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   1  =head1 NAME
   2  
   3  perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6
   4  
   5  =head1 DESCRIPTION
   6  
   7  This document describes differences between the 5.8.5 release and
   8  the 5.8.6 release.
   9  
  10  =head1 Incompatible Changes
  11  
  12  There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.5.
  13  
  14  =head1 Core Enhancements
  15  
  16  The perl interpreter is now more tolerant of UTF-16-encoded scripts.
  17  
  18  On Win32, Perl can now use non-IFS compatible LSPs, which allows Perl to
  19  work in conjunction with firewalls such as McAfee Guardian. For full details
  20  see the file F<README.win32>, particularly if you're running Win95.
  21  
  22  =head1 Modules and Pragmata
  23  
  24  =over 4
  25  
  26  =item *
  27  
  28  With the C<base> pragma, an intermediate class with no fields used to messes
  29  up private fields in the base class. This has been fixed.
  30  
  31  =item *
  32  
  33  Cwd upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
  34  
  35  =item *
  36  
  37  Devel::PPPort upgraded to version 3.03
  38  
  39  =item *
  40  
  41  File::Spec upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
  42  
  43  =item *
  44  
  45  Encode upgraded to version 2.08
  46  
  47  =item *
  48  
  49  ExtUtils::MakeMaker remains at version 6.17, as later stable releases currently
  50  available on CPAN have some issues with core modules on some core platforms.
  51  
  52  =item *
  53  
  54  I18N::LangTags upgraded to version 0.35
  55  
  56  =item *
  57  
  58  Math::BigInt upgraded to version 1.73
  59  
  60  =item *
  61  
  62  Math::BigRat upgraded to version 0.13
  63  
  64  =item *
  65  
  66  MIME::Base64 upgraded to version 3.05
  67  
  68  =item *
  69  
  70  POSIX::sigprocmask function can now retrieve the current signal mask without
  71  also setting it.
  72  
  73  =item *
  74  
  75  Time::HiRes upgraded to version 1.65
  76  
  77  =back
  78  
  79  =head1 Utility Changes
  80  
  81  Perl has a new -dt command-line flag, which enables threads support in the
  82  debugger.
  83  
  84  =head1 Performance Enhancements
  85  
  86  C<reverse sort ...> is now optimized to sort in reverse, avoiding the
  87  generation of a temporary intermediate list.
  88  
  89  C<for (reverse @foo)> now iterates in reverse, avoiding the generation of a
  90  temporary reversed list.
  91  
  92  =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
  93  
  94  The regexp engine is now more robust when given invalid utf8 input, as is
  95  sometimes generated by buggy XS modules.
  96  
  97  C<foreach> on threads::shared array used to be able to crash Perl. This bug
  98  has now been fixed.
  99  
 100  A regexp in C<STDOUT>'s destructor used to coredump, because the regexp pad
 101  was already freed. This has been fixed.
 102  
 103  C<goto &> is now more robust - bugs in deep recursion and chained C<goto &>
 104  have been fixed.
 105  
 106  Using C<delete> on an array no longer leaks memory. A C<pop> of an item from a
 107  shared array reference no longer causes a leak.
 108  
 109  C<eval_sv()> failing a taint test could corrupt the stack - this has been
 110  fixed.
 111  
 112  On platforms with 64 bit pointers numeric comparison operators used to
 113  erroneously compare the addresses of references that are overloaded, rather
 114  than using the overloaded values. This has been fixed.
 115  
 116  C<read> into a UTF8-encoded buffer with an offset off the end of the buffer
 117  no longer mis-calculates buffer lengths.
 118  
 119  Although Perl has promised since version 5.8 that C<sort()> would be
 120  stable, the two cases C<sort {$b cmp $a}> and C<< sort {$b <=> $a} >> could
 121  produce non-stable sorts.   This is corrected in perl5.8.6.
 122  
 123  Localising C<$^D> no longer generates a diagnostic message about valid -D
 124  flags.
 125  
 126  =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
 127  
 128  For -t and -T,
 129     Too late for "-T" option
 130  has been changed to the more informative
 131     "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
 132  
 133  =head1 Changed Internals
 134  
 135  From now on all applications embedding perl will behave as if perl
 136  were compiled with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV.  See "Environment access" in
 137  the F<INSTALL> file for details.
 138  
 139  Most C<C> source files now have comments at the top explaining their purpose,
 140  which should help anyone wishing to get an overview of the implementation.
 141  
 142  =head1 New Tests
 143  
 144  There are significantly more tests for the C<B> suite of modules.
 145  
 146  =head1 Reporting Bugs
 147  
 148  If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles
 149  recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl
 150  bug database at http://bugs.perl.org.  There may also be
 151  information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.
 152  
 153  If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the B<perlbug>
 154  program included with your release.  Be sure to trim your bug down
 155  to a tiny but sufficient test case.  Your bug report, along with the
 156  output of C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
 157  analysed by the Perl porting team.  You can browse and search
 158  the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/
 159  
 160  =head1 SEE ALSO
 161  
 162  The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
 163  
 164  The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
 165  
 166  The F<README> file for general stuff.
 167  
 168  The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
 169  
 170  =cut