perl5161delta - what is new for perl v5.16.1
This document describes differences between the 5.16.0 release and the 5.16.1
release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.14.0, first
read perl5160delta, which describes differences between 5.14.0 and
5.16.0.
The bugfix was in Scalar-List-Util 1.23_04, and perl 5.16.1 includes
Scalar-List-Util 1.25.
There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.16.0 If any exist, they
are bugs, and we request that you submit a report. See "Reporting
Bugs" below.
- Scalar::Util and List::Util have been upgraded from version 1.23 to
version 1.25.
- B::Deparse has been updated from version 1.14 to 1.14_01. An
"uninitialized" warning emitted by B::Deparse has been squashed
[perl #113464].
- •
- Building perl with some Windows compilers used to fail due to a problem
with miniperl's "glob" operator (which
uses the "perlglob" program) deleting
the PATH environment variable [perl #113798].
- VMS
- All C header files from the top-level directory of the distribution are
now installed on VMS, providing consistency with a long-standing practice
on other platforms. Previously only a subset were installed, which broke
non-core extension builds for extensions that depended on the missing
include files.
- A regression introduced in Perl v5.16.0 involving
"tr/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/"
has been fixed. Only the first instance is supposed to be meaningful if a
character appears more than once in
"SEARCHLIST".
Under some circumstances, the final instance was overriding all earlier
ones. [perl #113584]
- "B::COP::stashlen" has been added. This
provides access to an internal field added in perl 5.16 under threaded
builds. It was broken at the last minute before 5.16 was released [perl
#113034].
- The re pragma will no longer clobber $_. [perl
#113750]
- Unicode 6.1 published an incorrect alias for one of the
Canonical_Combining_Class property's values (which range between 0 and
254). The alias "CCC133" should have
been "CCC132". Perl now overrides the
data file furnished by Unicode to give the correct value.
- Duplicating scalar filehandles works again. [perl #113764]
- Under threaded perls, a runtime code block in a regular expression could
corrupt the package name stored in the op tree, resulting in bad reads in
"caller", and possibly crashes [perl
#113060].
- For efficiency's sake, many operators and built-in functions return the
same scalar each time. Lvalue subroutines and subroutines in the CORE::
namespace were allowing this implementation detail to leak through.
"print &CORE::uc("a"),
&CORE::uc("b")" used to print "BB".
The same thing would happen with an lvalue subroutine returning the return
value of "uc". Now the value is copied
in such cases [perl #113044].
- "__SUB__" now works in special blocks
("BEGIN",
"END", etc.).
- Formats that reference lexical variables from outside no longer result in
crashes.
There are no new known problems, but consult "Known Problems" in
perl5160delta to see those identified in the 5.16.0 release.
Perl 5.16.1 represents approximately 2 months of development since Perl 5.16.0
and contains approximately 14,000 lines of changes across 96 files from 8
authors.
Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a
vibrant community of users and developers. The following people are known to
have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.16.1:
Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Craig A. Berry, Father Chrysostomos, Karl
Williamson, Paul Johnson, Reini Urban, Ricardo Signes, Tony Cook.
The list above is almost certainly incomplete as it is
automatically generated from version control history. In particular, it does
not include the names of the (very much appreciated) contributors who
reported issues to the Perl bug tracker.
Many of the changes included in this version originated in the
CPAN modules included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN
community for helping Perl to flourish.
For a more complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors,
please see the AUTHORS file in the Perl source distribution.
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://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.