perl 5.0 alpha 3

[editor's note: the sparc executables have not been included,
and emacs backup files have been removed]

1 files changed, 61 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/Changes b/Changes
index 55bedde1fc..b8fb52f99e 100644
--- a/Changes
+++ b/Changes
@@ -1,18 +1,75 @@
-
+Incompatibilities
+-----------------
     s'$lhs'$rhs' now does no interpolation on either side.  It used to
     interplolate $lhs but not $rhs.
 
     The second and third arguments of splice are now evaluated in scalar
     context (like the book says) rather than list context.
 
-    Saying shift @foo + 20 is now a semantic error.
+    Saying "shift @foo + 20" is now a semantic error because of precedence.
+
+    "open FOO || die" is now incorrect.  You need parens around the filehandle.
 
     The elements of argument lists for formats are now evaluated in list
-    context.
+    context.  This means you can interpolate list values now.
 
-    You can't do a goto into a block that is optimized away.
+    You can't do a goto into a block that is optimized away.  Darn.
 
     It is no longer syntactically legal to use whitespace as the name
     of a variable.
 
     Some error messages will be different.
+
+    The caller function now a false value in a scalar context if there is
+    no caller.  This lets library files determine if they're being required.
+
+    m//g now attaches its state to the searched string rather than the
+    regular expression.
+
+New things
+----------
+    The -w switch is much more informative.
+
+    References.  See t/op/ref.t for examples.
+
+    Objects.  See t/op/ref.t for examples.
+
+    => is now a synonym for comma.  This is useful as documentation for
+    arguments that come in pairs, such as initializers for associative arrays,
+    or named arguments to a subroutine.
+
+    All functions have been turned into list operators or unary operators,
+    meaning the parens are optional.  Even subroutines may be called as
+    list operators if they've already been declared.
+
+    More embeddible.  See main.c and embed_h.SH.
+
+    The interpreter is now flattened out.  Compare Perl 4's eval.c with
+    the perl 5's pp.c.  Compare Perl 4's 900 line interpreter loop in cmd.c
+    with Perl 5's 1 line interpreter loop in run.c.  Eventually we'll make
+    everything non-blocking so we can interface nicely with a scheduler.
+
+    eval is now treated more like a subroutine call.  Among other things,
+    this means you can return from it.
+
+    Format value lists may be spread over multiple lines by enclosing in
+    curlies.
+
+    You may now define BEGIN and END subroutines for each package.  The BEGIN
+    subroutine executes the moment it's parsed.  The END subroutine executes
+    just before exiting.
+
+    Flags on the #! line are interpreted even if the script wasn't
+    executed directly.  (And even if the script was located by "perl -x"!)
+
+    The ?: operator is now legal as an lvalue.
+
+    List context now propagates to the right side of && and ||, as well
+    as the 2nd and 3rd arguments to ?:.
+
+    The "defined" function can now take a general expression.
+
+    Lexical scoping available via "my".  eval can see the current lexical
+    variables.
+
+    Saying "package;" requires explicit package name on global symbols.