man > perl583delta(1)

PERL583DELTA(1)                   Perl Programmers Reference Guide                   PERL583DELTA(1)

NAME
       perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes differences between the 5.8.2 release and the 5.8.3 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 and perl582delta, which
       describe differences between 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2

Incompatible Changes
       There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2.

Core Enhancements
       A "SCALAR" method is now available for tied hashes. This is called when a tied hash is used
       in scalar context, such as

           if (%tied_hash) {
               ...
           }

       The old behaviour was that %tied_hash would return whatever would have been returned for that
       hash before the hash was tied (so usually 0). The new behaviour in the absence of a SCALAR
       method is to return TRUE if in the middle of an "each" iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY
       to check if the hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent "each" will also begin by
       calling FIRSTKEY). Please see "SCALAR" in perltie for the full details and caveats.

Modules and Pragmata
       CGI
       Cwd
       Digest
       Digest::MD5
       Encode
       File::Spec
       FindBin
           A function "again" is provided to resolve problems where modules in different directories
           wish to use FindBin.

       List::Util
           You can now weaken references to read only values.

       Math::BigInt
       PodParser
       Pod::Perldoc
       POSIX
       Unicode::Collate
       Unicode::Normalize
       Test::Harness
       threads::shared
           "cond_wait" has a new two argument form. "cond_timedwait" has been added.

Utility Changes
       "find2perl"  now  assumes "-print" as a default action. Previously, it needed to be specified
       explicitly.

       A new utility, "prove", makes it easy to run an individual regression  test  at  the  command
       line. "prove" is part of Test::Harness, which users of earlier Perl versions can install from
       CPAN.

New Documentation
       The documentation has been revised in places to produce more standard manpages.

       The documentation for the special code blocks (BEGIN, CHECK, INIT, END) has been improved.

Installation and Configuration Improvements
       Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64

Selected Bug Fixes
       Using  substr()  on  a  UTF8  string could cause subsequent accesses on that string to return
       garbage. This was due to incorrect UTF8 offsets being cached, and is now fixed.

       join() could return garbage when the same join() statement was used to  process  8  bit  data
       having  earlier processed UTF8 data, due to the flags on that statement's temporary workspace
       not being reset correctly. This is now fixed.

       "$a .. $b" will now work as expected when either $a or $b is "undef"

       Using Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly.

       Reading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the  C  code  implementing  $^E  did  not  preserve
       "errno", so reading $^E could cause "errno" and therefore $! to change unexpectedly.

       Reentrant  functions  will  (once  more)  work  with  C++.  5.8.2  introduced  a bugfix which
       accidentally broke the compilation of Perl extensions written in C++

New or Changed Diagnostics
       The fatal error "DESTROY created new reference to dead object" is now documented in perldiag.

Changed Internals
       The hash code has been refactored to reduce source duplication.  The  external  interface  is
       unchanged,  and  aside  from  the  bug  fixes  described  above, there should be no change in
       behaviour.

       "hv_clear_placeholders" is now part of the perl API

       Some C macros have been tidied. In particular macros which create temporary  local  variables
       now name these variables more defensively, which should avoid bugs where names clash.

       <signal.h> is now always included.

Configuration and Building
       "Configure"  now  invokes  callbacks  regardless of the value of the variable they are called
       for. Previously callbacks were only invoked in the "case  $variable  $define)"  branch.  This
       change should only affect platform maintainers writing configuration hints files.

Platform Specific Problems
       The  regression  test ext/threads/shared/t/wait.t fails on early RedHat 9 and HP-UX 10.20 due
       to   bugs   in    their    threading    implementations.     RedHat    users    should    see
       https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2003-136.html and consider upgrading their glibc.

Known Problems
       Detached threads aren't supported on Windows yet, as they may lead to memory access violation
       problems.

       There  is  a  known race condition opening scripts in "suidperl". "suidperl" is neither built
       nor installed by default, and has been deprecated  since  perl  5.8.0.  You  are  advised  to
       replace use of suidperl with tools such as sudo ( http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ )

       We  have a backlog of unresolved bugs. Dealing with bugs and bug reports is unglamorous work;
       not something ideally suited to volunteer labour, but that is all that we have.

       The perl5 development team are implementing changes  to  help  address  this  problem,  which
       should go live in early 2004.

Future Directions
       Code  freeze  for  the  next  maintenance release (5.8.4) is on March 31st 2004, with release
       expected by mid April. Similarly 5.8.5's freeze will be at the end of June, with  release  by
       mid July.

Obituary
       Iain  'Spoon'  Truskett,  Perl  hacker,  author  of  perlreref  and contributor to CPAN, died
       suddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24.  He will be missed.

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.org, 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 v5.38.2                                 2026-06-12                              PERL583DELTA(1)