path: root/Changes

Please note: This file provides a summary of significant changes
between versions and sub-versions of Perl, not a complete list
of each modification.  If you'd like more detailed information,
please consult the comments in the patches on which the relevant
release of Perl is based.  (Patches can be found on any CPAN
site, in the .../src/5.0 directory for full version releases,
or in the .../src/5/0/unsupported directory for sub-version
releases.)

----------------
Version 5.003_03
----------------

Most of the changes in 5.003_03 are to make the build and installation
process more robust.  The details are described below.  A very brief
summary is:

o Visible Changes to Core Functionality

   -Support for tied filehandles.

o Configure enhancements

   -How to build and install a shared libperl.so is now documented
    and supported, though it's not the default for most platforms.

o Bug fixes

   -Support bit operations on strings longer than 15 bytes.

   -If a regex supplied to split() contains paranthesized subpatterns
    that can result in null matches, perl no longer coredumps.

   -Fix problems with each() on tied hashes.

   -Make h2ph architecture-independent by using Config at run-time
    rather than extraction time.

o Specific Changes

Here are the specific file-by-file changes.

# This is my patch perl5.003_03.pat to perl5.003_02
# The full description is below.
# Please execute the following commands before applying this patch.
# (You can feed this patch to 'sh' to do so.)
#  Andy Dougherty		<doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>

# Absorbed into Changes5.002
rm -f Changes.Conf

# Not needed.
rm -f ext/POSIX/mkposixman.pl

# Moved to README.os2.  I'm not sure why the README files are
# here rather than in the appropriate subdirectories.
rm -f os2/README

# Not needed.
rm -f pod/Makefile.PL

# New test for bit ops.
touch t/op/bob.t

# Patches that create new tests don't always make them executable.
chmod +x t/*/*.t

# Create a new directory for Porting and Patching info.
mkdir Porting

exit 0

This is patch perl5.003_03.pat to perl version 5.003_02.
This takes you from 5.003_02 to 5.003_03.

To apply this patch, run the above commands,
cd to your perl source directory and then type

	patch -p1 -N < perl5.003_03.pat

The changes are described after each /^Index/ line below.  This is
designed so you can examine each change with a command such as

	csplit -k perl5.003_03.pat '/^Index:/' '{99}'

Patch and enjoy,

    Andy Dougherty		doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu
    Dept. of Physics
    Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042

Index: Changes

	Include 5.003_03 change notes.

	Move older change notes to separate files.

Index: Changes5.000

	New file.  Changes from perl4.036 to 5.000.

Index: Changes5.001

	New file.  Changes from 5.000 to 5.001

Index: Changes5.002

	New file.  Changes from 5.001 to 5.002

Index: Changes5.003

	New file.  Changes from 5.002 to 5.003

Index: Configure

	Relaxed warning about ksh on exotic machines.

	Changed usesafe to useopcode.

	Add search for gzip and zip.

	Look more carefully for $sh (the Bourne-ish shell).
	Use that info to set $startsh correctly.

	Change prompts for PerlIO interface.  See INSTALL
	for how this is supposed to work.  The default is
	still the same as in 5.003_02, namely don't use
	any fancy new PerlIO stuff.

	Don't look for sigvec() since we don't actually use it.
	(Plus, it used to print an alarming misleading message about
	race conditions.)

	Look for stdio's _filbuf under the possible names of
	_filbuf, __filbuf, and _fill.

	New $useshrplib variable to control whether we build a shared
	libperl.so.  The name of the library is in $libperl.
	Always install it in $installarchlib/CORE/$libperl.

	Check for <sys/resource.h> and <sys/wait.h> for NetBSD.

	Replace old $altmake stuff with newer autoconf-ish
	$make_set_make, which checks if $make sets $(MAKE).  Now you
	choose an alternate make with sh Configure -Dmake=gmake (or
	whatever).

	Remove 'ln' for the list of essential commands.  Simulate
	it with 'cp' if necessary.

	Change `logname` prompts to handle extra gratuitous spaces in
	Ultrix output.

	Autodetect os2.

	Fix silly bug in checking for fully-qualified names in /etc/hosts.

	Generalize Gconvert tests.  Give correct and more useful
	error messages.

	Use $obj_ext instead of literal '.o' in the dynaloader test.

	Include appropriate header files in bcopy() and memcpy()
	tests.  Note whether memmove is available.

