PERL5113DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL5113DELTA(1)NAME
perl5113delta - what is new for perl v5.11.3
DESCRIPTION
This document describes differences between the 5.11.2 release and the
5.11.3 release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.11.1, first read
the perl5112delta, which describes differences between 5.11.1 and
5.11.2
Incompatible Changes
Filehandles are blessed directly into "IO::Handle", as "FileHandle" is
merely a wrapper around "IO::Handle".
The previous behaviour was to bless Filehandles into FileHandle (an
empty proxy class) if it was loaded into memory and otherwise to bless
them into "IO::Handle".
Core Enhancements
Unicode version
Perl is shipped with the latest Unicode version, 5.2, dated October
2009. See <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0> for details
about this release of Unicode. See perlunicode for instructions on
installing and using older versions of Unicode.
Unicode properties
Perl can now handle every Unicode character property. A new pod,
perluniprops, lists all available non-Unihan character properties. By
default the Unihan properties and certain others (deprecated and
Unicode internal-only ones) are not exposed. See below for more
details on these; there is also a section in the pod listing them, and
why they are not exposed.
Perl now fully supports the Unicode compound-style of using "=" and ":"
in writing regular expressions: "\p{property=value}" and
"\p{property:value}" (both of which mean the same thing).
Perl now fully supports the Unicode loose matching rules for text
between the braces in "\p{...}" constructs. In addition, Perl also
allows underscores between digits of numbers.
All the Unicode-defined synonyms for properties and property values are
now accepted.
"qr/\X/", which matches a Unicode logical character, has been expanded
to work better with various Asian languages. It now is defined as an
"extended grapheme cluster". (See
<http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29/>). Anything matched previously
that made sense will continue to be matched. But in addition:
· "\X" will now not break apart a "CR LF" sequence.
· "\X" will now match a sequence including the "ZWJ" and "ZWNJ"
characters.
· "\X" will now always match at least one character, including an
initial mark. Marks generally come after a base character, but it
is possible in Unicode to have them in isolation, and "\X" will now
handle that case, for example at the beginning of a line or after a
"ZWSP". And this is the part where "\X" doesn't match the things
that it used to that don't make sense. Formerly, for example, you
could have the nonsensical case of an accented LF.
· "\X" will now match a (Korean) Hangul syllable sequence, and the
Thai and Lao exception cases.
Otherwise, this change should be transparent for the non-affected
languages.
"\p{...}" matches using the Canonical_Combining_Class property were
completely broken in previous Perls. This is now fixed.
In previous Perls, the Unicode "Decomposition_Type=Compat" property and
a Perl extension had the same name, which led to neither matching all
the correct values (with more than 100 mistakes in one, and several
thousand in the other). The Perl extension has now been renamed to be
"Decomposition_Type=Noncanonical" (short: "dt=noncanon"). It has the
same meaning as was previously intended, namely the union of all the
non-canonical Decomposition types, with Unicode "Compat" being just one
of those.
"\p{Uppercase}" and "\p{Lowercase}" have been brought into line with
the Unicode definitions. This means they each match a few more
characters than previously.
"\p{Cntrl}" now matches the same characters as "\p{Control}". This
means it no longer will match Private Use (gc=co), Surrogates (gc=cs),
nor Format (gc=cf) code points. The Format code points represent the
biggest possible problem. All but 36 of them are either officially
deprecated or strongly discouraged from being used. Of those 36,
likely the most widely used are the soft hyphen (U+00AD), and BOM,
ZWSP, ZWNJ, WJ, and similar, plus Bi-directional controls.
"\p{Alpha}" now matches the same characters as "\p{Alphabetic}". The
Perl definition included a number of things that aren't really alpha
(all marks), while omitting many that were. As a direct consequence,
the definitions of "\p{Alnum}" and "\p{Word}" which depend on Alpha
also change.
"\p{Word}" also now doesn't match certain characters it wasn't supposed
to, such as fractions.
"\p{Print}" no longer matches the line control characters: Tab, LF, CR,
FF, VT, and NEL. This brings it in line with the documentation.
"\p{Decomposition_Type=Canonical}" now includes the Hangul syllables.
The Numeric type property has been extended to include the Unihan
characters.
There is a new Perl extension, the 'Present_In', or simply 'In',
property. This is an extension of the Unicode Age property, but
"\p{In=5.0}" matches any code point whose usage has been determined as
of Unicode version 5.0. The "\p{Age=5.0}" only matches code points
added in precisely version 5.0.
A number of properties did not have the correct values for unassigned
code points. This is now fixed. The affected properties are
Bidi_Class, East_Asian_Width, Joining_Type, Decomposition_Type,
Hangul_Syllable_Type, Numeric_Type, and Line_Break.
The Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, ID_Continue, and ID_Start properties
have been updated to their current Unicode definitions.
Certain properties that are supposed to be Unicode internal-only were
erroneously exposed by previous Perls. Use of these in regular
expressions will now generate, if enabled, a deprecated warning
message. The properties are: Other_Alphabetic,
Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, Other_Grapheme_Extend,
Other_ID_Continue, Other_ID_Start, Other_Lowercase, Other_Math, and
Other_Uppercase.
An installation can now fairly easily change which Unicode properties
Perl understands. As mentioned above, certain properties are by
default turned off. These include all the Unihan properties (which
should be accessible via the CPAN module Unicode::Unihan) and any
deprecated or Unicode internal-only property that Perl has never
exposed.
The generated files in the "lib/unicore/To" directory are now more
clearly marked as being stable, directly usable by applications. New
hash entries in them give the format of the normal entries, which
allows for easier machine parsing. Perl can generate files in this
directory for any property, though most are suppressed. An
installation can choose to change which get written. Instructions are
in perluniprops.
Regular Expressions
U+0FFFF is now a legal character in regular expressions.
Modules and Pragmata
Pragmata Changes
"constant"
Upgraded from version 1.19 to 1.20.
"diagnostics"
This pragma no longer suppresses "Use of uninitialized value in
range (or flip)" warnings. [perl #71204]
"feature"
Upgraded from 1.13 to 1.14. Added the "unicode_strings" feature:
use feature "unicode_strings";
This pragma turns on Unicode semantics for the case-changing
operations (uc/lc/ucfirst/lcfirst) on strings that don't have the
internal UTF-8 flag set, but that contain single-byte characters
between 128 and 255.
"legacy"
The experimental "legacy" pragma, introduced in 5.11.2, has been
removed, and its functionality replaced by the new feature pragma,
"use feature "unicode_strings"".
"threads"
Upgraded from version 1.74 to 1.75.
"warnings"
Upgraded from 1.07 to 1.08. Added new "warnings::fatal_enabled()"
function.
Updated Modules
"Archive::Extract"
Upgraded from version 0.34 to 0.36.
"CPAN"
Upgraded from version 1.94_51 to 1.94_5301, which is 1.94_53 on
CPAN plus some local fixes for bleadperl.
Includes better bzip2 support, improved FirstTime experience with
auto-selection of CPAN mirrors, proper handling of modules removed
from the Perl core, and an updated 'cpan' utility script
"CPANPLUS"
Upgraded from version 0.89_09 to 0.90.
"Encode"
Upgraded from version 2.38 to 2.39.
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker"
Upgraded from version 6.55_02 to 6.56. Adds new BUILD_REQUIRES key
to indicate build-only prerequisites. Also adds support for
mingw64 and the new "package NAME VERSION" syntax.
"File::Path"
Upgraded from version 2.08 to 2.08_01.
"Module::Build"
Upgraded from version 0.35_09 to 0.36. Compared to 0.35, this
version has a new 'installdeps' action, supports the PERL_MB_OPT
environment variable, adds a 'share_dir' property for
File::ShareDir support, support the "package NAME VERSION" syntax
and has many other enhancements and bug fixes. The 'passthrough'
style of Module::Build::Compat has been deprecated.
"Module::CoreList"
Upgraded from version 2.23 to 2.24.
"POSIX"
Upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.19. Error codes for "getaddrinfo()"
and "getnameinfo()" are now available.
"Pod::Simple"
Upgraded from version 3.10 to 3.13.
"Safe"
Upgraded from version 2.19 to 2.20.
Utility Changes
perlbug
No longer reports "Message sent" when it hasn't actually sent the
message
Changes to Existing Documentation
The Pod specification (perlpodspec) has been updated to bring the
specification in line with modern usage already supported by most Pod
systems. A parameter string may now follow the format name in a
"begin/end" region. Links to URIs with a text description are now
allowed. The usage of "L<"section">" has been marked as deprecated.
if.pm has been documented in "use" in perlfunc as a means to get
conditional loading of modules despite the implicit BEGIN block around
"use".
Installation and Configuration Improvements
Testing improvements
It's now possible to override "PERL5OPT" and friends in t/TEST
Platform Specific Changes
Win32
· Always add a manifest resource to "perl.exe" to specify the
"trustInfo" settings for Windows Vista and later. Without this
setting Windows will treat "perl.exe" as a legacy application
and apply various heuristics like redirecting access to
protected file system areas (like the "Program Files" folder)
to the users "VirtualStore" instead of generating a proper
"permission denied" error.
For VC8 and VC9 this manifest setting is automatically
generated by the compiler/linker (together with the binding
information for their respective runtime libraries); for all
other compilers we need to embed the manifest resource
explicitly in the external resource file.
