


PERL5004DELTA(1) Perl Programmers Reference GuidePERL5004DELTA(1)


NAME
       perldelta - what's new for perl5.004

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes differences between the 5.003
       release (as documented in Programming Perl, second
       edition--the Camel Book) and this one.

Supported Environments
       Perl5.004 builds out of the box on Unix, Plan 9, LynxOS,
       VMS, OS/2, QNX, AmigaOS, and Windows NT.  Perl runs on
       Windows 95 as well, but it cannot be built there, for lack
       of a reasonable command interpreter.

Core Changes
       Most importantly, many bugs were fixed, including several
       security problems.  See the Changes file in the
       distribution for details.

       List assignment to %ENV works

       %ENV = () and %ENV = @list now work as expected (except on
       VMS where it generates a fatal error).

       ""Can't locate Foo.pm in @INC"" error now lists @INC


       Compilation option: Binary compatibility with 5.003

       There is a new Configure question that asks if you want to
       maintain binary compatibility with Perl 5.003.  If you
       choose binary compatibility, you do not have to recompile
       your extensions, but you might have symbol conflicts if
       you embed Perl in another application, just as in the
       5.003 release.  By default, binary compatibility is
       preserved at the expense of symbol table pollution.

       $PERL5OPT environment variable

       You may now put Perl options in the $PERL5OPT environment
       variable.  Unless Perl is running with taint checks, it
       will interpret this variable as if its contents had
       appeared on a "#!perl" line at the beginning of your
       script, except that hyphens are optional.  PERL5OPT may
       only be used to set the following switches: -[DIMUdmw].

       Limitations on -M, -m, and -T options

       The -M and -m options are no longer allowed on the #! line
       of a script.  If a script needs a module, it should invoke
       it with the use pragma.

       The -T option is also forbidden on the #! line of a
       script, unless it was present on the Perl command line.



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       Due to the way #!  works, this usually means that -T must
       be in the first argument.  Thus:

           #!/usr/bin/perl -T -w

       will probably work for an executable script invoked as
       scriptname, while:

           #!/usr/bin/perl -w -T

       will probably fail under the same conditions.  (Non-Unix
       systems will probably not follow this rule.)  But perl
       scriptname is guaranteed to fail, since then there is no
       chance of -T being found on the command line before it is
       found on the #! line.

       More precise warnings

       If you removed the -w option from your Perl 5.003 scripts
       because it made Perl too verbose, we recommend that you
       try putting it back when you upgrade to Perl 5.004.  Each
       new perl version tends to remove some undesirable
       warnings, while adding new warnings that may catch bugs in
       your scripts.

       Deprecated: Inherited AUTOLOAD for non-methods

       Before Perl 5.004, AUTOLOAD functions were looked up as
       methods (using the @ISA hierarchy), even when the function
       to be autoloaded was called as a plain function (e.g.
       Foo::bar()), not a method (e.g. Foo->bar() or
       $obj->bar()).

       Perl 5.005 will use method lookup only for methods'
       AUTOLOADs.  However, there is a significant base of
       existing code that may be using the old behavior.  So, as
       an interim step, Perl 5.004 issues an optional warning
       when a non-method uses an inherited AUTOLOAD.

       The simple rule is:  Inheritance will not work when
       autoloading non-methods.  The simple fix for old code is:
       In any module that used to depend on inheriting AUTOLOAD
       for non-methods from a base class named BaseClass, execute
       *AUTOLOAD = \&BaseClass::AUTOLOAD during startup.

       Previously deprecated %OVERLOAD is no longer usable

       Using %OVERLOAD to define overloading was deprecated in
       5.003.  Overloading is now defined using the overload
       pragma. %OVERLOAD is still used internally but should not
       be used by Perl scripts. See the overload manpage for more
       details.





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       Subroutine arguments created only when they're modified

       In Perl 5.004, nonexistent array and hash elements used as
       subroutine parameters are brought into existence only if
       they are actually assigned to (via @_).

       Earlier versions of Perl vary in their handling of such
       arguments.  Perl versions 5.002 and 5.003 always brought
       them into existence.  Perl versions 5.000 and 5.001
       brought them into existence only if they were not the
       first argument (which was almost certainly a bug).
       Earlier versions of Perl never brought them into
       existence.

       For example, given this code:

            undef @a; undef %a;
            sub show { print $_[0] };
            sub change { $_[0]++ };
            show($a[2]);
            change($a{b});

       After this code executes in Perl 5.004, $a{b} exists but
       $a[2] does not.  In Perl 5.002 and 5.003, both $a{b} and
       $a[2] would have existed (but $a[2]'s value would have
       been undefined).

       Group vector changeable with $)

       The $) special variable has always (well, in Perl 5, at
       least) reflected not only the current effective group, but
       also the group list as returned by the getgroups() C
       function (if there is one).  However, until this release,
       there has not been a way to call the setgroups() C
       function from Perl.

       In Perl 5.004, assigning to $) is exactly symmetrical with
       examining it: The first number in its string value is used
       as the effective gid; if there are any numbers after the
       first one, they are passed to the setgroups() C function
       (if there is one).

       Fixed parsing of $$<digit>, &$<digit>, etc.

       Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any type marker
       followed by "$" and a digit.  For example, "$$0" was
       incorrectly taken to mean "${$}0" instead of "${$0}".
       This bug is (mostly) fixed in Perl 5.004.

       However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix this
       bug completely, because at least two widely-used modules
       depend on the old meaning of "$$0" in a string.  So Perl
       5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>" in the old (broken) way
       inside strings; but it generates this message as a



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       warning.  And in Perl 5.005, this special treatment will
       cease.

       Fixed localization of $<digit>, $&, etc.

       Perl versions before 5.004 did not always properly
       localize the regex-related special variables.  Perl 5.004
       does localize them, as the documentation has always said
       it should.  This may result in $1, $2, etc. no longer
       being set where existing programs use them.