	Check whether struct sigaction works (needed for Solaris 2.5
	with -Xc).

	Include appropriate header files for randbits test.

Index: INSTALL

	Add note about space requirements.

	Update to match Configure changes (Opcode vs. Safe,
	useperlio, useshrplib, etc.)

	Reorganize the structure of some of the hints.

	Miscellaneous clarifications.

Index: MANIFEST

	Updated.  5.003_02 introduced some massive patches, mostly
	due to spacing changes.  I didn't bother to sort them all out;
	I just started with 5.003's MANIEFST.

Index: Makefile.SH

	Support the new simplified shared libperl mechanism.

	Use new $make_set_make directive.

	Remove redundant libperl Make variable.

	Remove unnecessary MAB variable.

	Remove dependency of minitest on lib/Config.pm, since it could
	well have been a failure of configpm that inspired testing
	miniperl in the first place!

Index: Porting/Glossary

	New file describing all the config.sh variables.
	Eventually, I hope to fill this directory with other useful
	stuff.

Index: README.os2

	Replace old README.os2 with more up-to-date os2/README.

Index: config_H

	Updated to match current Configure and config_h.SH.
	Some rearrangement of parts has occurred due to new
	dependencies in the metaconfig units.

Index: config_h.SH

	Updated to match current Configure and config_h.SH.
	Some rearrangement of parts has occurred due to new
	dependencies in the metaconfig units.

	Include full descriptions of ARCHLIB, OLDARCHLIB, PRIVLIB,
	SITEARCH, and SITELIB.  Previous versions just included the
	~-expanded names (with unhelpful descriptions).  No functionality
	is changed, but maybe it's a little better documented now.

Index: doio.c

	Possibly Include <signal.h> and <unistd.h>

Index: doop.c

	No longer prefer bcmp over memcmp when order doesn't matter.

	Support bit operations on strings longer than 15 bytes.

Index: embed.h

	Auto-generated.

Index: embed.pl

	Expand warning at the top.

Index: ext/IO/IO.pm

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: ext/IO/lib/IO/Seekable.pm

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: ext/IO/lib/IO/Select.pm

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: ext/Opcode/Opcode.xs

	Add support for tied filehandles.

Index: ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/sdbm.h

	Change the Mymalloc to match Perl_malloc in perl.h.

Index: ext/util/make_ext

	Typo change.
	Get rid of unused altmake.

Index: global.sym

	Fix problems with each() on tied hashes.

Index: handy.h

	Change safe*alloc functions to have prototypes that
	match the system's malloc and free types.  That is, use
	Malloc_t instead of char *, and Free_t instead of void.
	This is necessary so . . .

	Safefree cast matches type of free() whether it's perl's
	malloc/free or the system's malloc/free.

Index: hints/README.hints

	Remove out-of-date info.

	Document a bit about how hint files work.

Index: hints/aix.sh

	qmaxmem hint doesn't apply to gcc.

Index: hints/dgux.sh

	Configure will now automatically detect shared libperl stuff.

Index: hints/dynixptx.sh

	Fix typo in comment.
	
	Configure will now automatically detect shared libperl stuff.

Index: hints/epix.sh

	Use glibpth instead of libpth.  This allows Configure to
	add local directories, such as /opt/local/lib, etc.

Index: hints/irix_6_2.sh

	Include some info on cc -n32 compile.

Index: hints/linux.sh

	Configure now tests gcvt() more thoroughly.

Index: hints/machten_2.sh

	Update where to find dld.

Index: hints/mips.sh

	Use glibpth instead of libpth.

Index: hints/next_3.sh

	Build up $mab dynamically.  Since $mab isn't used anywhere
	anymore, this is useless.  However, $mab was never used for
	next_3.sh anyway, so there's been no change in functionality.

Index: hints/next_4.sh

	Get rid of extraneous isnext_4 variable.  Configure and
	Makefile.SH will use $osname and $osvers instead.

	Build up $mab dynamically based on available architectures.

	Absorb $mab into ccflags and ccdlflags.  I hope that will
	cover everything.  (Configure should automatically remove
	the -arch stuff from cppflags.)

	Configure now knows next4 needs to use a shared libperl.5.so.

	Allow users to use -Dprefix.

Index: hints/os2.sh

	Try to update to reflect newer shared libperl stuff.
	I probably goofed :-).

