PERL582DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL582DELTA(1)NAMEperl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2
DESCRIPTION
This document describes differences between the 5.8.1
release and the 5.8.2 release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1,
first read the perl58delta, which describes differences
between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0, and the perl581delta, which
describes differences between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1.
Incompatible Changes
For threaded builds for modules calling certain re-entrant
system calls, binary compatibility was accidentally lost
between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1. Binary compatibility with 5.8.0 has
been restored in 5.8.2, which necessitates breaking compati-
bility with 5.8.1. We see this as the lesser of two evils.
This will only affect people who have a threaded perl 5.8.1,
and compiled modules which use these calls, and now attempt
to run the compiled modules with 5.8.2. The fix is to re-
compile and re-install the modules using 5.8.2.
Core Enhancements
Hash Randomisation
The hash randomisation introduced with 5.8.1 has been
amended. It transpired that although the implementation
introduced in 5.8.1 was source compatible with 5.8.0, it was
not binary compatible in certain cases. 5.8.2 contains an
improved implementation which is both source and binary com-
patible with both 5.8.0 and 5.8.1, and remains robust
against the form of attack which prompted the change for
5.8.1.
We are grateful to the Debian project for their input in
this area. See "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec
for the original rationale behind this change.
Threading
Several memory leaks associated with variables shared
between threads have been fixed.
Modules and Pragmata
Updated Modules And Pragmata
The following modules and pragmata have been updated since
Perl 5.8.1:
Devel::PPPort
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Digest::MD5
I18N::LangTags
libnet
MIME::Base64
Pod::Perldoc
strict
Documentation improved
Tie::Hash
Documentation improved
Time::HiRes
Unicode::Collate
Unicode::Normalize
UNIVERSAL
Documentation improved
Selected Bug Fixes
Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators
are now handled correctly by the parser.
Changed Internals
Interpreter initialization is more complete when -DMULTIPLI-
CITY is off. This should resolve problems with initializing
and destroying the Perl interpreter more than once in a sin-
gle process.
Platform Specific Problems
Dynamic linker flags have been tweaked for Solaris and OS X,
which should solve problems seen while building some XS
modules.
Bugs in OS/2 sockets and tmpfile have been fixed.
In OS X "setreuid" and friends are troublesome - perl will
now work around their problems as best possible.
Future Directions
Starting with 5.8.3 we intend to make more frequent mainte-
nance releases, with a smaller number of changes in each.
The intent is to propagate bug fixes out to stable releases
more rapidly and make upgrading stable releases less of an
upheaval. This should give end users more flexibility in
their choice of upgrade timing, and allow them easier
assessment of the impact of upgrades. The current plan is
for code freezes as follows
+ 5.8.3 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday December 31st 2003
+ 5.8.4 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday March 31st 2004
+ 5.8.5 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday June 30th 2004
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with the release following soon after, when testing is com-
plete.
See "Future Directions" in perl581delta for more soothsay-
ing.
Reporting Bugs
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the
articles recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc news-
group and the perl bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/.
There may also be information at http://www.perl.com/, 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.
You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at
http://bugs.perl.org/
SEE ALSO
The Changes file for 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 v5.8.8 2006-06-30 3