       No resetting of $. on implicit close

       The documentation for Perl 5.0 has always stated that $.
       is not reset when an already-open file handle is reopened
       with no intervening call to close.  Due to a bug, perl
       versions 5.000 through 5.003 did reset $. under that
       circumstance; Perl 5.004 does not.

       wantarray may return undef

       The wantarray operator returns true if a subroutine is
       expected to return a list, and false otherwise.  In Perl
       5.004, wantarray can also return the undefined value if a
       subroutine's return value will not be used at all, which
       allows subroutines to avoid a time-consuming calculation
       of a return value if it isn't going to be used.

       eval EXPR determines value of EXPR in scalar context

       Perl (version 5) used to determine the value of EXPR
       inconsistently, sometimes incorrectly using the
       surrounding context for the determination.  Now, the value
       of EXPR (before being parsed by eval) is always determined
       in a scalar context.  Once parsed, it is executed as
       before, by providing the context that the scope
       surrounding the eval provided.  This change makes the
       behavior Perl4 compatible, besides fixing bugs resulting
       from the inconsistent behavior.  This program:

           @a = qw(time now is time);
           print eval @a;
           print '|', scalar eval @a;

       used to print something like "timenowis881399109|4", but
       now (and in perl4) prints "4|4".

       Changes to tainting checks

       A bug in previous versions may have failed to detect some
       insecure conditions when taint checks are turned on.
       (Taint checks are used in setuid or setgid scripts, or
       when explicitly turned on with the -T invocation option.)
       Although it's unlikely, this may cause a previously-



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       working script to now fail -- which should be construed as
       a blessing, since that indicates a potentially-serious
       security hole was just plugged.

       The new restrictions when tainting include:

       No glob() or <*>
            These operators may spawn the C shell (csh), which
            cannot be made safe.  This restriction will be lifted
            in a future version of Perl when globbing is
            implemented without the use of an external program.

       No spawning if tainted $CDPATH, $ENV, $BASH_ENV
            These environment variables may alter the behavior of
            spawned programs (especially shells) in ways that
            subvert security.  So now they are treated as
            dangerous, in the manner of $IFS and $PATH.

       No spawning if tainted $TERM doesn't look like a terminal
            name
            Some termcap libraries do unsafe things with $TERM.
            However, it would be unnecessarily harsh to treat all
            $TERM values as unsafe, since only shell
            metacharacters can cause trouble in $TERM.  So a
            tainted $TERM is considered to be safe if it contains
            only alphanumerics, underscores, dashes, and colons,
            and unsafe if it contains other characters (including
            whitespace).

       New Opcode module and revised Safe module

       A new Opcode module supports the creation, manipulation
       and application of opcode masks.  The revised Safe module
       has a new API and is implemented using the new Opcode
       module.  Please read the new Opcode and Safe
       documentation.

       Embedding improvements

       In older versions of Perl it was not possible to create
       more than one Perl interpreter instance inside a single
       process without leaking like a sieve and/or crashing.  The
       bugs that caused this behavior have all been fixed.
       However, you still must take care when embedding Perl in a
       C program.  See the updated perlembed manpage for tips on
       how to manage your interpreters.

       Internal change: FileHandle class based on IO::* classes

       File handles are now stored internally as type IO::Handle.
       The FileHandle module is still supported for backwards
       compatibility, but it is now merely a front end to the
       IO::* modules -- specifically, IO::Handle, IO::Seekable,
       and IO::File.  We suggest, but do not require, that you



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       use the IO::* modules in new code.

       In harmony with this change, *GLOB{FILEHANDLE} is now just
       a backward-compatible synonym for *GLOB{IO}.

       Internal change: PerlIO abstraction interface

       It is now possible to build Perl with AT&T's sfio IO
       package instead of stdio.  See the perlapio manpage for
       more details, and the INSTALL file for how to use it.

       New and changed syntax


       $coderef->(PARAMS)
            A subroutine reference may now be suffixed with an
            arrow and a (possibly empty) parameter list.  This
            syntax denotes a call of the referenced subroutine,
            with the given parameters (if any).

            This new syntax follows the pattern of
            $hashref->{FOO} and $aryref->[$foo]: You may now
            write &$subref($foo) as $subref->($foo).  All of
            these arrow terms may be chained; thus,
            &{$table->{FOO}}($bar) may now be written
            $table->{FOO}->($bar).

       New and changed builtin constants


       __PACKAGE__
            The current package name at compile time, or the
            undefined value if there is no current package (due
            to a package; directive).  Like __FILE__ and
            __LINE__, __PACKAGE__ does not interpolate into
            strings.

       New and changed builtin variables


       $^E  Extended error message on some platforms.  (Also
            known as $EXTENDED_OS_ERROR if you use English).

       $^H  The current set of syntax checks enabled by use
            strict.  See the documentation of strict for more
            details.  Not actually new, but newly documented.
            Because it is intended for internal use by Perl core
            components, there is no use English long name for
            this variable.

       $^M  By default, running out of memory it is not
            trappable.  However, if compiled for this, Perl may
            use the contents of $^M as an emergency pool after
            die()ing with this message.  Suppose that your Perl



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            were compiled with -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK and used
            Perl's malloc.  Then

                $^M = 'a' x (1<<16);

            would allocate a 64K buffer for use when in
            emergency.  See the INSTALL file for information on
            how to enable this option.  As a disincentive to
            casual use of this advanced feature, there is no use
            English long name for this variable.

       New and changed builtin functions


       delete on slices
            This now works.  (e.g. delete @ENV{'PATH',
            'MANPATH'})

       flock
            is now supported on more platforms, prefers fcntl to
            lockf when emulating, and always flushes before
            (un)locking.

       printf and sprintf
            Perl now implements these functions itself; it
            doesn't use the C library function sprintf() any
            more, except for floating-point numbers, and even
            then only known flags are allowed.  As a result, it
            is now possible to know which conversions and flags
            will work, and what they will do.

            The new conversions in Perl's sprintf() are:

               %i   a synonym for %d
               %p   a pointer (the address of the Perl value, in hexadecimal)
               %n   special: *stores* the number of characters output so far
                    into the next variable in the parameter list

            The new flags that go between the % and the
            conversion are:

               #    prefix octal with "0", hex with "0x"
               h    interpret integer as C type "short" or "unsigned short"
               V    interpret integer as Perl's standard integer type

            Also, where a number would appear in the flags, an
            asterisk ("*") may be used instead, in which case
            Perl uses the next item in the parameter list as the
            given number (that is, as the field width or
            precision).  If a field width obtained through "*" is
            negative, it has the same effect as the '-' flag:
            left-justification.