Index: hints/sco.sh

	Additional notes on using icc.

	Additional flags for dynamic loading.

Index: hints/solaris_2.sh

	Perl.h no longer prefers bcmp, so it's again ok if Configure
	finds them, since perl will prefer the mem* versions anyway.

Index: hints/sunos_4_0.sh

	Don't include <unistd.h>

Index: hints/sunos_4_1.sh

	Add brief note about GNU as and ld.

	Don't include <unistd.h>

	Add notes about WHOA THERE messages.

Index: hints/titanos.sh

	Include sfio in libswanted.

	Don't set libpth any more.

Index: hints/umips.sh

	New hint file.

Index: hv.c

	Use memcmp even in cases where ordering doesn't matter.

	Fix problems with each() on tied hashes.

Index: installperl

	Simplify installation of shared libperl.so.

	Avoid reaching Command Failed!!! with /usr/bin/perl.

Index: lib/AutoSplit.pm

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: lib/ExtUtils/MM_Unix.pm

	Remove MAB references.

	Use 'useshrplib' instead of 'd_shrplib'

Index: lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm

	Remove mab references.

Index: lib/FindBin.pm

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: lib/Symbol.pm

	Put back in the BEGIN { require 5.002; }.  The version in
	5.003_02 wouldn't work in 5.002 anyway.  Further, the whole
	point of the construct is to catch 5.001m, so we can't use
	syntax introduced after 5.001m to do that.

Index: lib/Text/Wrap.pm

	Remove double 'use strict'.

Index: lib/perl5db.pl

	Add explicit '&' to avoid warnings under strict refs.

Index: lib/sigtrap.pm

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: makedepend.SH

	Use Configure's $sh and $make_set_make variables.

Index: mg.c

	Include <unistd.h>

	Use Safefree() macro instead of safefree() function with
	a (possibly) incorrect cast.  The whole point of the
	Safefree() macro is that it does the correct cast for you.


Index: patchlevel.h

	Change to SUBVERSION 3.

Index: perl.c

	Include <unistd.h>

Index: perl.h

	No longer prefer bcmp slightly for comparisons that don't care
	about ordering.

	Rely on Configure setting SH_PATH.

	Change the function name to Pause() instead of pause() to
	avoid potential prototype problems.  (This naming convention
	is similar to the Fwrite and Fflush macros.)

	Fix problems with each() on tied hashes.

	Work around crypt prototype problem on NeXT.

Index: perlio.c

	Fixes to support non-std stdio.

Index: perlio.h

	Try to document the various #defines a bit.  This is far from
	finished.

	Remove a lot of trailing whitespace.  (It's of no consequence, but
	but I'm not going to redo the patch just to put back in the trailing
	whitespace either.)

Index: perlsdio.h

	Fixes to support non-std stdio.

Index: perly.c

	Restore use of Safefree() macro.

Index: perly.c.diff

	Restore use of Safefree() macro.

Index: perly.h

	Delete duplicate line.

Index: plan9/buildinfo

	Update.

Index: pod/perlapio.pod

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: pod/perlipc.pod

	Fix typo.

	Untaint port number.

Index: pod/perlmod.pod

	Fix a minor nit regarding Exporter.

Index: pod/perlre.pod

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: pod/perltie.pod

	Add support for tied filehandles.

Index: pod/perltrap.pod

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: pod/perlxstut.pod

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: pod/pod2man.PL

	Clean up docmentation installation errors.

Index: pp.c

	Add support for tied filehandles.

	If a regex supplied to split() contains paranthesized subpatterns
	that can result in null matches, perl coredumps.

Index: pp_hot.c

	Use memcmp instead of bcmp even when we don't care about order.

	Add support for tied filehandles.

Index: pp_sys.c

	Include <unistd.h>, <sys/wait.h>, and <sys/resource.h>.
	(The latter two are especially for NetBSD.)

	Don't assume sys/time.h and sys/select.h can't coexist.

	Use Pause macro.

Index: proto.h

	Fix safe*alloc and safefree prototypes.

Index: regexec.c

	Use memcmp instead of bcmp even when we don't care about order.

Index: sv.c

	Use memcmp instead of bcmp even when we don't care about order.

Index: t/lib/opcode.t

	Add support for tied filehandles.

Index: t/op/bop.t

	Support bit operations on strings longer than 15 bytes.