This change also requests the Microsoft Common-Controls version
6.0 (themed controls introduced in Windows XP) via the
dependency list in the assembly manifest. For VC8 and VC9 this
is specified using the "/manifestdependency" linker commandline
option instead.
cygwin
Enable IPv6 support on cygwin 1.7 and newer
OpenVMS
Make -UDEBUGGING the default on VMS for 5.12.0.
Like it has been everywhere else for ages and ages. Also make
command-line selection of -UDEBUGGING and -DDEBUGGING work in
configure.com; before the only way to turn it off was by saying
no in answer to the interactive question.
Selected Bug Fixes
· Ensure that pp_qr returns a new regexp SV each time. Resolves RT
#69852.
Instead of returning a(nother) reference to the (pre-compiled)
regexp in the optree, use reg_temp_copy() to create a copy of it,
and return a reference to that. This resolves issues about
Regexp::DESTROY not being called in a timely fashion (the original
bug tracked by RT #69852), as well as bugs related to blessing
regexps, and of assigning to regexps, as described in
correspondence added to the ticket.
It transpires that we also need to undo the SvPVX() sharing when
ithreads cloning a Regexp SV, because mother_re is set to NULL,
instead of a cloned copy of the mother_re. This change might fix
bugs with regexps and threads in certain other situations, but as
yet neither tests nor bug reports have indicated any problems, so
it might not actually be an edge case that it's possible to reach.
· Several compilation errors and segfaults when perl was built with
"-Dmad" were fixed.
· Fixes for lexer API changes in 5.11.2 which broke NYTProf's savesrc
option.
· -t should only return TRUE for file handles connected to a TTY
The Microsoft C version of isatty() returns TRUE for all character
mode devices, including the /dev/null style "nul" device and
printers like "lpt1".
· Fixed a regression caused by commit fafafbaf which caused a panic
during parameter passing [perl #70171]
· On systems which in-place edits without backup files, -i'*' now
works as the documentation says it does [perl #70802]
· Saving and restoring magic flags no longer loses readonly flag.
· The malformed syntax "grep EXPR LIST" (note the missing comma) no
longer causes abrupt and total failure.
· Regular expressions compiled with "qr{}" literals properly set "$'"
when matching again.
· Using named subroutines with "sort" should no longer lead to bus
errors [perl #71076]
· Numerous bugfixes catch small issues caused by the recently-added
Lexer API.
· Smart match against @_ sometimes gave false negatives. [perl
#71078]
· $@ may now be assigned a read-only value (without error or busting
the stack).
· "sort" called recursively from within an active comparison
subroutine no longer causes a bus error if run multiple times.
[perl #71076]
New or Changed Diagnostics
· "split" now warns when called in void context
· "printf"-style functions called with too few arguments will now
issue the warning "Missing argument in %s" [perl #71000]
New Tests
Many modules updated from CPAN incorporate new tests.
t/comp/final_line_num.t
See if line numbers are correct at EOF
t/comp/form_scope.t
See if format scoping works
t/comp/line_debug.t
See if @{"_<$file"} works
t/op/filetest_t.t
See if -t file test works
t/op/qr.t
See if qr works
t/op/utf8cache.t
Tests malfunctions of utf8 cache
t/re/uniprops.t
Test unicode \p{} regex constructs
Deprecations
The following items are now deprecated.
Use of "goto" to jump into a construct is deprecated
Using "goto" to jump from an outer scope into an inner scope is now
deprecated. This rare use case was causing problems in the
implementation of scopes.
Acknowledgements
Perl 5.11.3 represents approximately one month of development since
Perl 5.11.2 and contains 61407 lines of changes across 396 files from
40 authors and committers:
Abigail, Alex Davies, Alexandr Ciornii, Andrew Rodland, Andy Dougherty,
Bram, brian d foy, Chip Salzenberg, Chris Williams, Craig A. Berry,
Daniel Frederick Crisman, David Golden, Dennis Kaarsemaker, Eric Brine,
Father Chrysostomos, Gene Sullivan, Gerard Goossen, H. Merijn Brand,
Hugo van der Sanden, Jan Dubois, Jerry D. Hedden, Jesse Vincent, Jim
Cromie, Karl Williamson, Leon Brocard, Max Maischein, Michael Breen,
Moritz Lenz, Nicholas Clark, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, Reini Urban, Ricardo
Signes, Stepan Kasal, Steve Hay, Steve Peters, Tim Bunce, Tony Cook,
Vincent Pit and Zefram.
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.
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://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 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.
SEE ALSO
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.
perl v5.12.5 2012-11-03 PERL5113DELTA(1)