            See the sprintf entry in the perlfunc manpage for a



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            complete list of conversion and flags.

       keys as an lvalue
            As an lvalue, keys allows you to increase the number
            of hash buckets allocated for the given hash.  This
            can gain you a measure of efficiency if you know the
            hash is going to get big.  (This is similar to pre-
            extending an array by assigning a larger number to
            $#array.)  If you say

                keys %hash = 200;

            then %hash will have at least 200 buckets allocated
            for it.  These buckets will be retained even if you
            do %hash = (); use undef %hash if you want to free
            the storage while %hash is still in scope.  You can't
            shrink the number of buckets allocated for the hash
            using keys in this way (but you needn't worry about
            doing this by accident, as trying has no effect).

       my() in Control Structures
            You can now use my() (with or without the
            parentheses) in the control expressions of control
            structures such as:

                while (defined(my $line = <>)) {
                    $line = lc $line;
                } continue {
                    print $line;
                }

                if ((my $answer = <STDIN>) =~ /^y(es)?$/i) {
                    user_agrees();
                } elsif ($answer =~ /^n(o)?$/i) {
                    user_disagrees();
                } else {
                    chomp $answer;
                    die "`$answer' is neither `yes' nor `no'";
                }

            Also, you can declare a foreach loop control variable
            as lexical by preceding it with the word "my".  For
            example, in:

                foreach my $i (1, 2, 3) {
                    some_function();
                }

            $i is a lexical variable, and the scope of $i extends
            to the end of the loop, but not beyond it.

            Note that you still cannot use my() on global
            punctuation variables such as $_ and the like.




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       pack() and unpack()
            A new format 'w' represents a BER compressed integer
            (as defined in ASN.1).  Its format is a sequence of
            one or more bytes, each of which provides seven bits
            of the total value, with the most significant first.
            Bit eight of each byte is set, except for the last
            byte, in which bit eight is clear.

            If 'p' or 'P' are given undef as values, they now
            generate a NULL pointer.

            Both pack() and unpack() now fail when their
            templates contain invalid types.  (Invalid types used
            to be ignored.)

       sysseek()
            The new sysseek() operator is a variant of seek()
            that sets and gets the file's system read/write
            position, using the lseek(2) system call.  It is the
            only reliable way to seek before using sysread() or
            syswrite().  Its return value is the new position, or
            the undefined value on failure.

       use VERSION
            If the first argument to use is a number, it is
            treated as a version number instead of a module name.
            If the version of the Perl interpreter is less than
            VERSION, then an error message is printed and Perl
            exits immediately.  Because use occurs at compile
            time, this check happens immediately during the
            compilation process, unlike require VERSION, which
            waits until runtime for the check.  This is often
            useful if you need to check the current Perl version
            before useing library modules which have changed in
            incompatible ways from older versions of Perl.  (We
            try not to do this more than we have to.)

       use Module VERSION LIST
            If the VERSION argument is present between Module and
            LIST, then the use will call the VERSION method in
            class Module with the given version as an argument.
            The default VERSION method, inherited from the
            UNIVERSAL class, croaks if the given version is
            larger than the value of the variable
            $Module::VERSION.  (Note that there is not a comma
            after VERSION!)

            This version-checking mechanism is similar to the one
            currently used in the Exporter module, but it is
            faster and can be used with modules that don't use
            the Exporter.  It is the recommended method for new
            code.





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       prototype(FUNCTION)
            Returns the prototype of a function as a string (or
            undef if the function has no prototype).  FUNCTION is
            a reference to or the name of the function whose
            prototype you want to retrieve.  (Not actually new;
            just never documented before.)

       srand
            The default seed for srand, which used to be time,
            has been changed.  Now it's a heady mix of difficult-
            to-predict system-dependent values, which should be
            sufficient for most everyday purposes.

            Previous to version 5.004, calling rand without first
            calling srand would yield the same sequence of random
            numbers on most or all machines.  Now, when perl sees
            that you're calling rand and haven't yet called
            srand, it calls srand with the default seed. You
            should still call srand manually if your code might
            ever be run on a pre-5.004 system, of course, or if
            you want a seed other than the default.

       $_ as Default
            Functions documented in the Camel to default to $_
            now in fact do, and all those that do are so
            documented in the perlfunc manpage.

       m//gc does not reset search position on failure
            The m//g match iteration construct has always reset
            its target string's search position (which is visible
            through the pos operator) when a match fails; as a
            result, the next m//g match after a failure starts
            again at the beginning of the string.  With Perl
            5.004, this reset may be disabled by adding the "c"
            (for "continue") modifier, i.e. m//gc.  This feature,
            in conjunction with the \G zero-width assertion,
            makes it possible to chain matches together.  See the
            perlop manpage and the perlre manpage.

       m//x ignores whitespace before ?*+{}
            The m//x construct has always been intended to ignore
            all unescaped whitespace.  However, before Perl
            5.004, whitespace had the effect of escaping repeat
            modifiers like "*" or "?"; for example, /a *b/x was
            (mis)interpreted as /a\*b/x.  This bug has been fixed
            in 5.004.

       nested sub{} closures work now
            Prior to the 5.004 release, nested anonymous
            functions didn't work right.  They do now.

       formats work right on changing lexicals
            Just like anonymous functions that contain lexical
            variables that change (like a lexical index variable



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            for a foreach loop), formats now work properly.  For
            example, this silently failed before (printed only
            zeros), but is fine now:

                my $i;
                foreach $i ( 1 .. 10 ) {
                    write;
                }
                format =
                    my i is @#
                    $i
                .

            However, it still fails (without a warning) if the
            foreach is within a subroutine:

                my $i;
                sub foo {
                  foreach $i ( 1 .. 10 ) {
                    write;
                  }
                }
                foo;
                format =
                    my i is @#
                    $i
                .


       New builtin methods

       The UNIVERSAL package automatically contains the following
       methods that are inherited by all other classes:

       isa(CLASS)
            isa returns true if its object is blessed into a
            subclass of CLASS

            isa is also exportable and can be called as a sub
            with two arguments. This allows the ability to check
            what a reference points to. Example:

                use UNIVERSAL qw(isa);

                if(isa($ref, 'ARRAY')) {
                   ...
                }


       can(METHOD)
            can checks to see if its object has a method called
            METHOD, if it does then a reference to the sub is
            returned; if it does not then undef is returned.




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       VERSION( [NEED] )
            VERSION returns the version number of the class
            (package).  If the NEED argument is given then it
            will check that the current version (as defined by
            the $VERSION variable in the given package) not less
            than NEED; it will die if this is not the case.  This
            method is normally called as a class method.  This
            method is called automatically by the VERSION form of
            use.

                use A 1.2 qw(some imported subs);
                # implies:
                A->VERSION(1.2);


       NOTE: can directly uses Perl's internal code for method
       lookup, and isa uses a very similar method and caching
       strategy. This may cause strange effects if the Perl code
       dynamically changes @ISA in any package.

