=encoding utf8
=head1 NAME
perldelta - what is new for perl v5.27.7
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This document describes differences between the 5.27.6 release and the 5.27.7
release.
If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.27.5, first read
L<perl5276delta>, which describes differences between 5.27.5 and 5.27.6.
=head1 Core Enhancements
=head2 The C<sprintf> C<%j> format size modifier is now available with
pre-C99 compilers
The actual size used depends on the platform, so remains unportable.
=head1 Incompatible Changes
=head2 Smartmatch and switch simplification
The experimental smart match operator (C<~~>) and switch
(C<given>/C<when>) constructs have been drastically simplified, in a
way that will require most uses of them to be updated.
The smart match operator no longer has its large table of matching rules.
Instead there is just one rule: the right-hand operand must overload
the operator. Overloaded objects now bear the entire responsibility
for determining what kind of match to perform. The operator also no
longer implicitly enreferences certain kinds of operand (such as arrays);
instead the operands get regular scalar context.
The C<when> construct no longer has its complicated rules about how
to treat its argument. Instead it has been split into two distinct
constructs. C<whereso> always uses the argument as a truth value,
and C<whereis> always smart matches. Like the smart match operator,
these also no longer implicitly enreference certain kinds of argument,
instead supplying regular scalar context.
The C<default> construct, which was misleading and essentially useless,
has been removed.
The C<given> construct also no longer implicitly enreferences certain
kinds of arguments, instead supplying regular scalar context. In this
case, the implicit enreferencement was undocumented anyway.
Flow control of switch constructs has been unified with loop flow
control. The concept of "topicalizer" (referring to a C<given> block
or a C<foreach> loop acting on C<$_>) has been abolished. A C<given>
construct now counts as a one-iteration loop, so responds to the loop
control keywords. The C<break> keyword has consequently been removed,
in favour of using C<next> or C<last> to exit a C<given>. The implicit
jump at the end of a C<when> block is now a C<next>, and so is applicable
not just to C<given> and some kinds of C<foreach> but to any loop.
It is known that these changes will break some users of L<autodie>,
the documentation of which has long recommended some uses of these
experimental features that are not portable across these changes.
=head2 Over-radix digits in floating point literals
Octal and binary floating point literals used to permit any hexadecimal
digit to appear after the radix point. The digits are now restricted
to those appropriate for the radix, as digits before the radix point
always were.
=head2 Return type of C<unpackstring()>
The return types of the C API functions C<unpackstring()> and
C<unpack_str()> have changed from C<I32> to C<SSize_t>, in order to
accommodate datasets of more than two billion items.
=head1 Deprecations
=head2 Assignment to C<$[> will be fatal in Perl 5.30
Assigning a non-zero value to L<C<$[>|perlvar/$[> has been deprecated
since Perl 5.12, but was never given a deadline for removal. This has
now been scheduled for Perl 5.30.
=head2 hostname() won't accept arguments in Perl 5.32
Passing arguments to C<Sys::Hostname::hostname()> was already deprecated,
but didn't have a removal date. This has now been scheduled for Perl
5.32. [perl #124349]
=head2 Module removals
=over
=item L<Locale::Codes> and its associated Country, Currency and Language modules
=back
=head1 Modules and Pragmata
=head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata
=over 4
=item *
L<arybase> has been upgraded from version 0.14 to 0.15.
=item *
L<B> has been upgraded from version 1.72 to 1.73.
=item *
L<B::Debug> has been upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.26.
NOTE: L<B::Debug> is deprecated and may be removed from a future version of Perl.
=item *
L<B::Deparse> has been upgraded from version 1.45 to 1.46.
=item *
L<Carp> has been upgraded from version 1.44 to 1.45.
=item *
L<Compress::Raw::Zlib> has been upgraded from version 2.075 to 2.076.
=item *
L<CPAN> has been upgraded from version 2.18 to 2.20.
=item *
L<Data::Dumper> has been upgraded from version 2.167_02 to 2.169.
Quoting of glob names now obeys the Useqq option [perl #119831].
Attempts to set an option to C<undef> through a combined getter/setter
method are no longer mistaken for getter calls [perl #113090].
=item *
L<Devel::PPPort> has been upgraded from version 3.36 to 3.37.
=item *
L<Digest::SHA> has been upgraded from version 5.98 to 6.00.
=item *
L<DynaLoader> has been upgraded from version 1.44 to 1.45.
Its documentation now shows the use of C<__PACKAGE__> and direct object
syntax [perl #132247].
