perl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2
This document describes differences between the 5.8.1
release and the 5.8.2 release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as
5.6.1, first read the perl58delta, which describes differences
between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0, and the perl581delta, which
describes differences between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1.
For threaded builds for modules calling certain re-entrant
system calls, binary compatibility was accidentally lost
between 5.8.0 and 5.8.1. Binary compatibility with 5.8.0
has been restored in 5.8.2, which necessitates breaking
compatibility with 5.8.1. We see this as the lesser of two
evils.
This will only affect people who have a threaded perl
5.8.1, and compiled modules which use these calls, and now
attempt to run the compiled modules with 5.8.2. The fix is
to re-compile and re-install the modules using 5.8.2.
Hash Randomisation
The hash randomisation introduced with 5.8.1 has been
amended. It transpired that although the implementation
introduced in 5.8.1 was source compatible with 5.8.0, it
was not binary compatible in certain cases. 5.8.2 contains
an improved implementation which is both source and binary
compatible with both 5.8.0 and 5.8.1, and remains robust
against the form of attack which prompted the change for
5.8.1.
We are grateful to the Debian project for their input in
this area. See "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in
perlsec for the original rationale behind this change.
Threading [Toc] [Back]
Several memory leaks associated with variables shared
between threads have been fixed.
Updated Modules And Pragmata
The following modules and pragmata have been updated since
Perl 5.8.1:
Devel::PPPort
Digest::MD5
I18N::LangTags
libnet
MIME::Base64
Pod::Perldoc
strict
Documentation improved
Tie::Hash
Documentation improved
Time::HiRes
Unicode::Collate
Unicode::Normalize
UNIVERSAL
Documentation improved
Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators
are now handled correctly by the parser.
Interpreter initialization is more complete when -DMULTIPLICITY
is off. This should resolve problems with initializing
and destroying the Perl interpreter more than
once in a single process.
Platform Specific Problems [Toc] [Back] Dynamic linker flags have been tweaked for Solaris and OS
X, which should solve problems seen while building some XS
modules.
Bugs in OS/2 sockets and tmpfile have been fixed.
In OS X "setreuid" and friends are troublesome - perl will
now work around their problems as best possible.
Starting with 5.8.3 we intend to make more frequent maintenance
releases, with a smaller number of changes in
each. The intent is to propagate bug fixes out to stable
releases more rapidly and make upgrading stable releases
less of an upheaval. This should give end users more flexibility
in their choice of upgrade timing, and allow them
easier assessment of the impact of upgrades. The current
plan is for code freezes as follows
o 5.8.3 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday December 31st 2003
o 5.8.4 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday March 31st 2004
o 5.8.5 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday June 30th 2004
with the release following soon after, when testing is
complete.
See "Future Directions" in perl581delta for more soothsaying.
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the
articles recently posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup
and the perl bug database at http://bugs.perl.org/.
There may also be information at http://www.perl.com/, 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 [email protected] to be analysed by the Perl
porting team. You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs
at http://bugs.perl.org/
The Changes file for 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.
perl v5.8.5 2002-11-06 3 [ Back ] | 