       You may add other methods to the UNIVERSAL class via Perl
       or XS code.  You do not need to use UNIVERSAL in order to
       make these methods available to your program.  This is
       necessary only if you wish to have isa available as a
       plain subroutine in the current package.

       TIEHANDLE now supported

       See the perltie manpage for other kinds of tie()s.

       TIEHANDLE classname, LIST
            This is the constructor for the class.  That means it
            is expected to return an object of some sort. The
            reference can be used to hold some internal
            information.

                sub TIEHANDLE {
                    print "<shout>\n";
                    my $i;
                    return bless \$i, shift;
                }


       PRINT this, LIST
            This method will be triggered every time the tied
            handle is printed to.  Beyond its self reference it
            also expects the list that was passed to the print
            function.

                sub PRINT {
                    $r = shift;
                    $$r++;
                    return print join( $, => map {uc} @_), $\;
                }



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       PRINTF this, LIST
            This method will be triggered every time the tied
            handle is printed to with the printf() function.
            Beyond its self reference it also expects the format
            and list that was passed to the printf function.

                sub PRINTF {
                    shift;
                      my $fmt = shift;
                    print sprintf($fmt, @_)."\n";
                }


       READ this LIST
            This method will be called when the handle is read
            from via the read or sysread functions.

                sub READ {
                    $r = shift;
                    my($buf,$len,$offset) = @_;
                    print "READ called, \$buf=$buf, \$len=$len, \$offset=$offset";
                }


       READLINE this
            This method will be called when the handle is read
            from. The method should return undef when there is no
            more data.

                sub READLINE {
                    $r = shift;
                    return "PRINT called $$r times\n"
                }


       GETC this
            This method will be called when the getc function is
            called.

                sub GETC { print "Don't GETC, Get Perl"; return "a"; }


       DESTROY this
            As with the other types of ties, this method will be
            called when the tied handle is about to be destroyed.
            This is useful for debugging and possibly for
            cleaning up.

                sub DESTROY {
                    print "</shout>\n";
                }






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       Malloc enhancements

       If perl is compiled with the malloc included with the perl
       distribution (that is, if perl -V:d_mymalloc is 'define')
       then you can print memory statistics at runtime by running
       Perl thusly:

         env PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS=2 perl your_script_here

       The value of 2 means to print statistics after compilation
       and on exit; with a value of 1, the statistics are printed
       only on exit.  (If you want the statistics at an arbitrary
       time, you'll need to install the optional module
       Devel::Peek.)

       Three new compilation flags are recognized by malloc.c.
       (They have no effect if perl is compiled with system
       malloc().)

       -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
            If this macro is defined, running out of memory need
            not be a fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by
            assigning to the special variable $^M.  See the
            section on $^M.

       -DPACK_MALLOC
            Perl memory allocation is by bucket with sizes close
            to powers of two.  Because of these malloc overhead
            may be big, especially for data of size exactly a
            power of two.  If PACK_MALLOC is defined, perl uses a
            slightly different algorithm for small allocations
            (up to 64 bytes long), which makes it possible to
            have overhead down to 1 byte for allocations which
            are powers of two (and appear quite often).

            Expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in
            alignbytes) is about 20% for typical Perl usage.
            Expected slowdown due to additional malloc overhead
            is in fractions of a percent (hard to measure,
            because of the effect of saved memory on speed).

       -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
            Similarly to PACK_MALLOC, this macro improves
            allocations of data with size close to a power of
            two; but this works for big allocations (starting
            with 16K by default).  Such allocations are typical
            for big hashes and special-purpose scripts,
            especially image processing.

            On recent systems, the fact that perl requires 2M
            from system for 1M allocation will not affect speed
            of execution, since the tail of such a chunk is not
            going to be touched (and thus will not require real
            memory).  However, it may result in a premature out-



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            of-memory error.  So if you will be manipulating very
            large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
            would be wise to define this macro.

            Expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in
            applications which require most memory in such 2**n
            chunks); expected slowdown is negligible.

       Miscellaneous efficiency enhancements

       Functions that have an empty prototype and that do nothing
       but return a fixed value are now inlined (e.g. sub PI () {
       3.14159 }).

       Each unique hash key is only allocated once, no matter how
       many hashes have an entry with that key.  So even if you
       have 100 copies of the same hash, the hash keys never have
       to be reallocated.

Support for More Operating Systems
       Support for the following operating systems is new in Perl
       5.004.

       Win32

       Perl 5.004 now includes support for building a "native"
       perl under Windows NT, using the Microsoft Visual C++
       compiler (versions 2.0 and above) or the Borland C++
       compiler (versions 5.02 and above).  The resulting perl
       can be used under Windows 95 (if it is installed in the
       same directory locations as it got installed in Windows
       NT).  This port includes support for perl extension
       building tools like the MakeMaker manpage and the h2xs
       manpage, so that many extensions available on the
       Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) can now be
       readily built under Windows NT.  See http://www.perl.com/
       for more information on CPAN and README.win32 in the perl
       distribution for more details on how to get started with
       building this port.

       There is also support for building perl under the Cygwin32
       environment.  Cygwin32 is a set of GNU tools that make it
       possible to compile and run many UNIX programs under
       Windows NT by providing a mostly UNIX-like interface for
       compilation and execution.  See README.cygwin32 in the
       perl distribution for more details on this port and how to
       obtain the Cygwin32 toolkit.

       Plan 9

       See README.plan9 in the perl distribution.






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       QNX

       See README.qnx in the perl distribution.

       AmigaOS

       See README.amigaos in the perl distribution.

Pragmata
       Six new pragmatic modules exist:

       use autouse MODULE => qw(sub1 sub2 sub3)
            Defers require MODULE until someone calls one of the
            specified subroutines (which must be exported by
            MODULE).  This pragma should be used with caution,
            and only when necessary.

       use blib

       use blib 'dir'
            Looks for MakeMaker-like 'blib' directory structure
            starting in dir (or current directory) and working
            back up to five levels of parent directories.

