| 1 | ------------- |
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| 2 | Version 5.003 |
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| 3 | ------------- |
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| 4 | |
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| 5 | ***> IMPORTANT NOTICE: <*** |
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| 6 | The main reason for this release was to fix a security bug affecting |
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| 7 | suidperl on some systems. If you build suidperl on your system, it |
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| 8 | is strongly recommended that you replace any existing copies with |
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| 9 | version 5.003 or later immediately. |
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| 10 | |
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| 11 | The changes in 5.003 have been held to a minimum, in the hope that this |
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| 12 | will simplify installation and testing at sites which may be affected |
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| 13 | by the security hole in suidperl. In brief, 5.003 does the following: |
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| 14 | |
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| 15 | - Plugs security hole in suidperl mechanism on affected systems |
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| 16 | |
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| 17 | - MakeMaker was also updated to version 5.34, and extension Makefile.PLs |
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| 18 | were modified to match it. |
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| 19 | |
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| 20 | - The following hints files were updated: bsdos.sh, hpux.sh, linux.sh, |
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| 21 | machten.sh, solaris_2.sh |
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| 22 | |
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| 23 | - A fix was added to installperl to insure that file permissions were |
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| 24 | set correctly for the installed C header files. |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | - t/op/stat.t was modified to work around MachTen's belief that /dev/null |
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| 27 | is a terminal device. |
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| 28 | |
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| 29 | - Incorporation of Perl version information into the VMS' version of |
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| 30 | config.h was changed to make it compatible with the older VAXC. |
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| 31 | |
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| 32 | - Minor fixes were made to VMS-specific C code, and the routine |
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| 33 | VMS::Filespec::rmsexpand was added. |
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| 34 | |
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| 35 | ---------------- |
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| 36 | Version 5.002_01 |
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| 37 | ---------------- |
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| 38 | |
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| 39 | - The EMBED namespace changes are now used by default, in order to better |
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| 40 | segregate Perl's C global symbols from those belonging to embedding |
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| 41 | applications or to libraries. This makes it necessary to rebuild dynamic |
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| 42 | extensions built under previous versions of Perl without the EMBED option. |
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| 43 | The default use of EMBED can be overridden by placing -DNO_EMBED on the |
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| 44 | cc command line. |
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| 45 | |
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| 46 | The EMBED change is the beginning of a general cleanup of C global |
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| 47 | symbols used by Perl, so binary compatibility with previously |
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| 48 | compiled dynamic extensions may be broken again in the next few |
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| 49 | releases. |
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| 50 | |
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| 51 | - Several bugs in the core were fixed, including the following: |
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| 52 | - made sure FILE * for -e temp file was closed only once |
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| 53 | - improved form of single-statement macro definitions to keep |
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| 54 | as many ccs as possible happy |
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| 55 | - fixed file tests to insure that signed values were used when |
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| 56 | computing differences between times. |
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| 57 | - fixed toke.c so implicit loop isn't doubled when perl is |
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| 58 | invoked with both the -p and -n switches |
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| 59 | |
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| 60 | - The new SUBVERSION number has been included in the default value for |
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| 61 | architecture-specific library directories, so development and |
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| 62 | production architecture-dependent libraries can coexist. |
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| 63 | |
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| 64 | - Two new magic variables, $^E and $^O, have been added. $^E contains the |
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| 65 | OS-specific equivalent of $!. $^O contains the name of the operating |
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| 66 | system, in order to make it easily available to Perl code whose behavior |
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| 67 | differs according to its environment. The standard library files have |
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| 68 | been converted to use $^O in preference to $Config{'osname'}. |
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| 69 | |
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| 70 | - A mechanism was added to allow listing of locally applied patches |
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| 71 | in the output of perl -v. |
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| 72 | |
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| 73 | - Miscellaneous minor corrections and updates were made to the documentation. |
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| 74 | |
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| 75 | - Extensive updates were made to the OS/2 and VMS ports |
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| 76 | |
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| 77 | - The following hints file were updated: bsdos.sh, dynixptx.sh, |
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| 78 | irix_6_2.sh, linux.sh, os2.sh |
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| 79 | |
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| 80 | - Several changes were made to standard library files: |
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| 81 | - reduced use of English.pm and $`, $', and $& in library modules, |
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| 82 | since these degrade module loading and evaluation of regular expressions, |
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| 83 | respectively. |
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| 84 | - File/Basename.pm: Added path separator to dirname('.') |
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| 85 | - File/Copy.pm: Added support for VMS and OS/2 system-level copy |
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| 86 | - MakeMaker updated to v5.26 |
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| 87 | - Symbol.pm now accepts old (') and new (::) package delimiters |
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| 88 | - Sys/Syslog.pm uses Sys::Hostname only when necessary |
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| 89 | - chat2.pl picks up necessary constants from socket.ph |
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| 90 | - syslog.pl: Corrected thinko 'Socket' --> 'Syslog' |
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| 91 | - xsubpp updated to v1.935 |
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| 92 | |
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| 93 | |
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| 94 | - The perlbug utility is now more cautious about sending mail, in order |
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| 95 | to reduce the chance of accidentally send a bug report by giving the |
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| 96 | wrong response to a prompt. |
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| 97 | |
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| 98 | - The -m switch has been added to perldoc, causing it to display the |
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| 99 | Perl code in target file as well as any documentation. |
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| 100 | |
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