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Filename : perl5184delta.pod
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=encoding utf8

=head1 NAME

perl5184delta - what is new for perl v5.18.4

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This document describes differences between the 5.18.4 release and the 5.18.2
release.  B<Please note:>  This document ignores perl 5.18.3, a broken release
which existed for a few hours only.

If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.18.1, first read
L<perl5182delta>, which describes differences between 5.18.1 and 5.18.2.

=head1 Modules and Pragmata

=head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata

=over 4

=item *

L<Digest::SHA> has been upgraded from 5.84_01 to 5.84_02.

=item *

L<perl5db.pl> has been upgraded from version 1.39_10 to 1.39_11.

This fixes a crash in tab completion, where available. [perl #120827]  Also,
filehandle information is properly reset after a pager is run. [perl #121456]

=back

=head1 Platform Support

=head2 Platform-Specific Notes

=over 4

=item Win32

=over 4

=item *

Introduced by
L<perl #113536|https://rt.perl.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=113536>, a memory
leak on every call to C<system> and backticks (C< `` >), on most Win32 Perls
starting from 5.18.0 has been fixed.  The memory leak only occurred if you
enabled psuedo-fork in your build of Win32 Perl, and were running that build on
Server 2003 R2 or newer OS.  The leak does not appear on WinXP SP3.
[L<perl #121676|https://rt.perl.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=121676>]

=back

=back

=head1 Selected Bug Fixes

=over 4

=item *

The debugger now properly resets filehandles as needed. [perl #121456]

=item *

A segfault in Digest::SHA has been addressed.  [perl #121421]

=item *

perl can again be built with USE_64_BIT_INT, with Visual C 2003, 32 bit.
[perl #120925]

=item *

A leading { (brace) in formats is properly parsed again. [perl #119973]

=item *

Copy the values used to perturb hash iteration when cloning an
interpreter.  This was fairly harmless but caused C<valgrind> to
complain. [perl #121336]

=item *

In Perl v5.18 C<undef *_; goto &sub> and C<local *_; goto &sub> started
crashing.  This has been fixed. [perl #119949]

=back

=head1 Acknowledgements

Perl 5.18.4 represents approximately 9 months of development since Perl 5.18.2
and contains approximately 2,000 lines of changes across 53 files from 13
authors.

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 5.18.4:

Daniel Dragan, David Mitchell, Doug Bell, Father Chrysostomos, Hiroo Hayashi,
James E Keenan, Karl Williamson, Mark Shelor, Ricardo Signes, Shlomi Fish,
Smylers, Steve Hay, Tony Cook.

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 articles recently
posted to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup and the perl bug database at
http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ .  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 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 please send it
to perl5-security-report@perl.org.  This points to a closed subscription
unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who will be
able to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
platforms on which Perl is supported.  Please only use this address for
security issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on
CPAN.

=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