Index: t/op/misc.t

	Add support for tied filehandles.

Index: t/op/split.t

	If a regex supplied to split() contains paranthesized subpatterns
	that can result in null matches, perl coredumps.

Index: toke.c

	Include <unistd.h>.

	Use memcmp instead of bcmp even when we don't care about order.

Index: util.c

	Include <unistd.h>.

	Use correct types for safe*alloc and safefree functions.

Index: utils/h2ph.PL

	Make h2ph architecture-independent by using Config at run-time
	rather than extraction time.

Index: writemain.SH

	Remove unnecessary curlies.  (They are a leftover from
	an older auto_init mechanism.)

Index: x2p/Makefile.SH

	Use Configure's $sh and $make_set_make.

	Remove MAB stuff, since it's now in ccflags.

	Keep 5.003's RCS info.

Index: x2p/a2p.h

	Keep 5.003's RCS info.

Index: x2p/str.c

	Use Configure's FILE_filbuf macro instead of a raw _filbuf.

----------------
Version 5.003_02
----------------
o Visible Changes to Core Functionality
  - Redefining constant subs, or changing sub's prototype now give warnings.
  - Fixes for ++/-- of values close to max/min size of an integer 
  - Warning for un-qualified bareword as handler in $SIG{}. 
  - UNIVERSAL::isa can now be called as static method. 

o Changes in Core Internals
  - PerlIO abstraction added.
    Perl core and standard extensions no longer assume ANSI C's stdio is IO
    mechanism, Default Configure mode is still to use stdio via set of C macros.
    Alternate modes are to use stdio via one perlio.c module, or 
    to use sfio if available.
    
  - Several bug fixs from perl5-porters
      - Make sources non-ANSI C correct again.
      - SUPER in gv.c 
      - Last of shared-hash-key patches
      - eval '(0,1..3)'; # --> SegFault
      - coredumps after simple subsitutes.
      - Correction to UNIVERSAL::VERSION docs.
      - Fixed io_udp test.
      - Fixed another abuse of malloc'ed memory.
  - Enabled DEBUGING_MSTATS whenever perl's malloc() is used.
  - Reverted to default of not hiding perl's malloc (if used). 

o Changes in the Standard Library and Utilities
  - Fixed MakeMaker for static SDBM and builing in a link tree.
  - Upgraded to IO-1.09, and includes latest (still experimental) IO::Select. 
  - Documentation/test tweak to DB_File
  - h2xs upgrade to allow use C::Scan module 

o Changes in OS-specific and Build-time Support
  - Attempted to re-created 5.003_01's NeXT support with metaconfig units.
  - Updated MANIFEST 
  - make minitest now depends on lib/Config.pm, as some of tests require it. 
  - Included latest plan9 sub-directory
  - Applied OS/2 patches.
  - Typo patch for VMS.

----------------
Version 5.003_01
----------------

Version 5.003_01 contains bugfixes and additions accumulated since
version 5.002_01, since the patch to version 5.003 was deliberately
kept simple.  In addition to numerous small bugfixes in the core,
library files, and documentation, this patch contains several
significant revisions, summarized below:

o Visible Changes to Core Functionality

  - A port to Plan9 has been started, and changes are integrated into
    the standard distribution.  As of this release, the Perl core
    and several common extensions are working.

  - A set of basic methods in the UNIVERSAL class have been added to
    the Perl core.  Since UNIVERSAL is an implicit member of every
    class's @ISA, the methods can be called via any object.

  - A mandatory warning has been added for 'declarations' of lexical
    variables using the "my" operator which mask an existing lexical
    variable declared in the same scope, making the previous variable
    inaccessible by its name.

  - The "use" and "require" operators have been extended to allow
    checking of the required module's version.  The "use" operator
    can now be used for an immediate version check of Perl itself.

  - A new "strict" pragma, "strict untie", has been added, which
    produces an error if a tied value is untied when other references
    exist to the internal object implementing the tie.

  - Barewords used as associative array keys (i.e. when specifying
    an associative array element like $foo{__BAR} or on the left
    side of the => operator) may now begin with an underscore as
    well as an alphabetic character.

  - Some of the configuration information previously produced by the
    -v switch has been moved to the -V switch, in order to keep -v
    output concise.

o Changes in Core Internals

  - Symbol table and method lookups have been made faster.