            Intended for use on command line with -M option as a
            way of testing arbitrary scripts against an
            uninstalled version of a package.

       use constant NAME => VALUE
            Provides a convenient interface for creating compile-
            time constants, See the section on Constant Functions
            in the perlsub manpage.

       use locale
            Tells the compiler to enable (or disable) the use of
            POSIX locales for builtin operations.

            When use locale is in effect, the current LC_CTYPE
            locale is used for regular expressions and case
            mapping; LC_COLLATE for string ordering; and
            LC_NUMERIC for numeric formating in printf and
            sprintf (but not in print).  LC_NUMERIC is always
            used in write, since lexical scoping of formats is
            problematic at best.

            Each use locale or no locale affects statements to
            the end of the enclosing BLOCK or, if not inside a
            BLOCK, to the end of the current file.  Locales can
            be switched and queried with POSIX::setlocale().

            See the perllocale manpage for more information.

       use ops
            Disable unsafe opcodes, or any named opcodes, when



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            compiling Perl code.

       use vmsish
            Enable VMS-specific language features.  Currently,
            there are three VMS-specific features available:
            'status', which makes $? and system return genuine
            VMS status values instead of emulating POSIX; 'exit',
            which makes exit take a genuine VMS status value
            instead of assuming that exit 1 is an error; and
            'time', which makes all times relative to the local
            time zone, in the VMS tradition.

Modules
       Required Updates

       Though Perl 5.004 is compatible with almost all modules
       that work with Perl 5.003, there are a few exceptions:

           Module   Required Version for Perl 5.004
           ------   -------------------------------
           Filter   Filter-1.12
           LWP      libwww-perl-5.08
           Tk       Tk400.202 (-w makes noise)

       Also, the majordomo mailing list program, version 1.94.1,
       doesn't work with Perl 5.004 (nor with perl 4), because it
       executes an invalid regular expression.  This bug is fixed
       in majordomo version 1.94.2.

       Installation directories

       The installperl script now places the Perl source files
       for extensions in the architecture-specific library
       directory, which is where the shared libraries for
       extensions have always been.  This change is intended to
       allow administrators to keep the Perl 5.004 library
       directory unchanged from a previous version, without
       running the risk of binary incompatibility between
       extensions' Perl source and shared libraries.

       Module information summary

       Brand new modules, arranged by topic rather than strictly
       alphabetically:

           CGI.pm               Web server interface ("Common Gateway Interface")
           CGI/Apache.pm        Support for Apache's Perl module
           CGI/Carp.pm          Log server errors with helpful context
           CGI/Fast.pm          Support for FastCGI (persistent server process)
           CGI/Push.pm          Support for server push
           CGI/Switch.pm        Simple interface for multiple server types






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           CPAN                 Interface to Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
           CPAN::FirstTime      Utility for creating CPAN configuration file
           CPAN::Nox            Runs CPAN while avoiding compiled extensions

           IO.pm                Top-level interface to IO::* classes
           IO/File.pm           IO::File extension Perl module
           IO/Handle.pm         IO::Handle extension Perl module
           IO/Pipe.pm           IO::Pipe extension Perl module
           IO/Seekable.pm       IO::Seekable extension Perl module
           IO/Select.pm         IO::Select extension Perl module
           IO/Socket.pm         IO::Socket extension Perl module

           Opcode.pm            Disable named opcodes when compiling Perl code

           ExtUtils/Embed.pm    Utilities for embedding Perl in C programs
           ExtUtils/testlib.pm  Fixes up @INC to use just-built extension

           FindBin.pm           Find path of currently executing program

           Class/Struct.pm      Declare struct-like datatypes as Perl classes
           File/stat.pm         By-name interface to Perl's builtin stat
           Net/hostent.pm       By-name interface to Perl's builtin gethost*
           Net/netent.pm        By-name interface to Perl's builtin getnet*
           Net/protoent.pm      By-name interface to Perl's builtin getproto*
           Net/servent.pm       By-name interface to Perl's builtin getserv*
           Time/gmtime.pm       By-name interface to Perl's builtin gmtime
           Time/localtime.pm    By-name interface to Perl's builtin localtime
           Time/tm.pm           Internal object for Time::{gm,local}time
           User/grent.pm        By-name interface to Perl's builtin getgr*
           User/pwent.pm        By-name interface to Perl's builtin getpw*

           Tie/RefHash.pm       Base class for tied hashes with references as keys

           UNIVERSAL.pm         Base class for *ALL* classes


       Fcntl

       New constants in the existing Fcntl modules are now
       supported, provided that your operating system happens to
       support them:

           F_GETOWN F_SETOWN
           O_ASYNC O_DEFER O_DSYNC O_FSYNC O_SYNC
           O_EXLOCK O_SHLOCK

       These constants are intended for use with the Perl
       operators sysopen() and fcntl() and the basic database
       modules like SDBM_File.  For the exact meaning of these
       and other Fcntl constants please refer to your operating
       system's documentation for fcntl() and open().

       In addition, the Fcntl module now provides these constants
       for use with the Perl operator flock():



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               LOCK_SH LOCK_EX LOCK_NB LOCK_UN

       These constants are defined in all environments (because
       where there is no flock() system call, Perl emulates it).
       However, for historical reasons, these constants are not
       exported unless they are explicitly requested with the
       ":flock" tag (e.g. use Fcntl ':flock').

       IO

       The IO module provides a simple mechanism to load all of
       the IO modules at one go.  Currently this includes:

            IO::Handle
            IO::Seekable
            IO::File
            IO::Pipe
            IO::Socket

       For more information on any of these modules, please see
       its respective documentation.

       Math::Complex

       The Math::Complex module has been totally rewritten, and
       now supports more operations.  These are overloaded:

            + - * / ** <=> neg ~ abs sqrt exp log sin cos atan2 "" (stringify)

       And these functions are now exported:

           pi i Re Im arg
           log10 logn ln cbrt root
           tan
           csc sec cot
           asin acos atan
           acsc asec acot
           sinh cosh tanh
           csch sech coth
           asinh acosh atanh
           acsch asech acoth
           cplx cplxe


       Math::Trig

       This new module provides a simpler interface to parts of
       Math::Complex for those who need trigonometric functions
       only for real numbers.

       DB_File

       There have been quite a few changes made to DB_File. Here
       are a few of the highlights:



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       o    Fixed a handful of bugs.

       o    By public demand, added support for the standard hash
            function exists().

       o    Made it compatible with Berkeley DB 1.86.

       o    Made negative subscripts work with RECNO interface.

       o    Changed the default flags from O_RDWR to
            O_CREAT|O_RDWR and the default mode from 0640 to
            0666.

       o    Made DB_File automatically import the open()
            constants (O_RDWR, O_CREAT etc.) from Fcntl, if
            available.

       o    Updated documentation.

