1=head1 NAME 2 3perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3 4 5=head1 DESCRIPTION 6 7This document describes differences between the 5.8.2 release and 8the 5.8.3 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> and L<perl582delta>, which describe differences 13between 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2 14 15=head1 Incompatible Changes 16 17There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2. 18 19=head1 Core Enhancements 20 21A C<SCALAR> method is now available for tied hashes. This is called when 22a tied hash is used in scalar context, such as 23 24 if (%tied_hash) { 25 ... 26 } 27 28 29The old behaviour was that %tied_hash would return whatever would have been 30returned for that hash before the hash was tied (so usually 0). The new 31behaviour in the absence of a SCALAR method is to return TRUE if in the 32middle of an C<each> iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY to check if the 33hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent C<each> will also begin by 34calling FIRSTKEY). Please see L<perltie/SCALAR> for the full details and 35caveats. 36 37=head1 Modules and Pragmata 38 39=over 4 40 41=item CGI 42 43=item Cwd 44 45=item Digest 46 47=item Digest::MD5 48 49=item Encode 50 51=item File::Spec 52 53=item FindBin 54 55A function C<again> is provided to resolve problems where modules in different 56directories wish to use FindBin. 57 58=item List::Util 59 60You can now weaken references to read only values. 61 62=item Math::BigInt 63 64=item PodParser 65 66=item Pod::Perldoc 67 68=item POSIX 69 70=item Unicode::Collate 71 72=item Unicode::Normalize 73 74=item Test::Harness 75 76=item threads::shared 77 78C<cond_wait> has a new two argument form. C<cond_timedwait> has been added. 79 80=back 81 82=head1 Utility Changes 83 84C<find2perl> now assumes C<-print> as a default action. Previously, it 85needed to be specified explicitly. 86 87A new utility, C<prove>, makes it easy to run an individual regression test 88at the command line. C<prove> is part of Test::Harness, which users of earlier 89Perl versions can install from CPAN. 90 91=head1 New Documentation 92 93The documentation has been revised in places to produce more standard manpages. 94 95The documentation for the special code blocks (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, END) 96has been improved. 97 98=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements 99 100Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64 101 102=head1 Selected Bug Fixes 103 104Using substr() on a UTF8 string could cause subsequent accesses on that 105string to return garbage. This was due to incorrect UTF8 offsets being 106cached, and is now fixed. 107 108join() could return garbage when the same join() statement was used to 109process 8 bit data having earlier processed UTF8 data, due to the flags 110on that statement's temporary workspace not being reset correctly. This 111is now fixed. 112 113C<$a .. $b> will now work as expected when either $a or $b is C<undef> 114 115Using Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly. 116 117Reading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the C code implementing $^E 118did not preserve C<errno>, so reading $^E could cause C<errno> and therefore 119C<$!> to change unexpectedly. 120 121Reentrant functions will (once more) work with C++. 5.8.2 introduced a bugfix 122which accidentally broke the compilation of Perl extensions written in C++ 123 124=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics 125 126The fatal error "DESTROY created new reference to dead object" is now 127documented in L<perldiag>. 128 129=head1 Changed Internals 130 131The hash code has been refactored to reduce source duplication. The 132external interface is unchanged, and aside from the bug fixes described 133above, there should be no change in behaviour. 134 135C<hv_clear_placeholders> is now part of the perl API 136 137Some C macros have been tidied. In particular macros which create temporary 138local variables now name these variables more defensively, which should 139avoid bugs where names clash. 140 141<signal.h> is now always included. 142 143=head1 Configuration and Building 144 145C<Configure> now invokes callbacks regardless of the value of the variable 146they are called for. Previously callbacks were only invoked in the 147C<case $variable $define)> branch. This change should only affect platform 148maintainers writing configuration hints files. 149 150=head1 Platform Specific Problems 151 152The regression test ext/threads/shared/t/wait.t fails on early RedHat 9 153and HP-UX 10.20 due to bugs in their threading implementations. 154RedHat users should see https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-136.html 155and consider upgrading their glibc. 156 157=head1 Known Problems 158 159Detached threads aren't supported on Windows yet, as they may lead to 160memory access violation problems. 161 162There is a known race condition opening scripts in C<suidperl>. C<suidperl> 163is neither built nor installed by default, and has been deprecated since 164perl 5.8.0. You are advised to replace use of suidperl with tools such 165as sudo ( http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ ) 166 167We have a backlog of unresolved bugs. Dealing with bugs and bug reports 168is unglamorous work; not something ideally suited to volunteer labour, 169but that is all that we have. 170 171The perl5 development team are implementing changes to help address this 172problem, which should go live in early 2004. 173 174=head1 Future Directions 175 176Code freeze for the next maintenance release (5.8.4) is on March 31st 2004, 177with release expected by mid April. Similarly 5.8.5's freeze will be at 178the end of June, with release by mid July. 179 180=head1 Obituary 181 182Iain 'Spoon' Truskett, Perl hacker, author of L<perlreref> and 183contributor to CPAN, died suddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24. 184He will be missed. 185 186=head1 Reporting Bugs 187 188If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles 189recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl 190bug database at http://bugs.perl.org. There may also be 191information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page. 192 193If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug> 194program included with your release. Be sure to trim your bug down 195to a tiny but sufficient test case. Your bug report, along with the 196output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be 197analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search 198the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/ 199 200=head1 SEE ALSO 201 202The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed. 203 204The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl. 205 206The F<README> file for general stuff. 207 208The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information. 209 210=cut 211