  - Perl subroutines which just return a constant value are now
    optimized at compile time into inline constants.

  - Management of keys for associative arrays has been improved to
    conserve space when the same keys are reused frequently, and
    to pass true Perl values to tie functions, instead of stringified
    representations.

  - Messages normally output to stderr may be directed to another
    stream when Perl is built.  This allows some platforms to
    present diagnostic output in a separate window from normal
    program results.

  - A bug which caused suiperl to fail silently, albeit securely,
    in version 5.003 on some systems has been fixed.

  - Management of Unix-style signal handlers via the %SIG associative
    array has been made safer.

  - Several global C symbols have been renamed to eliminate collisions
    with system C header files or libraries on some platforms.
    Unfortunately, this means that dynamic extensions compiled under
    previous versions of Perl will need to be rebuilt for Perl
    5.003_01.  We're in the process of cleaning up Perl's C
    namespace to make it easier to link Perl with other binaries,
    so this will probably happen again between now and version 5.004.
    After that, we'll do our best to maintain binary compatibility
    between versions.

  - An alternate allocation strategy has been added to Perl's
    optional private memory management routines.  This strategy,
    which may be selected when Perl is built, is designed to
    conserve memory in programs which allocate many small
    chunks of memory with sizes near a power of 2, as is often
    the case in Perl programs.

  - Several memory leaks in the creation and destruction of
    multiple interpreters have been fixed.

o Changes in the Standard Library and Utilities

  - The Opcode extension, which allows you to control a program's
    access to Perl operations, has been added to the standard
    distribution.  This extends the work begun in the original
    Safe extension, and subsumes it.  The Safe interface is still
    available.

  - The IO extension, which provides a set of classes for object-
    oriented handling of common I/O tasks, has been added to the
    standard distribution.  The IO classes will form the basis
    for future development of Perl's I/O interface, and will
    subsume the FileHandle class in the near future.  The default
    class to which all Perl I/O handles belong is now IO::Handle,
    rather than FileHandle.

  - The ExtUtils::Embed library module, which provides a set
    of utility function to help in embedding Perl in other
    applications, has been added to the standard distribution.

  - The Fatal library module, which provides a simple interface
    for creating "do-or-die" equivalents of existing functions,
    has been added to the standard distribution.

  - The FindBin library module, which determines the full path
    to the currently executing program, has been added to the
    standard distribution.

  - The DB_File extension, and the Getopt::Long, Test::Harness,
    Text::Tabs, Text::Wrap, Time::Local and sigtrap library modules
    have been updated to the authors' latest versions.

  - The Carp library module now considers the @ISA chain when
    determining the caller's package for inclusion in error messages.

  - The h2xs, perlbug, and xsubpp utilities have been updated.

  - The standard Perl debugger has been updated, and the information
    provided to the debugger when an XSUB is called has been improved,
    making it possible for alternate debuggers (such as Devel::DProf)
    to do a better job of tracking XSUB calls.

  - The pod documentation formatting tools in the standard distribution
    can now handle characters in the input stream whose high bit is set.

  - The cperl-mode EMACS editing mode has been updated.

o Changes in Documentation

  - Typographic and formatting errors have been corrected in the pod
    documentation for the core and standard library files

  - Explanations of several core operators have been improved

  - The perldebug, perlembed, perlipc, perlsec, and perltrap documents
    extensively revised.

o Changes in OS-specific and Build-time Support

  - Support for the NeXT platform has been extended through
    NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP 4.0, and now includes the ability to create MABs.

  - Support for OS/2 has been extended as well, and now includes
    options for building a.out binaries.

  - Support for VMS has also been extended, incorporating improved
    processing of file specification strings, optional suppression of
    carriage control interpretation for record-structured files,
    improved support for the -S command line switch, a number of
    VMS-specific bugfixes, and significantly improved performance
    in line-oriented reading of files.

  - Several hints files have been added or updated: aux.sh (updated),
    convexos.sh (updated), irix_4.sh (updated), irix_5.sh (updated),
    irix_6_2.sh (updated), next_3.sh (updated), next_3_2.sh (new),
    next_3_3.sh (new), next_4.sh (new), os2/sh (updated),
    sco.sh (updated), and solaris_2.sh (updated).

  - The test driver for the regression tests now reports when a set
    of tests have been skipped (presumable because the operation
    they're designed to test isn't supported on the current system).