       Refer to the HISTORY section in DB_File.pm for a complete
       list of changes. Everything after DB_File 1.01 has been
       added since 5.003.

       Net::Ping

       Major rewrite - support added for both udp echo and real
       icmp pings.

       Object-oriented overrides for builtin operators

       Many of the Perl builtins returning lists now have object-
       oriented overrides.  These are:

           File::stat
           Net::hostent
           Net::netent
           Net::protoent
           Net::servent
           Time::gmtime
           Time::localtime
           User::grent
           User::pwent

       For example, you can now say

           use File::stat;
           use User::pwent;
           $his = (stat($filename)->st_uid == pwent($whoever)->pw_uid);


Utility Changes






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       pod2html


       Sends converted HTML to standard output
            The pod2html utility included with Perl 5.004 is
            entirely new.  By default, it sends the converted
            HTML to its standard output, instead of writing it to
            a file like Perl 5.003's pod2html did.  Use the
            --outfile=FILENAME option to write to a file.

       xsubpp


       void XSUBs now default to returning nothing
            Due to a documentation/implementation bug in previous
            versions of Perl, XSUBs with a return type of void
            have actually been returning one value.  Usually that
            value was the GV for the XSUB, but sometimes it was
            some already freed or reused value, which would
            sometimes lead to program failure.

            In Perl 5.004, if an XSUB is declared as returning
            void, it actually returns no value, i.e. an empty
            list (though there is a backward-compatibility
            exception; see below).  If your XSUB really does
            return an SV, you should give it a return type of SV
            *.

            For backward compatibility, xsubpp tries to guess
            whether a void XSUB is really void or if it wants to
            return an SV *.  It does so by examining the text of
            the XSUB: if xsubpp finds what looks like an
            assignment to ST(0), it assumes that the XSUB's
            return type is really SV *.

C Language API Changes
       gv_fetchmethod and perl_call_sv
            The gv_fetchmethod function finds a method for an
            object, just like in Perl 5.003.  The GV it returns
            may be a method cache entry.  However, in Perl 5.004,
            method cache entries are not visible to users;
            therefore, they can no longer be passed directly to
            perl_call_sv.  Instead, you should use the GvCV macro
            on the GV to extract its CV, and pass the CV to
            perl_call_sv.

            The most likely symptom of passing the result of
            gv_fetchmethod to perl_call_sv is Perl's producing an
            "Undefined subroutine called" error on the second
            call to a given method (since there is no cache on
            the first call).

       perl_eval_pv
            A new function handy for eval'ing strings of Perl



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            code inside C code.  This function returns the value
            from the eval statement, which can be used instead of
            fetching globals from the symbol table.  See the
            perlguts manpage, the perlembed manpage and the
            perlcall manpage for details and examples.

       Extended API for manipulating hashes
            Internal handling of hash keys has changed.  The old
            hashtable API is still fully supported, and will
            likely remain so.  The additions to the API allow
            passing keys as SV*s, so that tied hashes can be
            given real scalars as keys rather than plain strings
            (nontied hashes still can only use strings as keys).
            New extensions must use the new hash access functions
            and macros if they wish to use SV* keys.  These
            additions also make it feasible to manipulate HE*s
            (hash entries), which can be more efficient.  See the
            perlguts manpage for details.

Documentation Changes
       Many of the base and library pods were updated.  These new
       pods are included in section 1:

       the perldelta manpage
            This document.

       the perlfaq manpage
            Frequently asked questions.

       the perllocale manpage
            Locale support (internationalization and
            localization).

       the perltoot manpage
            Tutorial on Perl OO programming.

       the perlapio manpage
            Perl internal IO abstraction interface.

       the perlmodlib manpage
            Perl module library and recommended practice for
            module creation.  Extracted from the perlmod manpage
            (which is much smaller as a result).

       the perldebug manpage
            Although not new, this has been massively updated.

       the perlsec manpage
            Although not new, this has been massively updated.

New Diagnostics
       Several new conditions will trigger warnings that were
       silent before.  Some only affect certain platforms.  The
       following new warnings and errors outline these.  These



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       messages are classified as follows (listed in increasing
       order of desperation):

          (W) A warning (optional).
          (D) A deprecation (optional).
          (S) A severe warning (mandatory).
          (F) A fatal error (trappable).
          (P) An internal error you should never see (trappable).
          (X) A very fatal error (nontrappable).
          (A) An alien error message (not generated by Perl).


       """"my"""" variable %s masks earlier declaration in same
            scope
            (W) A lexical variable has been redeclared in the
            same scope, effectively eliminating all access to the
            previous instance.  This is almost always a
            typographical error.  Note that the earlier variable
            will still exist until the end of the scope or until
            all closure referents to it are destroyed.

       %s argument is not a HASH element or slice
            (F) The argument to delete() must be either a hash
            element, such as

                $foo{$bar}
                $ref->[12]->{"susie"}

            or a hash slice, such as

                @foo{$bar, $baz, $xyzzy}
                @{$ref->[12]}{"susie", "queue"}


       Allocation too large: %lx
            (X) You can't allocate more than 64K on an MS-DOS
            machine.

       Allocation too large
            (F) You can't allocate more than 2^31+"small amount"
            bytes.

       Applying %s to %s will act on scalar(%s)
            (W) The pattern match (//), substitution (s///), and
            transliteration (tr///) operators work on scalar
            values.  If you apply one of them to an array or a
            hash, it will convert the array or hash to a scalar
            value -- the length of an array, or the population
            info of a hash -- and then work on that scalar value.
            This is probably not what you meant to do.  See the
            grep entry in the perlfunc manpage and the map entry
            in the perlfunc manpage for alternatives.





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       Attempt to free nonexistent shared string
            (P) Perl maintains a reference counted internal table
            of strings to optimize the storage and access of hash
            keys and other strings.  This indicates someone tried
            to decrement the reference count of a string that can
            no longer be found in the table.

       Attempt to use reference as lvalue in substr
            (W) You supplied a reference as the first argument to
            substr() used as an lvalue, which is pretty strange.
            Perhaps you forgot to dereference it first.  See the
            substr entry in the perlfunc manpage.

