NAME¶
perl5161delta - what is new for perl v5.16.1
DESCRIPTION¶
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.
Security¶
an off-by-two error in Scalar-List-Util has been fixed¶
The bugfix was in Scalar-List-Util 1.23_04, and perl 5.16.1 includes
Scalar-List-Util 1.25.
Incompatible Changes¶
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.
Modules and Pragmata¶
Updated Modules and Pragmata¶
- •
- 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].
Configuration and Compilation¶
- •
- 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.
Selected Bug Fixes¶
- •
- 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.
Known Problems¶
There are no new known problems, but consult "Known Problems" in
perl5160delta to see those identified in the 5.16.0 release.
Acknowledgements¶
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.
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 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.
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.