NAME
perl5294delta - what is new for perl v5.29.4
DESCRIPTION
This document describes differences between the 5.29.3 release and the 5.29.4 release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.29.2, first read perl5293delta, which describes differences between 5.29.2 and 5.29.3.
Core Enhancements
The upper limit "n" specifiable in a regular expression quantifier of the form "{m,n}" has been doubled to 65534
The meaning of an unbounded upper quantifier "{m,}" remains unchanged. It matches 2**31 - 1 times on most platforms, and more on ones where a C language short variable is more than 4 bytes long.
Incompatible Changes
Assigning non-zero to $[ is fatal
Setting $[ to a non-zero value has been deprecated since Perl 5.12 and now throws a fatal error. See "Assigning non-zero to $[ is fatal" in perldeprecation.
Previously deprecated sysread()/syswrite() on :utf8 handles now fatal
Calling sysread(), syswrite(), send() or recv() on a :utf8 handle, whether applied explicitly or implicitly, is now fatal. This was deprecated in perl 5.24.
There were two problems with calling these functions on :utf8 handles:
All four functions only paid attention to the
:utf8flag. Other layers were completely ignored, so a handle with:encoding(UTF-16LE)layer would be treated as UTF-8. Other layers, such as compression are completely ignored with or without the:utf8flag.sysread() and recv() would read from the handle, skipping any validation by the layers, and do no validation of their own. This could lead to invalidly encoded perl scalars.
[perl #125760]
my() in false conditional prohibited
Declarations such as my $x if 0 are no longer permitted.
[perl #133543]
Fatalize $* and $#
These special variables, long deprecated, now throw exceptions when used.
[perl #133583]
Fatalize unqualified use of dump()
The dump() function, long discouraged, may no longer be used unless it is fully qualified, i.e., CORE::dump().
[perl #133584]
Remove File::Glob::glob()
The File::Glob::glob() function, long deprecated, has been removed and now throws an exception which advises use of File::Glob::bsd_glob() instead.
[perl #133586]
Modules and Pragmata
Updated Modules and Pragmata
B has been upgraded from version 1.74 to 1.75.
B::Concise has been upgraded from version 1.003 to 1.004.
B::Deparse has been upgraded from version 1.48 to 1.49.
bignum has been upgraded from version 0.50 to 0.51.
bytes has been upgraded from version 1.06 to 1.07.
CPAN has been upgraded from version 2.20-TRIAL to 2.21-TRIAL.
Devel::Peek has been upgraded from version 1.27 to 1.28.
feature has been upgraded from version 1.53 to 1.54.
File::Copy has been upgraded from version 2.33 to 2.34.
File::Glob has been upgraded from version 1.31 to 1.32.
Module::CoreList has been upgraded from version 5.20180920 to 5.20181020.
sigtrap has been upgraded from version 1.08 to 1.09.
Unicode::UCD has been upgraded from version 0.71 to 0.72.
vars has been upgraded from version 1.04 to 1.05.
vars.pmno longer disables non-vars strict when checking if strict vars is enabled. [perl #130674]
Removed Modules and Pragmata
B::Debug is no longer distributed with the core distribution. It remains available on CPAN.
Internal Changes
The sizing pass has been eliminated from the regular expression compiler. An extra pass may instead be needed in some cases to count the number of parenthetical capture groups.
Selected Bug Fixes
pack "u", "invalid uuencoding"now properly NUL terminates the zero-length SV produced. [perl #132655]Improve the debugging output for calloc() calls with
-Dm. [perl #133439]Regexp script runs were failing to permit ASCII digits in some cases. [perl #133547]
On Unix-like systems supporting a platform-specific technique for determining
$^X, Perl failed to fall back to the generic technique when the platform-specific one fails (for example, a Linux system with /proc not mounted). This was a regression in Perl 5.28.0. [perl #133573]
Acknowledgements
Perl 5.29.4 represents approximately 4 weeks of development since Perl 5.29.3 and contains approximately 8,400 lines of changes across 180 files from 17 authors.
Excluding auto-generated files, documentation and release tools, there were approximately 6,300 lines of changes to 110 .pm, .t, .c and .h files.
Perl continues to flourish into its fourth decade thanks to a vibrant community of users and developers. The following people are known to have contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.29.4:
Aaron Crane, Alexandr Savca, Andreas König, Chris 'BinGOs' Williams, Craig A. Berry, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker, David Mitchell, Eugen Konkov, James E Keenan, John SJ Anderson, Karl Williamson, Matthias Bethke, Nicolas R., Sisyphus, Slaven Rezic, Tomasz Konojacki, 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 perl bug database at https://rt.perl.org/ . 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 see "SECURITY VULNERABILITY CONTACT INFORMATION" in perlsec for details of how to report the issue.
Give Thanks
If you wish to thank the Perl 5 Porters for the work we had done in Perl 5, you can do so by running the perlthanks program:
perlthanksThis will send an email to the Perl 5 Porters list with your show of thanks.
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.