       Bareword """"%s"""" refers to nonexistent package
            (W) You used a qualified bareword of the form Foo::,
            but the compiler saw no other uses of that namespace
            before that point.  Perhaps you need to predeclare a
            package?

       Can't redefine active sort subroutine %s
            (F) Perl optimizes the internal handling of sort
            subroutines and keeps pointers into them.  You tried
            to redefine one such sort subroutine when it was
            currently active, which is not allowed.  If you
            really want to do this, you should write sort { &func
            } @x instead of sort func @x.

       Can't use bareword '%s' as %s ref while """"strict
            refs"""" in use
            (F) Only hard references are allowed by "strict
            refs".  Symbolic references are disallowed.  See the
            perlref manpage.

       Cannot resolve method `%s' overloading `%s' in package
            `%s'
            (P) Internal error trying to resolve overloading
            specified by a method name (as opposed to a
            subroutine reference).

       Constant subroutine %s redefined
            (S) You redefined a subroutine which had previously
            been eligible for inlining.  See the section on
            Constant Functions in the perlsub manpage for
            commentary and workarounds.

       Constant subroutine %s undefined
            (S) You undefined a subroutine which had previously
            been eligible for inlining.  See the section on
            Constant Functions in the perlsub manpage for
            commentary and workarounds.

       Copy method did not return a reference
            (F) The method which overloads "=" is buggy. See the
            section on Copy Constructor in the overload manpage.



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       Died (F) You passed die() an empty string (the equivalent
            of die "") or you called it with no args and both $@
            and $_ were empty.

       Exiting pseudo-block via %s
            (W) You are exiting a rather special block construct
            (like a sort block or subroutine) by unconventional
            means, such as a goto, or a loop control statement.
            See the sort entry in the perlfunc manpage.

       Identifier too long
            (F) Perl limits identifiers (names for variables,
            functions, etc.) to 252 characters for simple names,
            somewhat more for compound names (like $A::B).
            You've exceeded Perl's limits.  Future versions of
            Perl are likely to eliminate these arbitrary
            limitations.

       Illegal character %s (carriage return)
            (F) A carriage return character was found in the
            input.  This is an error, and not a warning, because
            carriage return characters can break multi-line
            strings, including here documents (e.g., print
            <<EOF;).

       Illegal switch in PERL5OPT: %s
            (X) The PERL5OPT environment variable may only be
            used to set the following switches: -[DIMUdmw].

       Integer overflow in hex number
            (S) The literal hex number you have specified is too
            big for your architecture. On a 32-bit architecture
            the largest hex literal is 0xFFFFFFFF.

       Integer overflow in octal number
            (S) The literal octal number you have specified is
            too big for your architecture. On a 32-bit
            architecture the largest octal literal is
            037777777777.

       internal error: glob failed
            (P) Something went wrong with the external program(s)
            used for glob and <*.c>.  This may mean that your csh
            (C shell) is broken.  If so, you should change all of
            the csh-related variables in config.sh:  If you have
            tcsh, make the variables refer to it as if it were
            csh (e.g. full_csh='/usr/bin/tcsh'); otherwise, make
            them all empty (except that d_csh should be 'undef')
            so that Perl will think csh is missing.  In either
            case, after editing config.sh, run ./Configure -S and
            rebuild Perl.

       Invalid conversion in %s: """"%s""""
            (W) Perl does not understand the given format



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            conversion.  See the sprintf entry in the perlfunc
            manpage.

       Invalid type in pack: '%s'
            (F) The given character is not a valid pack type.
            See the pack entry in the perlfunc manpage.

       Invalid type in unpack: '%s'
            (F) The given character is not a valid unpack type.
            See the unpack entry in the perlfunc manpage.

       Name """"%s::%s"""" used only once: possible typo
            (W) Typographical errors often show up as unique
            variable names.  If you had a good reason for having
            a unique name, then just mention it again somehow to
            suppress the message (the use vars pragma is provided
            for just this purpose).

       Null picture in formline
            (F) The first argument to formline must be a valid
            format picture specification.  It was found to be
            empty, which probably means you supplied it an
            uninitialized value.  See the perlform manpage.

       Offset outside string
            (F) You tried to do a read/write/send/recv operation
            with an offset pointing outside the buffer.  This is
            difficult to imagine.  The sole exception to this is
            that sysread()ing past the buffer will extend the
            buffer and zero pad the new area.

       Out of memory!
            (X|F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating
            there was insufficient remaining memory (or virtual
            memory) to satisfy the request.

            The request was judged to be small, so the
            possibility to trap it depends on the way Perl was
            compiled.  By default it is not trappable.  However,
            if compiled for this, Perl may use the contents of
            $^M as an emergency pool after die()ing with this
            message.  In this case the error is trappable once.

       Out of memory during request for %s
            (F) The malloc() function returned 0, indicating
            there was insufficient remaining memory (or virtual
            memory) to satisfy the request. However, the request
            was judged large enough (compile-time default is
            64K), so a possibility to shut down by trapping this
            error is granted.

       panic: frexp
            (P) The library function frexp() failed, making
            printf("%f") impossible.



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       Possible attempt to put comments in qw() list
            (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace;
            as with literal strings, comment characters are not
            ignored, but are instead treated as literal data.
            (You may have used different delimiters than the
            parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
            used.)

            You probably wrote something like this:

                @list = qw(
                    a # a comment
                    b # another comment
                );

            when you should have written this:

                @list = qw(
                    a
                    b
                );

            If you really want comments, build your list the old-
            fashioned way, with quotes and commas:

                @list = (
                    'a',    # a comment
                    'b',    # another comment
                );


       Possible attempt to separate words with commas
            (W) qw() lists contain items separated by whitespace;
            therefore commas aren't needed to separate the items.
            (You may have used different delimiters than the
            parentheses shown here; braces are also frequently
            used.)

            You probably wrote something like this:

                qw! a, b, c !;

            which puts literal commas into some of the list
            items.  Write it without commas if you don't want
            them to appear in your data:

                qw! a b c !;


       Scalar value @%s{%s} better written as $%s{%s}
            (W) You've used a hash slice (indicated by @) to
            select a single element of a hash.  Generally it's
            better to ask for a scalar value (indicated by $).
            The difference is that $foo{&bar} always behaves like



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            a scalar, both when assigning to it and when
            evaluating its argument, while @foo{&bar} behaves
            like a list when you assign to it, and provides a
            list context to its subscript, which can do weird
            things if you're expecting only one subscript.