=item *
L<experimental> has been upgraded from version 0.017 to 0.019.
=item *
L<ExtUtils::CBuilder> has been upgraded from version 0.280229 to 0.280230.
=item *
L<ExtUtils::Typemaps> has been upgraded from version 3.36 to 3.37.
=item *
L<feature> has been upgraded from version 1.49 to 1.50.
=item *
L<File::Fetch> has been upgraded from version 0.54 to 0.56.
=item *
L<File::Spec> has been upgraded from version 3.70 to 3.71.
=item *
L<Filter::Util::Call> has been upgraded from version 1.57 to 1.58.
=item *
L<GDBM_File> has been upgraded from version 1.16 to 1.17.
Its documentation now explains that C<each> and C<delete> don't mix in
hashes tied to this module [perl #117449].
It will now retry opening with an acceptable block size if asking gdbm
to default the block size failed [perl #119623].
=item *
L<JSON::PP> has been upgraded from version 2.94 to 2.97000.
=item *
L<Locale::Codes> has been upgraded from version 3.54 to 3.55
B<NOTE>: L<Locale::Codes> scheduled to be removed from core in Perl 5.30.
=item *
L<Module::CoreList> has been upgraded from version 5.20171120 to 5.20171220.
=item *
L<Opcode> has been upgraded from version 1.41 to 1.42.
=item *
L<overload> has been upgraded from version 1.28 to 1.29.
=item *
L<Pod::Functions> has been upgraded from version 1.11 to 1.12.
=item *
L<Pod::Html> has been upgraded from version 1.2203 to 1.23.
A title for the HTML document will now be automatically generated by
default from a "NAME" section in the POD document, as it used to be
before the module was rewritten to use L<Pod::Simple::XHTML> to do the
core of its job. [perl #110520]
=item *
L<POSIX> has been upgraded from version 1.80 to 1.81.
=item *
L<Sys::Hostname> has been upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.
=item *
L<Test::Simple> has been upgraded from version 1.302111 to 1.302120.
=item *
L<threads> has been upgraded from version 2.19 to 2.21.
The documentation now better describes the problems that arise when
returning values from threads, and no longer warns about creating threads
in C<BEGIN> blocks. [perl #96538]
=item *
L<threads::shared> has been upgraded from version 1.57 to 1.58.
=item *
L<Time::HiRes> has been upgraded from version 1.9747 to 1.9748.
=item *
L<Time::Piece> has been upgraded from version 1.3202 to 1.3203.
=item *
L<Unicode::Collate> has been upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.25.
=item *
L<Unicode::UCD> has been upgraded from version 0.68 to 0.69.
=item *
L<warnings> has been upgraded from version 1.38 to 1.39.
It now includes new functions with names ending in C<_at_level>, allowing
callers to specify the exact call frame. [perl #132468]
=item *
L<XSLoader> has been upgraded from version 0.28 to 0.29.
Its documentation now shows the use of C<__PACKAGE__>, and direct object
syntax for example C<DynaLoader> usage [perl #132247].
=back
=head1 Documentation
=head2 Changes to Existing Documentation
We have attempted to update the documentation to reflect the changes
listed in this document. If you find any we have missed, send email
to L<perlbug@perl.org|mailto:perlbug@perl.org>.
Additionally, the following selected changes have been made:
=head3 L<perlapi>
The API functions C<perl_parse()>, C<perl_run()>, and C<perl_destruct()>
are now documented comprehensively, where previously the only
documentation was a reference to the L<perlembed> tutorial.
The documentation of C<newGIVENOP()> has been belatedly updated to
account for the removal of lexical C<$_>.
The API functions C<newCONSTSUB()> and C<newCONSTSUB_flags()> are
documented much more comprehensively than before.
=head3 L<perlop>
The general explanation of operator precedence and associativity has
been corrected and clarified. [perl #127391]
The documentation for the C<\> referencing operator now explains the
unusual context that it supplies to its operand. [perl #131061]
=head3 L<perlsyn>
The means to disambiguate between code blocks and hash constructors,
already documented in L<perlref>, are now documented in L<perlsyn> too.
[perl #130958]
=head3 L<perlfunc>
There is now a note that warnings generated by built-in functions are
documented in L<perldiag> and L<warnings>. [perl #116080]
The documentation for the C<exists> operator no longer says that
autovivification behaviour "may be fixed in a future release".
We've determined that we're not going to change the default behaviour.
[perl #127712]
A couple of small details in the documentation for the C<bless> operator
have been clarified. [perl #124428]
The description of C<@INC> hooks in the documentation for C<require>
has been corrected to say that filter subroutines receive a useless
first argument. [perl #115754]
The documentation of C<ref> has been rewritten for clarity.
