{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "PERL583DELTA",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PERL583DELTA/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-06-15T16:45:15Z",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "This document describes differences between the 5.8.2 release and the 5.8.3 release.\n\nIf you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.6.1, first read the perl58delta, which\ndescribes differences between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0, and the perl581delta and perl582delta, which\ndescribe differences between 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "Incompatible Changes",
                    "content": "There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Core Enhancements",
                    "content": "A \"SCALAR\" method is now available for tied hashes. This is called when a tied hash is used\nin scalar context, such as\n\nif (%tiedhash) {\n...\n}\n\nThe old behaviour was that %tiedhash would return whatever would have been returned for that\nhash before the hash was tied (so usually 0). The new behaviour in the absence of a SCALAR\nmethod is to return TRUE if in the middle of an \"each\" iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY\nto check if the hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent \"each\" will also begin by\ncalling FIRSTKEY). Please see \"SCALAR\" in perltie for the full details and caveats.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Modules and Pragmata",
                    "content": "CGI\nCwd\nDigest\nDigest::MD5\nEncode\nFile::Spec\nFindBin\nA function \"again\" is provided to resolve problems where modules in different directories\nwish to use FindBin.\n\nList::Util\nYou can now weaken references to read only values.\n\nMath::BigInt\nPodParser\nPod::Perldoc\nPOSIX\nUnicode::Collate\nUnicode::Normalize\nTest::Harness\nthreads::shared\n\"condwait\" has a new two argument form. \"condtimedwait\" has been added.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Utility Changes",
                    "content": "\"find2perl\" now assumes \"-print\" as a default action. Previously, it needed to be specified\nexplicitly.\n\nA new utility, \"prove\", makes it easy to run an individual regression test at the command\nline. \"prove\" is part of Test::Harness, which users of earlier Perl versions can install from\nCPAN.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "New Documentation",
                    "content": "The documentation has been revised in places to produce more standard manpages.\n\nThe documentation for the special code blocks (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, END) has been improved.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Installation and Configuration Improvements",
                    "content": "Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Selected Bug Fixes",
                    "content": "Using substr() on a UTF8 string could cause subsequent accesses on that string to return\ngarbage. This was due to incorrect UTF8 offsets being cached, and is now fixed.\n\njoin() could return garbage when the same join() statement was used to process 8 bit data\nhaving earlier processed UTF8 data, due to the flags on that statement's temporary workspace\nnot being reset correctly. This is now fixed.\n\n\"$a .. $b\" will now work as expected when either $a or $b is \"undef\"\n\nUsing Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly.\n\nReading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the C code implementing $^E did not preserve\n\"errno\", so reading $^E could cause \"errno\" and therefore $! to change unexpectedly.\n\nReentrant functions will (once more) work with C++. 5.8.2 introduced a bugfix which\naccidentally broke the compilation of Perl extensions written in C++\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "New or Changed Diagnostics",
                    "content": "The fatal error \"DESTROY created new reference to dead object\" is now documented in perldiag.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Changed Internals",
                    "content": "The hash code has been refactored to reduce source duplication. The external interface is\nunchanged, and aside from the bug fixes described above, there should be no change in\nbehaviour.\n\n\"hvclearplaceholders\" is now part of the perl API\n\nSome C macros have been tidied. In particular macros which create temporary local variables\nnow name these variables more defensively, which should avoid bugs where names clash.\n\n<signal.h> is now always included.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Configuration and Building",
                    "content": "\"Configure\" now invokes callbacks regardless of the value of the variable they are called\nfor. Previously callbacks were only invoked in the \"case $variable $define)\" branch. This\nchange should only affect platform maintainers writing configuration hints files.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Platform Specific Problems",
                    "content": "The regression test ext/threads/shared/t/wait.t fails on early RedHat 9 and HP-UX 10.20 due\nto bugs in their threading implementations.  RedHat users should see\nhttps://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-136.html and consider upgrading their glibc.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Known Problems",
                    "content": "Detached threads aren't supported on Windows yet, as they may lead to memory access violation\nproblems.\n\nThere is a known race condition opening scripts in \"suidperl\". \"suidperl\" is neither built\nnor installed by default, and has been deprecated since perl 5.8.0. You are advised to\nreplace use of suidperl with tools such as sudo ( http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ )\n\nWe have a backlog of unresolved bugs. Dealing with bugs and bug reports is unglamorous work;\nnot something ideally suited to volunteer labour, but that is all that we have.\n\nThe perl5 development team are implementing changes to help address this problem, which\nshould go live in early 2004.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Future Directions",
                    "content": "Code freeze for the next maintenance release (5.8.4) is on March 31st 2004, with release\nexpected by mid April. Similarly 5.8.5's freeze will be at the end of June, with release by\nmid July.\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "Obituary": {
            "content": "Iain 'Spoon' Truskett, Perl hacker, author of perlreref and contributor to CPAN, died\nsuddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24.  He will be missed.\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "Reporting Bugs",
                    "content": "If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the articles recently posted to the\ncomp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug database at http://bugs.perl.org.  There may\nalso be information at http://www.perl.org, the Perl Home Page.\n\nIf you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the perlbug program included with your\nrelease.  Be sure to trim your bug down to a tiny but sufficient test case.  Your bug report,\nalong with the output of \"perl -V\", will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be analysed by\nthe Perl porting team.  You can browse and search the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "SEE ALSO": {
            "content": "The Changes file for exhaustive details on what changed.\n\nThe INSTALL file for how to build Perl.\n\nThe README file for general stuff.\n\nThe Artistic and Copying files for copyright information.\n\n\n\nperl v5.34.0                                 2025-07-25                              PERL583DELTA(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3",
    "flags": [],
    "examples": [],
    "see_also": []
}