From: gsar@engin.umich.edu (Gurusamy Sarathy) Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.modules Subject: [CFP] On to Perl 5.005: Beta testing begins Followup-To: comp.lang.perl.modules Date: 17 Jul 1998 13:53:21 GMT Organization: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor vmsperl@newman.upenn.edu, oneperl@ora.com Lines: 184 Approved: merlyn@stonehenge.com (comp.lang.perl.announce) Message-ID: <6onl0h$52j$1@news.neta.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gadget.cscaper.com X-Disclaimer: The "Approved" header verifies header information for article transmission and does not imply approval of content. Path: usenet.cise.ufl.edu!huron.eel.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!nntp1.jpl.nasa.gov!news.spies.com!news.sgi.com!howland.erols.net!fastnet!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.neta.com!not-for-mail Xref: usenet.cise.ufl.edu comp.lang.perl.announce:92 comp.lang.perl.modules:2782 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 . 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 . 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 perl5-porters@perl.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.