The documentation of C<use> now explains what syntactically qualifies
as a version number for its module version checking feature.
The documentation of C<warn> has been updated to reflect that since Perl
5.14 it has treated complex exception objects in a manner equivalent
to C<die>. [perl #121372]
The documentation of C<die> and C<warn> has been revised for clarity.
=head3 L<perluniprops>
For each binary table or property, the documentation now includes which
characters in the range C<\x00-\xFF> it matches, as well as a list of
the first few ranges of code points matched above that.
=head3 L<perlobj>
The documentation about C<DESTROY> methods has been corrected, updated,
and revised, especially in regard to how they interact with exceptions.
[perl #122753]
=head3 L<perlsec>
The documentation about set-id scripts has been updated and revised.
[perl #74142]
A section about using C<sudo> to run Perl scripts has been added.
=head3 L<perlembed>
The examples in L<perlembed> have been made more portable in the way
they exit, and the example that gets an exit code from the embedded Perl
interpreter now gets it from the right place. The examples that pass
a constructed argv to Perl now show the mandatory null C<argv[argc]>.
=head3 L<perldebguts>
The description of the conditions under which C<DB::sub()> will be called
has been clarified. [perl #131672]
=head3 L<perlintern>
The internal functions C<newXS_len_flags()> and C<newATTRSUB_x()> are
now documented.
=head3 L<perlgit>
The precise rules for identifying C<smoke-me> branches are now stated.
=head1 Diagnostics
The following additions or changes have been made to diagnostic output,
including warnings and fatal error messages. For the complete list of
diagnostic messages, see L<perldiag>.
=head2 New Diagnostics
=head3 New Errors
=over 4
=item *
L<Can't "goto" into a "given" block|perldiag/"Can't E<quot>gotoE<quot> into a E<quot>givenE<quot> block">
(F) A "goto" statement was executed to jump into the middle of a C<given>
block. You can't get there from here. See L<perlfunc/goto>.
=back
=head3 New Warnings
=over 4
=item *
L<Old package separator used in string|perldiag/"Old package separator used in string">
(W syntax) You used the old package separator, "'", in a variable
named inside a double-quoted string; e.g., C<"In $name's house">. This
is equivalent to C<"In $name::s house">. If you meant the former, put
a backslash before the apostrophe (C<"In $name\'s house">).
=back
=head2 Changes to Existing Diagnostics
=over 4
=item *
The warning about useless use of a concatenation operator in void context
is now generated for expressions with multiple concatenations, such as
C<$a.$b.$c>, which used to mistakenly not warn. [perl #6997]
=item *
Warnings that a variable or subroutine "masks earlier declaration in same
...", or that an C<our> variable has been redeclared, have been moved to a
new warnings category "shadow". Previously they were in category "misc".
=item *
The deprecation warning from C<Sys::Hostname::hostname()> saying that
it doesn't accept arguments now states the Perl version in which the
warning will be upgraded to an error. [perl #124349]
=item *
The L<perldiag> entry for the error regarding a set-id script has been
expanded to make clear that the error is reporting a specific security
vulnerability, and to advise how to fix it.
=back
=head1 Configuration and Compilation
=over 4
=item *
Where an HTML version of the doucmentation is installed, the HTML
documents now use relative links to refer to each other. Links from
the index page of L<perlipc> to the individual section documents are
now correct. [perl #110056]
=back
=head1 Platform Support
=head2 Platform-Specific Notes
=over 4
=item Windows
We now set C<$Config{libpth}> correctly for 64-bit builds using Visual C++
versions earlier than 14.1.
=back
=head1 Internal Changes
=over 4
=item *
XS modules can now automatically get reentrant versions of system
functions on threaded perls.
By saying
#define PERL_REENTRANT
near the beginning of an C<XS> file, it will be compiled so that
whatever reentrant functions perl knows about on that system will
automatically and invisibly be used instead of the plain, non-reentrant
versions. For example, if you write C<getpwnam()> in your code, on a
system that has C<pwnam_r()> all calls to the former will be translated
invisibly into the latter. This does not happen except on threaded
perls, as they aren't needed otherwise. Be aware that which functions
have reentrant versions varies from system to system.
=item *
The C<PERL_NO_OP_PARENT> build define is no longer supported, which means
that perl is now always built with C<PERL_OP_PARENT> enabled.
