1=head1 NAME 2 3perl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2 4 5=head1 DESCRIPTION 6 7This document describes differences between the 5.8.1 release and 8the 5.8.2 release. 9 10If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1, first read 11the L<perl58delta>, which describes differences between 5.6.0 and 125.8.0, and the L<perl581delta>, which describes differences between 135.8.0 and 5.8.1. 14 15=head1 Incompatible Changes 16 17For threaded builds for modules calling certain re-entrant system calls, 18binary compatibility was accidentally lost between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1. 19Binary compatibility with 5.8.0 has been restored in 5.8.2, which 20necessitates breaking compatibility with 5.8.1. We see this as the 21lesser of two evils. 22 23This will only affect people who have a threaded perl 5.8.1, and compiled 24modules which use these calls, and now attempt to run the compiled modules 25with 5.8.2. The fix is to re-compile and re-install the modules using 5.8.2. 26 27=head1 Core Enhancements 28 29=head2 Hash Randomisation 30 31The hash randomisation introduced with 5.8.1 has been amended. It 32transpired that although the implementation introduced in 5.8.1 was source 33compatible with 5.8.0, it was not binary compatible in certain cases. 5.8.2 34contains an improved implementation which is both source and binary 35compatible with both 5.8.0 and 5.8.1, and remains robust against the form of 36attack which prompted the change for 5.8.1. 37 38We are grateful to the Debian project for their input in this area. 39See L<perlsec/"Algorithmic Complexity Attacks"> for the original 40rationale behind this change. 41 42=head2 Threading 43 44Several memory leaks associated with variables shared between threads 45have been fixed. 46 47=head1 Modules and Pragmata 48 49=head2 Updated Modules And Pragmata 50 51The following modules and pragmata have been updated since Perl 5.8.1: 52 53=over 4 54 55=item Devel::PPPort 56 57=item Digest::MD5 58 59=item I18N::LangTags 60 61=item libnet 62 63=item MIME::Base64 64 65=item Pod::Perldoc 66 67=item strict 68 69Documentation improved 70 71=item Tie::Hash 72 73Documentation improved 74 75=item Time::HiRes 76 77=item Unicode::Collate 78 79=item Unicode::Normalize 80 81=item UNIVERSAL 82 83Documentation improved 84 85=back 86 87=head1 Selected Bug Fixes 88 89Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators are now handled 90correctly by the parser. 91 92=head1 Changed Internals 93 94Interpreter initialization is more complete when -DMULTIPLICITY is off. 95This should resolve problems with initializing and destroying the Perl 96interpreter more than once in a single process. 97 98=head1 Platform Specific Problems 99 100Dynamic linker flags have been tweaked for Solaris and OS X, which should 101solve problems seen while building some XS modules. 102 103Bugs in OS/2 sockets and tmpfile have been fixed. 104 105In OS X C<setreuid> and friends are troublesome - perl will now work 106around their problems as best possible. 107 108=head1 Future Directions 109 110Starting with 5.8.3 we intend to make more frequent maintenance releases, 111with a smaller number of changes in each. The intent is to propagate 112bug fixes out to stable releases more rapidly and make upgrading stable 113releases less of an upheaval. This should give end users more 114flexibility in their choice of upgrade timing, and allow them easier 115assessment of the impact of upgrades. The current plan is for code freezes 116as follows 117 118=over 4 119 120=item * 121 1225.8.3 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday December 31st 2003 123 124=item * 125 1265.8.4 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday March 31st 2004 127 128=item * 129 1305.8.5 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday June 30th 2004 131 132=back 133 134with the release following soon after, when testing is complete. 135 136See L<perl581delta/"Future Directions"> for more soothsaying. 137 138=head1 Reporting Bugs 139 140If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles 141recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl 142bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/. There may also be 143information at http://www.perl.com/, the Perl Home Page. 144 145If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> 146program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down 147to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the 148output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be 149analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search 150the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/ 151 152=head1 SEE ALSO 153 154The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. 155 156The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. 157 158The F<README> file for general stuff. 159 160The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. 161 162=cut 163