=head1 NAME

perl583delta - what is new for perl v5.8.3

=head1 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 L<perl58delta>, which describes differences between 5.6.0 and

5.8.0, and the L<perl581delta> and L<perl582delta>, which describe differences

between 5.8.0, 5.8.1 and 5.8.2

=head1 Incompatible Changes

There are no changes incompatible with 5.8.2.

=head1 Core Enhancements

A C<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 C<each> iteration, and otherwise call FIRSTKEY to check if the

hash is empty (making sure that a subsequent C<each> will also begin by

calling FIRSTKEY). Please see L<perltie/SCALAR> for the full details and

caveats.

=head1 Modules and Pragmata

=over 4

=item CGI

=item Cwd

=item Digest

=item Digest::MD5

=item Encode

=item File::Spec

=item FindBin

A function C<again> is provided to resolve problems where modules in different

directories wish to use FindBin.

=item List::Util

You can now weaken references to read only values.

=item Math::BigInt

=item PodParser

=item Pod::Perldoc

=item POSIX

=item Unicode::Collate

=item Unicode::Normalize

=item Test::Harness

=item threads::shared

C<cond_wait> has a new two argument form. C<cond_timedwait> has been added.

=back

=head1 Utility Changes

C<find2perl> now assumes C<-print> as a default action. Previously, it

needed to be specified explicitly.

A new utility, C<prove>, makes it easy to run an individual regression test

at the command line. C<prove> is part of Test::Harness, which users of earlier

Perl versions can install from CPAN.

=head1 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.

=head1 Installation and Configuration Improvements

Perl now builds on OpenVMS I64

=head1 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.

C<$a .. $b> will now work as expected when either $a or $b is C<undef>

Using Unicode keys with tied hashes should now work correctly.

Reading $^E now preserves $!. Previously, the C code implementing $^E

did not preserve C<errno>, so reading $^E could cause C<errno> and therefore

C<$!> 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++

=head1 New or Changed Diagnostics

The fatal error "DESTROY created new reference to dead object" is now

documented in L<perldiag>.

=head1 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.

C<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.

=head1 Configuration and Building

C<Configure> now invokes callbacks regardless of the value of the variable

they are called for. Previously callbacks were only invoked in the

C<case $variable $define)> branch. This change should only affect platform

maintainers writing configuration hints files.

=head1 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.

=head1 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 C<suidperl>. C<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.

=head1 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.

=head1 Obituary

Iain 'Spoon' Truskett, Perl hacker, author of L<perlreref> and

contributor to CPAN, died suddenly on 29th December 2003, aged 24.

He will be missed.

=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