Subject: Perl 5.004_05 Maintenance Update
From: [email-masked] (Chip Salzenberg)
Date: 6 May 1999 18:00:14 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc

The fifth maintenance update for Perl 5.004 was released on April 29,
1999, and is now available worldwide from the Comprehensive Perl
Network Archive (CPAN).  Note that the current version of Perl is
5.005; however, 5.004 continues under active maintenance.  To select
from a list of CPAN sites, go to:

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN

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

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/CHIPS/perl5.004_05.tar.gz

This release is binary compatible with previous 5.004 releases.

+---------------------------------------------------------+
|  SUMMARY OF CHANGES IN PERL 5.004 MAINTENANCE UPDATE 5  |
+---------------------------------------------------------+

BETTER SECURITY

  * When Perl is built to emulate set[ug]id scripts, it now honors
    filesystem mount options that disallow execution of set[ug]id
    programs.
  * The substitution operator could sometimes untaint its target.
    Now it doesn't.  Also, the "-U" flag again works correctly.  (But
    please don't use "-U" unless you really know what you're doing.)
  * The "-e" command line option no longer creates a temporary file.

BETTER PERFORMANCE

  * The sort operator now uses a very fast/safe built-in qsort,
    instead of depending on the one in the local C library.
  * Other miscellaneous improvements.

MORE SCRIPT PORTABILITY

  * Scripts with CR LF line endings (a la MS-DOS/Windows) work on
    Unix.

MORE PLATFORM PORTABILITY

  * Many Configure updates
  * Updated hints for:
      AIX, BSD/OS, DEC OSF/1, FreeBSD, HP/UX, Irix, Linux, MachTen,
      NetBSD, OS/2, PowerUX, QNX, SCO Unix, Solaris 2.x, SunOS 4.1,
      System V Release 4, UNICOS

MORE VERSION PORTABILITY

  * Some 5.005 language features:
      EXPR foreach LIST
      "PackageName::" bearword
      "use attrs" pragma (stub)
      "use re" pragma (stub)
  * Some 5.005 internals/XS features for XS authors:
      ERRSV, ERRHV, DEFSV, SAVE_DEFSV, dTHR

SMARTER WARNINGS

  * Automatic insertion of defined() in while($var = <>)
  * No more warnings on:
      $x{shift}    # $x{'shift'}
      ne => 1      # 'ne' => 1
      -f => 1      # '-f' => 1

NEW MODULES

  * File::Spec		Portable operations on file names
  * Test		A simple framework for writing test scripts
  * Tie::Handle		Base class for tied handles

UPDATED MODULES

  * CGI			2.42
  * CPAN		1.40
  * Getopt::Long	2.19  

NEW DOCUMENTATION

  * perlhist		Perl History
  * perlmodinstall	Installing CPAN Modules
  * perlport		Portability Guide

ENHANCED UTILITIES

  * Many enhancements for h2ph, perldoc, perlbug, etc.

BUG FIXES

  * Too many to enumerate.

Share and enjoy!
-- 
Chip Salzenberg               - a.k.a. -             <[email-masked]>
          ->  Ask me about Perl training and consulting  <-
   "It's a dangerous game we play."  "You mean, like, Jarts?!"  //MST3K