integrate change#2852 from maint-5.005; integrate cfgperl contents;

elide dups and non-dependents from Changes

p4raw-link: @2852 on //depot/maint-5.005/perl: 9d2bcc06253ec4693886be5b5b7869bda6582d6e

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@2958
p4raw-integrated: from //depot/maint-5.005/perl@2957 'copy in'
	README.threads (@1717..) 'merge in' INSTALL (@2737..)
p4raw-integrated: from //depot/maint-5.005/perl@2852 'merge in'
	Configure (@2837..)

3 files changed, 83 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/pod/perl.pod b/pod/perl.pod
index ecdaac71cd..db4508700f 100644
--- a/pod/perl.pod
+++ b/pod/perl.pod
@@ -245,6 +245,76 @@ optimized C code.
 
 Okay, that's I<definitely> enough hype.
 
+=head1 AVAILABILITY
+
+Perl is available for the vast majority of operating system platforms,
+including most Unix-like platforms. The following situation is as of
+February 1999 and Perl 5.005_03.
+
+The following platforms are able to build Perl from the standard
+source code distribution available at
+F<http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/index.html>
+
+        AIX             IRIX            SCO ODT/OSR
+        A/UX            Linux           Solaris
+        BeOS            MachTen         SunOS
+        BSD/OS      	MPE/iX          SVR4
+        DG/UX           NetBSD          Ultrix
+        Digital UNIX    NextSTEP        UNICOS
+        DOS DJGPP 1)    OpenBSD         VMS
+        DYNIX/ptx       OpenSTEP        Windows 3.1     1)
+        FreeBSD         OS/2            Windows 95      1) 3)
+        HP-UX           OS390   2)      Windows 98      1) 3)
+	Hurd		PowerUX         Windows NT      1) 3)
+			QNX             VOS
+
+        1) in DOS mode either the DOS or OS/2 ports can be used
+        2) formerly known as MVS	
+        3) compilers: Borland, Cygwin32, Mingw32 EGCS/GCC, VC++
+					
+The following platforms have been known to build Perl from the source
+but for the Perl release 5.005_03 we haven't been able to verify them,
+either because the hardware/software platforms are rather rare or
+because we don't have an active champion on these platforms.
+					
+        3b1             FPS             Plan 9
+        AmigaOS         GENIX           RISC/os
+        ConvexOS        Greenhills      Stellar
+        CX/UX           ISC             SVR2
+        DC/OSx          MachTen 68k     TI1500
+        DDE SMES        MiNT            TitanOS
+        DomainOS        MPC             UNICOS/mk
+        DOS EMX         NEWS-OS         Unisys Dynix
+        Dynix           Opus            Unixware
+        EP/IX
+        ESIX
+
+The following platforms are planned to be supported in the standard
+source distribution of the Perl release 5.006 but are not
+supported in the Perl release 5.005_03:
+
+        BS2000
+        VM/ESA
+
+The following platforms have their own source code distributions and
+binaries available via F<http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/index.html>.
+
+				Perl release
+
+	AS/400			5.003
+	MacOS			5.004_04
+	Tandem Guardian		5.004
+
+The following platforms have only binaries available via
+F<http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/index.html>.
+
+				Perl release
+
+	Acorn RISCOS		5.001
+	AOS			5.002
+	LynxOS			5.004_02
+	Netware			5.003_07
+
 =head1 ENVIRONMENT
 
 See L<perlrun>.
diff --git a/pod/perlfunc.pod b/pod/perlfunc.pod
index 07e2361def..1297e714ea 100644
--- a/pod/perlfunc.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfunc.pod
@@ -2592,19 +2592,25 @@ C<"P"> is C<undef>.
 =item *
 
 The integer types C<"s">, C<"S">, C<"l">, and C<"L"> may be
-immediately followed by a C<"_"> to signify a native short or long--as
+immediately followed by a C<"_"> to signify native shorts or longs--as
 you can see from above for example a bare C<"l"> does mean exactly 32
 bits, the native C<long> (as seen by the local C compiler) may be
-larger.  This is an issue mainly in 64-bit platforms.
+larger.  This is an issue mainly in 64-bit platforms.  You can see
+whether using C<"_"> makes any difference by
+
+	print length(pack("s")), " ", length(pack("s_")), "\n";
+	print length(pack("l")), " ", length(pack("l_")), "\n";
 
 C<"i_"> and C<"I_"> also work but only because of completeness;
 they are identical to C<"i"> and C<"I">.
 
-The actual size (in bytes) of native shorts, ints, and longs on
-the platform where Perl was built are available from L<Config>:
+The actual sizes (in bytes) of native shorts, ints, and longs on
+the platform where Perl was built are available via L<Config>:
 
 	use Config;
 	print $Config{shortsize}, "\n";
+	print $Config{intsize}, "\n";
+	print $Config{longsize}, "\n";
 
 =item *
 
@@ -2632,8 +2638,8 @@ You can see your system's preference with
  	print join(" ", map { sprintf "%#02x", $_ }
                             unpack("C*",pack("L",0x12345678))), "\n";
 
-The actual byteorder on the platform where Perl was built are available
-from L<Config>:
+The actual byteorder on the platform where Perl was built is available
+via L<Config>:
 
 	use Config;
 	print $Config{byteorder}, "\n";
diff --git a/pod/perlhist.pod b/pod/perlhist.pod
index 1be042d9bf..40aa83c1f2 100644
--- a/pod/perlhist.pod
+++ b/pod/perlhist.pod
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ the strings?).
           5.005_52      1998-Sep-25
           5.005_53      1998-Oct-31
           5.005_54      1998-Nov-30
-          5.005_55      1999-Feb-15
+          5.005_55      1999-Feb-16
 
 =head2 SELECTED RELEASE SIZES