreList is updated, generate an initial draft of the following sections using Porting/corelist-perldelta.pl, which prints stub entries to STDOUT. Results can be pasted in place of the '=head2' entries below. A paragraph summary for important changes should then be added by hand. In an ideal world, dual-life modules would have a Changes file that could be cribbed.
[ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry ]
XXX
CPANPLUS has been upgraded from version 0.9108 to version 0.9109
Fixed support for v-strings and x.y.z versions with v5.8.4
CPAN::Meta has been upgraded from version 2.110930_001 to version 2.112150
Stringify any objects encountered during conversion.
Clarified that file paths in the 'provides' section must be in Unix-style (i.e. forward slashes)
ExtUtils::Install has been upgraded from version 1.56 to version 1.57.
There is no change to ExtUtils::Install other than the version number increase, but ExtUtils::Installed has been upgraded from version 1.999_001 to version 1.999002 and a new
skip_cwdattribute has been added.IPC::Open3 has been upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.12.
open3with "-" for the program name works once more. This was broken in version 1.06 (and hence in Perl 5.14.0) [perl #95748].Module::Build has been upgraded from version 0.3800 to version 0.39_01.
Pod to HTML internals changed to support revisions to Pod::Html in core. Also fixes some minor bugs. [rt.cpan.org #68585] [rt.cpan.org #67893] [rt.cpan.org #67008]
Module::Load has been upgraded from version 0.18 to version 0.20
Module::Metadata has been upgraded from version 1.000004 to version 1.000005
Added
new_from_handle()method.Params::Check has been upgraded from version 0.28 to version 0.30
PerlIO::via has been upgraded from version 0.11 to version 0.12.
The only change is a correction in the documentation.
Term::ANSIColor has been upgraded from version 3.00 to version 3.01
Only interpret an initial array reference as a list of colors, not any initial reference, allowing the colored function to work properly on objects with stringification defined.
Unicode::Collate has been upgraded from version 0.77 to version 0.78
Unicode::Normalize has been upgraded from version 1.12 to version 1.13
XXX
XXX Changes to files in pod/ go here. Consider grouping entries by file and be sure to link to the appropriate page, e.g. perlfunc.
XXX Changes which create new files in pod/ go here.
XXX Description of the purpose of the new file here
XXX Changes which significantly change existing files in pod/ go here. However, any changes to pod/perldiag.pod should go in the "Diagnostics" section.
XXX Description of the change here
The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output, including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of diagnostic messages, see perldiag.
XXX New or changed warnings emitted by the core's C code go here. Also include any changes in perldiag that reconcile it to the C code.
[ Within each section, list entries as a =item entry that links to perldiag, e.g.
=item *
L<Invalid version object|perldiag/"Invalid version object">
]XXX Newly added diagnostic messages go here
XXX message
XXX message
XXX Changes (i.e. rewording) of diagnostic messages go here
XXX Describe change here
XXX Changes to installed programs such as perlbug and xsubpp go here. Most of these are built within the directories utils and x2p.
[ List utility changes as a =head3 entry for each utility and =item entries for each change Use XXX with program names to get proper documentation linking. ]
Fixed a bug whereby other perls under the current directory could cause false positive failures.
Tests for .ph files have been removed, as these test have been optional since 2005 and .ph files are no longer generated during installation.
XXX Changes to Configure, installperl, installman, and analogous tools go here. Any other changes to the Perl build process should be listed here. However, any platform-specific changes should be listed in the "Platform Support" section, instead.
[ List changes as a =item entry ].
makedef.pl has been refactored. This should have no noticeable affect on any of the platforms that use it as part of their build (AIX, VMS, Win32).
XXX Any significant changes to the testing of a freshly built perl should be listed here. Changes which create new files in t/ go here as do any large changes to the testing harness (e.g. when parallel testing was added). Changes to existing files in t/ aren't worth summarising, although the bugs that they represent may be covered elsewhere.
[ List each test improvement as a =item entry ]
XXX
XXX Any changes to platform support should be listed in the sections below.
[ Within the sections, list each platform as a =item entry with specific changes as paragraphs below it. ]
- HP-UX PA-RISC/64 now supports gcc-4.x
-
A fix to correct the socketsize now makes the test suite pass on HP-UX PA-RISC for 64bitall builds.
XXX List any platforms that this version of perl compiles on, that previous versions did not. These will either be enabled by new files in the hints/ directories, or new subdirectories and README files at the top level of the source tree.
- XXX-some-platform
-
XXX
XXX List any platforms that this version of perl no longer compiles on.
- XXX-some-platform
-
XXX
XXX List any changes for specific platforms. This could include configuration and compilation changes or changes in portability/compatibility. However, changes within modules for platforms should generally be listed in the "Modules and Pragmata" section.
- XXX-some-platform
-
XXX
XXX Changes which affect the interface available to XS code go here. Other significant internal changes for future core maintainers should be noted as well.
[ List each change as a =item entry ]
XXX
XXX Important bug fixes in the core language are summarised here. Bug fixes in files in ext/ and lib/ are best summarised in "Modules and Pragmata".
[ List each fix as a =item entry ]
Locking an lvalue subroutine (via
lock &lvsub) now locks the return value, instead of trying to lock the sub (which has no effect). It also no longer tries to return the sub as a scalar, resulting in strange side effects likeref \$_returning "CODE" in some instances.lock's prototype has been corrected to(\[$@%*])from(\$), which was just wrong.The prototypes for the core functions
statandlstathave been removed, as they were incorrect, because their syntax cannot be replicated by Perl subroutines.Most dereferencing operators (
${}, etc.) used to callFETCHtwice on a tied operand when doing a symbolic dereference (looking up a variable by name, which is not permitted underuse strict 'refs'). Only&{}did not have this problem. This has been fixed.A minor regression introduced in 5.15.0 has been fixed. Dereferencing a magical mortal (e.g., the return value of
deleteon a tied hash element) explicitly returned from a subroutine called recursively was not callingFETCH. This would affect code like@{ foo() }where thefoosub containsreturn delete $hash{elem}and is calling itself.A panic involving the combination of the regular expression modifiers
/aaand the\bescape sequence introduced in 5.14.0 has been fixed [perl #95964].stat() would always return the inode number as an IV, even when the original was unsigned, or too large to fit in an IV. stat() now returns the inode number as the type that would best preserve the original value. [perl #84590]
XXX Descriptions of platform agnostic bugs we know we can't fix go here. Any tests that had to be TODOed for the release would be noted here, unless they were specific to a particular platform (see below).
This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions from either 5.XXX.XXX or 5.XXX.XXX.
[ List each fix as a =item entry ]
XXX
XXX If any significant core contributor has died, we've added a short obituary here.
XXX Generate this with:
perl Porting/acknowledgements.pl v5.15.1..HEADIf 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://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ . There may also be information at http://www.perl.org/ , the Perl Home Page.
If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug program 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.
If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who will be able to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
The Changes file for an explanation of how to view 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.