       Stub found while resolving method `%s' overloading `%s' in
            package `%s'
            (P) Overloading resolution over @ISA tree may be
            broken by importing stubs.  Stubs should never be
            implicitly created, but explicit calls to can may
            break this.

       Too late for """"-T"""" option
            (X) The #! line (or local equivalent) in a Perl
            script contains the -T option, but Perl was not
            invoked with -T in its argument list.  This is an
            error because, by the time Perl discovers a -T in a
            script, it's too late to properly taint everything
            from the environment.  So Perl gives up.

       untie attempted while %d inner references still exist
            (W) A copy of the object returned from tie (or tied)
            was still valid when untie was called.

       Unrecognized character %s
            (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the
            specified character in your Perl script (or eval).
            Perhaps you tried to run a compressed script, a
            binary program, or a directory as a Perl program.

       Unsupported function fork
            (F) Your version of executable does not support
            forking.

            Note that under some systems, like OS/2, there may be
            different flavors of Perl executables, some of which
            may support fork, some not. Try changing the name you
            call Perl by to perl_, perl__, and so on.

       Use of """"$$<digit>"""" to mean """"${$}<digit>"""" is
            deprecated
            (D) Perl versions before 5.004 misinterpreted any
            type marker followed by "$" and a digit.  For
            example, "$$0" was incorrectly taken to mean "${$}0"
            instead of "${$0}".  This bug is (mostly) fixed in
            Perl 5.004.

            However, the developers of Perl 5.004 could not fix
            this bug completely, because at least two widely-used
            modules depend on the old meaning of "$$0" in a
            string.  So Perl 5.004 still interprets "$$<digit>"
            in the old (broken) way inside strings; but it
            generates this message as a warning.  And in Perl



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            5.005, this special treatment will cease.

       Value of %s can be """"0""""; test with defined()
            (W) In a conditional expression, you used <HANDLE>,
            <*> (glob), each(), or readdir() as a boolean value.
            Each of these constructs can return a value of "0";
            that would make the conditional expression false,
            which is probably not what you intended.  When using
            these constructs in conditional expressions, test
            their values with the defined operator.

       Variable """"%s"""" may be unavailable
            (W) An inner (nested) anonymous subroutine is inside
            a named subroutine, and outside that is another
            subroutine; and the anonymous (innermost) subroutine
            is referencing a lexical variable defined in the
            outermost subroutine.  For example:

               sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }

            If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced
            (directly or indirectly) from the outermost
            subroutine, it will share the variable as you would
            expect.  But if the anonymous subroutine is called or
            referenced when the outermost subroutine is not
            active, it will see the value of the shared variable
            as it was before and during the *first* call to the
            outermost subroutine, which is probably not what you
            want.

            In these circumstances, it is usually best to make
            the middle subroutine anonymous, using the sub {}
            syntax.  Perl has specific support for shared
            variables in nested anonymous subroutines; a named
            subroutine in between interferes with this feature.

       Variable """"%s"""" will not stay shared
            (W) An inner (nested) named subroutine is referencing
            a lexical variable defined in an outer subroutine.

            When the inner subroutine is called, it will probably
            see the value of the outer subroutine's variable as
            it was before and during the *first* call to the
            outer subroutine; in this case, after the first call
            to the outer subroutine is complete, the inner and
            outer subroutines will no longer share a common value
            for the variable.  In other words, the variable will
            no longer be shared.

            Furthermore, if the outer subroutine is anonymous and
            references a lexical variable outside itself, then
            the outer and inner subroutines will never share the
            given variable.




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            This problem can usually be solved by making the
            inner subroutine anonymous, using the sub {} syntax.
            When inner anonymous subs that reference variables in
            outer subroutines are called or referenced, they are
            automatically rebound to the current values of such
            variables.

       Warning: something's wrong
            (W) You passed warn() an empty string (the equivalent
            of warn "") or you called it with no args and $_ was
            empty.

       Ill-formed logical name |%s| in prime_env_iter
            (W) A warning peculiar to VMS.  A logical name was
            encountered when preparing to iterate over %ENV which
            violates the syntactic rules governing logical names.
            Since it cannot be translated normally, it is
            skipped, and will not appear in %ENV.  This may be a
            benign occurrence, as some software packages might
            directly modify logical name tables and introduce
            nonstandard names, or it may indicate that a logical
            name table has been corrupted.

       Got an error from DosAllocMem
            (P) An error peculiar to OS/2.  Most probably you're
            using an obsolete version of Perl, and this should
            not happen anyway.

       Malformed PERLLIB_PREFIX
            (F) An error peculiar to OS/2.  PERLLIB_PREFIX should
            be of the form

                prefix1;prefix2

            or

                prefix1 prefix2

            with nonempty prefix1 and prefix2.  If prefix1 is
            indeed a prefix of a builtin library search path,
            prefix2 is substituted.  The error may appear if
            components are not found, or are too long.  See
            "PERLLIB_PREFIX" in README.os2.

       PERL_SH_DIR too long
            (F) An error peculiar to OS/2. PERL_SH_DIR is the
            directory to find the sh-shell in.  See "PERL_SH_DIR"
            in README.os2.

       Process terminated by SIG%s
            (W) This is a standard message issued by OS/2
            applications, while *nix applications die in silence.
            It is considered a feature of the OS/2 port.  One can
            easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers, see



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            the section on Signals in the perlipc manpage.  See
            also "Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT" in
            README.os2.

BUGS
       If you find what you think is a bug, you might check the
       headers of recently posted articles in the
       comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.  There may also be
       information at http://www.perl.com/perl/, the Perl Home
       Page.

       If you believe you have an unreported bug, please run the
       perlbug program included with your release.  Make sure you
       trim your bug down to a tiny but sufficient test case.
       Your bug report, along with the output of perl -V, will be
       sent off to <perlbug@perl.com> to be analysed by the Perl
       porting team.

SEE ALSO
       The Changes file for exhaustive details on what changed.

       The INSTALL file for how to build Perl.  This file has
       been significantly updated for 5.004, so even veteran
       users should look through it.

       The README file for general stuff.

       The Copying file for copyright information.

HISTORY
       Constructed by Tom Christiansen, grabbing material with
       permission from innumerable contributors, with kibitzing
       by more than a few Perl porters.

       Last update: Wed May 14 11:14:09 EDT 1997






















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