=back
=head1 Selected Bug Fixes
=over 4
=item *
C<pack> and C<unpack> can now handle repeat counts and lengths that
exceed two billion. [perl #119367]
=item *
Digits past the radix point in octal and binary floating point literals
now have the correct weight on platforms where a floating point
significand doesn't fit into an integer type.
=item *
C<exit(0)> in a C<UNITCHECK> or C<CHECK> block no longer permits the
main program to run, and C<exit(0)> in a C<BEGIN> block no longer permits
C<INIT> blocks to run before exiting. [perl #2754]
=item *
The canonical truth value no longer has a spurious special meaning as
a callable. It used to be a magic placeholder for a missing C<import>
or C<unimport> method. It is now treated like any other string C<1>.
[perl #126042]
=item *
C<system> now reduces its arguments to strings in the parent process, so
any effects of stringifying them (such as overload methods being called
or warnings being emitted) are visible in the way the program expects.
[perl #121105]
=item *
The C<readpipe()> built-in function now checks at compile time that
it has only one parameter expression, and puts it in scalar context,
thus ensuring that it doesn't corrupt the stack at runtime. [perl #4574]
=item *
C<sort> now performs correct reference counting when aliasing C<$a> and
C<$b>, thus avoiding premature destruction and leakage of scalars if they
are re-aliased during execution of the sort comparator. [perl #92264]
=item *
C<reverse> with no operand, reversing C<$_> by default, is no longer in
danger of corrupting the stack. [perl #132544]
=item *
C<exec>, C<system>, et al are no longer liable to have their argument
lists corrupted by reentrant calls and by magic such as tied scalars.
[perl #129888]
=item *
Perl's own C<malloc> no longer gets confused by attempts to allocate
more than a gigabyte on a 64-bit platform. [perl #119829]
=item *
Stacked file test operators in a sort comparator expression no longer
cause a crash. [perl #129347]
=item *
An identity C<tr///> transformation on a reference is no longer mistaken
for that reference for the purposes of deciding whether it can be
assigned to. [perl #130578]
=item *
Lengthy hexadecimal, octal, or binary floating point literals no
longer cause undefined behaviour when parsing digits that are of such
low significance that they can't affect the floating point value.
[perl #131894]
=item *
C<open $$scalarref...> and similar invocations no longer leak the file
handle. [perl #115814]
=item *
Some convoluted kinds of regexp no longer cause an arithmetic overflow
when compiled. [perl #131893]
=item *
The default typemap, by avoiding C<newGVgen>, now no longer leaks when
XSUBs return file handles (C<PerlIO *> or C<FILE *>). [perl #115814]
=item *
Creating a C<BEGIN> block as an XS subroutine with a prototype no longer
crashes because of the early freeing of the subroutine.
=back
=head1 Acknowledgements
Perl 5.27.7 represents approximately 4 weeks of development since Perl
5.27.6 and contains approximately 21,000 lines of changes across 580 files
from 21 authors.
Excluding auto-generated files, documentation and release tools, there were
approximately 12,000 lines of changes to 360 .pm, .t, .c and .h files.
Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant
community of users and developers. The following people are known to have
contributed the improvements that became Perl 5.27.7:
Aaron Crane, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Alberto Simões, Chris 'BinGOs'
Williams, Craig A. Berry, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker, David Mitchell, Father
Chrysostomos, James E Keenan, Jarkko Hietaniemi, J. Nick Koston, Karen
Etheridge, Karl Williamson, Marco Fontani, Nicolas R., Sawyer X, Steve Hay,
Sullivan Beck, Tony Cook, Yves Orton, Zefram.
The list above is almost certainly incomplete as it is automatically
generated from version control history. In particular, it does not include
the names of the (very much appreciated) contributors who reported issues to
the Perl bug tracker.
Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN modules
included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN community for
helping Perl to flourish.
For a more complete list of all of Perl's historical contributors, please
see the F<AUTHORS> file in the Perl source distribution.
=head1 Reporting Bugs
If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the perl bug database
at L<https://rt.perl.org/> . There may also be information at
L<http://www.perl.org/> , the Perl Home Page.
If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the L<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.
If the bug you are reporting has security implications which make it
inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then see
L<perlsec/SECURITY VULNERABILITY CONTACT INFORMATION>
for details of how to report the issue.
=head1 Give Thanks
If you wish to thank the Perl 5 Porters for the work we had done in Perl 5,
you can do so by running the C<perlthanks> program:
perlthanks
This will send an email to the Perl 5 Porters list with your show of thanks.
=head1 SEE ALSO
The F<Changes> file for an explanation of how to view 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