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- =head1 NAME
-
- perl586delta - what is new for perl v5.8.6
-
- =head1 DESCRIPTION
-
- This document describes differences between the 5.8.5 release and
- the 5.8.6 release.
-
- =head1 Incompatible Changes
-
- There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.5.
-
- =head1 Core Enhancements
-
- The perl interpreter is now more tolerant of UTF-16-encoded scripts.
-
- On Win32, Perl can now use non-IFS compatible LSPs, which allows Perl to
- work in conjunction with firewalls such as McAfee Guardian. For full details
- see the file F<README.win32>, particularly if you're running Win95.
-
- =head1 Modules and Pragmata
-
- =over 4
-
- =item *
-
- With the C<base> pragma, an intermediate class with no fields used to messes
- up private fields in the base class. This has been fixed.
-
- =item *
-
- Cwd upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
-
- =item *
-
- Devel::PPPort upgraded to version 3.03
-
- =item *
-
- File::Spec upgraded to version 3.01 (as part of the new PathTools distribution)
-
- =item *
-
- Encode upgraded to version 2.08
-
- =item *
-
- ExtUtils::MakeMaker remains at version 6.17, as later stable releases currently
- available on CPAN have some issues with core modules on some core platforms.
-
- =item *
-
- I18N::LangTags upgraded to version 0.35
-
- =item *
-
- Math::BigInt upgraded to version 1.73
-
- =item *
-
- Math::BigRat upgraded to version 0.13
-
- =item *
-
- MIME::Base64 upgraded to version 3.05
-
- =item *
-
- POSIX::sigprocmask function can now retrieve the current signal mask without
- also setting it.
-
- =item *
-
- Time::HiRes upgraded to version 1.65
-
- =back
-
- =head1 Utility Changes
-
- Perl has a new -dt command-line flag, which enables threads support in the
- debugger.
-
- =head1 Performance Enhancements
-
- C<reverse sort ...> is now optimized to sort in reverse, avoiding the
- generation of a temporary intermediate list.
-
- C<for (reverse @foo)> now iterates in reverse, avoiding the generation of a
- temporary reversed list.
-
- =head1 Selected Bug Fixes
-
- The regexp engine is now more robust when given invalid utf8 input, as is
- sometimes generated by buggy XS modules.
-
- C<foreach> on threads::shared array used to be able to crash Perl. This bug
- has now been fixed.
-
- A regexp in C<STDOUT>'s destructor used to coredump, because the regexp pad
- was already freed. This has been fixed.
-
- C<goto &> is now more robust - bugs in deep recursion and chained C<goto &>
- have been fixed.
-
- Using C<delete> on an array no longer leaks memory. A C<pop> of an item from a
- shared array reference no longer causes a leak.
-
- C<eval_sv()> failing a taint test could corrupt the stack - this has been
- fixed.
-
- On platforms with 64 bit pointers numeric comparison operators used to
- erroneously compare the addresses of references that are overloaded, rather
- than using the overloaded values. This has been fixed.
-
- C<read> into a UTF8-encoded buffer with an offset off the end of the buffer
- no longer mis-calculates buffer lengths.
-
- Although Perl has promised since version 5.8 that C<sort()> would be
- stable, the two cases C<sort {$b cmp $a}> and C<< sort {$b <=> $a} >> could
- produce non-stable sorts. This is corrected in perl5.8.6.
-
- Localising C<$^D> no longer generates a diagnostic message about valid -D
- flags.
-
- =head1 New or Changed Diagnostics
-
- For -t and -T,
- Too late for "-T" option
- has been changed to the more informative
- "-T" is on the #! line, it must also be used on the command line
-
- =head1 Changed Internals
-
- From now on all applications embedding perl will behave as if perl
- were compiled with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. See "Environment access" in
- the F<INSTALL> file for details.
-
- Most C<C> source files now have comments at the top explaining their purpose,
- which should help anyone wishing to get an overview of the implementation.
-
- =head1 New Tests
-
- There are significantly more tests for the C<B> suite of modules.
-
- =head1 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 B<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 C<perl -V>, will be sent off to perlbug@perl.org to be
- analysed by the Perl porting team. You can browse and search
- the Perl 5 bugs at http://bugs.perl.org/
-
- =head1 SEE ALSO
-
- The F<Changes> file for exhaustive details on what changed.
-
- The F<INSTALL> file for how to build Perl.
-
- The F<README> file for general stuff.
-
- The F<Artistic> and F<Copying> files for copyright information.
-
- =cut
-