PERL582DELTA(1) - man - phpMan

PERL582DELTA(1)                   Perl Programmers Reference Guide                   PERL582DELTA(1)



NAME
       perl582delta - what is new for perl v5.8.2

DESCRIPTION
       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.

Incompatible Changes
       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.

Core Enhancements
   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
       Several memory leaks associated with variables shared between threads have been fixed.

Modules and Pragmata
   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

Selected Bug Fixes
       Some syntax errors involving unrecognized filetest operators are now handled correctly by the
       parser.

Changed Internals
       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
       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.

Future Directions
       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

       •   5.8.3 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday December 31st 2003

       •   5.8.4 23:59:59 GMT, Wednesday March 31st 2004

       •   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.

Reporting Bugs
       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 perlbug AT perl.org to be analysed by
       the Perl porting team.  You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/

SEE ALSO
       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 v5.34.0                                 2025-07-25                              PERL582DELTA(1)