Subject: [CFP] On to Perl 5.005: Beta testing begins
From: [email-masked] (Gurusamy Sarathy)
Date: 17 Jul 1998 13:53:21 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.modules

The release of Perl 5.005 is imminent, and we are in the process of testing
beta versions.  Version 5.005 will be a major release that incorporates all
maintenance and development changes since the last major release, 5.004.

The 5.005 release will contain many significant changes, and the goal of
the beta test phase is to identify and fix all inadvertent incompatibilities
or bugs we may have introduced.  (A brief summary of changes is included at
the end.)

If Perl is used in your organization, we urge you to strongly consider
participating in the beta test process.  Wide participation helps us in
ensuring compatibility with previous releases.

You can find the beta release from any of the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network (CPAN) sites worldwide.  To select from a list of sites, go to:

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN

Note the absence of a trailing `/'.  The beta release can be found at:

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/perl5.005-beta1.tar.gz

Further updates, if needed, will be published as beta2, beta3 and so on,
and will be available at the same location.

Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms.  Virtually all
known and current Unix derivatives are supported, as are VMS, DOS, OS/2,
Windows, QNX, BeOS, and the Amiga.  There are also the beginnings
of support for MPE/iX.  If you find that your platform is unsupported,
do let us know.

There may be known problems with this beta release on some platforms.  Fixes
for platform specific problems in this release can be found as patches.  For
example, VMS has a small known problem, and the fix is at:

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/perl5.005-beta1-VMS-1.patch

Be sure to read the comments at the top of the patch to see if it is
applicable to your particular version of that platform.

This beta release is known to build and pass all tests (with some noted
exceptions) on the following platforms:

    ARCHNAME            OSVER	CC		REMARKS
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    alpha-dec_osf	4.0	cc
    aix			4.1.4.0	cc
    aix-thread		4.1.4.0	xlc_r
    dos-djgpp		DOS	gcc 2.8.1	posix.t#4 fails
    IP28-irix		6.2	cc -n32
    IP32-irix		6.3	gcc 2.8.1
    i386-bsdos		3.1	shlicc2 2.7.2.1	"make ok" doesn't work
    i386-freebsd	2.2.6	gcc 2.7.2.1
    i586-linux		2.0.33	gcc 2.7.2
    i686-linux		2.0.34	gcc 2.7.2.1	shared libperl
    i686-linux		2.0.32	gcc 2.8.1
    i686-linux-thread	2.0.32	gcc 2.8.1
    i86pc-solaris	2.6	gcc 2.7.2.3.f.1
    i86pc-solaris-threa	2.6	gcc 2.7.2.3.f.1
    MSWin32-x86		NT4.0	Visual C 5.0	posix.t#2 fails sometimes
    MSWin32-x86-thread	NT4.0	Visual C 5.0	posix.t#2 fails sometimes
    MSWin32-x86-object	NT4.0	Visual C 5.0	posix.t#2 fails sometimes
    MSWin32-x86		NT4.0	Borland C 5.02
    MSWin32-x86-thread	NT4.0	Borland C 5.02
    MSWin32-x86-object	NT4.0	Borland C 5.02
    MSWin32-x86		NT4.0   egcs 1.0.2	posix.t#2 fails sometimes
    MSWin32-x86-thread	NT4.0   egcs 1.0.2	posix.t#2 fails sometimes
    ppc-linux		2.1.24  egcs 1.0.3
    ppc-powerux		4.2	/bin/cc
    PA-RISC1.1		10.20	cc
    sparc-linux-thread	2.0.33	egcs 1.0.2	shared libperl
    sun4-solaris	2.6	cc
    sun4-solaris-thread	2.6	cc
    sun4-solaris-thread	2.6	gcc 2.7.2.3
    sun4-solaris	2.5.1	cc
    sun4-solaris	2.5.1	gcc 2.8.1
    sun4-solaris-thread	2.5.1	cc
    sun4-solaris-thread	2.5.1	gcc 2.8.1
    sun4-solaris	2.4	cc
    sun4-solaris	2.4	gcc 2.7.2
    sun4-solaris	2.3	cc
    sun4-solaris	2.3	gcc 2.4.5	posix.t#12 fails
    sun4-sunos		4.1.3	gcc 2.7.2.1
    VMS_AXP		V7.1	CC/DECC
    VMS_AXP		V7.1	CC/DECC		usethreads=define
    VMS_AXP		V6.2	CC/DECC

Documentation may be a little thin in places.  We are working on updating
all the documentation, and the final 5.005 release will cover all known
gaps.  However, we do entertain your suggestions on all aspects that may
need improvement.

Be sure to read the "INSTALL" document for Unix-like platforms, and the
port-specific "README.xxx" files for others.  For brief notes on what has
changed, see "pod/perldelta.pod".  This document is still rather incomplete,
but what is there should give you some idea about the scope of changes that
have occurred.  More specific logs can be found in the "Changes" file.

If everything went well, and all the tests passed, "make ok" will mail us
a report of your build configuration.  If not, run "make nok" and describe
your problems in detail.  Those two make targets run the "perlbug" utility,
located at "utils/perlbug".  If "perlbug" cannot determine how to send mail
from your system, you may have to let it save the report to a file, and
mail it to us at <[email-masked]>.

Being the lazy bunch we are, we have gone and written "perlbug" in
Perl, so if you are unable to build Perl at all, we apologize.  Please
include the _output_ of the "./myconfig" shell script with a detailed summary
of what went wrong, and send it to <[email-masked]>.  If Perl built fine,
but you have been unable to install it, "perlbug" can also be run as
"./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug".  The "-h" option will show you a short
usage summary.

If after having successfully installed Perl, you find any bugs or
incompatibilities that aren't already mentioned in the documentation,
please use "perlbug" to report the problem.

Once again, be sure to read the "README.xxx", "INSTALL", and
"pod/perldelta.pod" files for important information about this release.

And, in the words of Larry Wall:  "Have the appropriate amount of fun."

The Perl Porters
[email-masked]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRIEF SUMMARY OF CHANGES
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a more detailed list, see "pod/perldelta.pod" in the source
distribution.  Note that this release is NOT BINARY COMPATIBLE with
earlier releases.  You'll need to recompile all XS extensions.

+ New: OS-level perl threads.                                 *experimental*

+ New: A suite of compiler modules with various backends, for producing C or
  bytecode from Perl, and for various useful diagnostics.     *experimental*

+ Much revamped regular expression engine.

+ Vastly improved support for the Win32 platform.

+ Support for more platforms. (BeOS, DOS, MPE/ix.)

+ New: C++ Perl Object abstraction supported on Win32.        *experimental*

+ New: Precompiled regular expressions.

+ New: Pseudo-hashes (manipulate arrays using hash syntax).   *experimental*

+ More efficient, internal implementation of sort().

+ Tied arrays and handles are now fully supported.

+ Improved malloc().

+ Internals are now more reliable against unforeseen stack reallocs.

+ New: "EXPR foreach EXPR" syntax is supported.

+ Several more optimizations implemented.

+ Many security fixes.

+ Better locale support.

+ Enhanced 64-bit support.                                    *experimental*

+ New: Reliable signals, when threading is enabled.           *experimental*

+ Extended support for exception handling.

+ New: Several modules and pragmata have been added. (B, Data::Dumper,
  Errno, File::Spec, ExtUtils::Packlist, Fatal, IPC::SysV, attrs, fields,
  re.)
  
+ Newer versions of most existing modules.

+ Many additional diagnostics, some withdrawn.