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From: [email protected] (Tim Bunce)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Perl 5.004_01 is available (Maintenance Release 1 for Perl5.004)
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Date: 29 Jun 1997 16:21:30 GMT
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The Perl development team is pleased to announce the release of
Perl 5.004_01.  This is the first Maintenance Release for Perl 5.004.


Work on Perl has been split into separate development and maintenance
tracks from Perl 5.004 onwards.

The development track is focused on major enhancements to Perl and
will typically have a fairly long major release cycle. Work on 5.005
(which should include threading and improved compiler support) is
underway now. Alpha releases should be available in the coming months
with subversion numbers starting from 5.004_50.

The maintenance track is focussed on improving the quality of a given
Perl release (through bug fixes, documentation fixes and greater
portability etc) and will typically have a shorter release cycle.
Maintenance releases have subversion numbers starting from 5.004_01.

One goal of the maintenance track is that users should always feel
confident about installing a maintenance release subversion, such as
5.004_01, as an upgrade for the corresponding major version.


This release builds on the excellent work that went into the 5.004
release and adds these significant enhancements:

BUG FIXES

 Fixed (..., undef, ...) = split(...) bug.
 Fixed memory leak when using tied hashes and arrays.
 Fixed backreferences with case-blind matching regexps.
 Fixed scope for nested regexps.
 Fixed AutoLoader problems with __DIE__.
 Fixed list assignment to %ENV.

GREATER PORTABILITY

 Greatly improved support for Win32. Many fixes.
 Fixes for AIX, FreeBSD, NEWS-OS, NeXt/OpenStep and VMS.

OTHER FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS

 Many documentation and documentation tool fixes and updates including
   perldelta, perldiag, perlembed, perlfaq8, perlfaq9, perlfunc, perlguts,
   perllol, perlop, perlsub, perltoot, pod2man and Pod::Html.
 installhtml now runs twice as fast and with fewer warnings.
 @INC contents listed in use or require "Can't find" error.
 Added more Fcntl constants.


KNOWN PROBLEMS / LATE BREAKING NEWS

 General:
   splitpod (called by installhtml) is broken. Use splitpod from 5.004.
   pp.c and util.c may generate (harmless) compiler warnings.
   Configure mistakenly finds getpgrp in UNICOS 9 where there is none.
   The perlbug script does not work if the cwd is non-writable.
   Fixes for gnuwin32/cygwin32 support have not been included.
 Win32:
   Test 1 of lib/timelocal.t may fail for some timezones.
   Autoloading fails when perl is installed with a UNC path.
   On DOSISH platforms, "perl -S" fails for absolute paths with backslashes.
   The -d operator fails for some UNC top directories (//share/dir).

Most of these also exist in 5.004. Many, if not all, will be fixed in
the next maintenance release which is currently planned for mid to late July.


THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW AND THINGS YOU NEED TO DO

[ These notes are primarily for people installing Perl for the first time
or upgrading from Perl 5.003 (or earlier). If you are upgrading a successful
5.004 installation then you should be able to follow the same procedure you
used before. ]

As usual it is *vital* that you read the file "INSTALL" before building this
release; it contains information you absolutely need to know.  For example,
"INSTALL" explains how you can install Perl without removing previous
version(s) of Perl, and how you can make this Perl binary-compatible with
Perl 5.003 (and why you have a choice).

There are several new functions and features in Perl 5.004, including a
small number of unavoidable incompatibilities.  See the change notices for
details, in the file "pod/perldelta.pod".  It is *highly* recommended that
you read "pod/perldelta.pod" before using this release if you have any
previous experience with Perl.

IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS

If you find a bug, please report it to us with the "perlbug" script in the
"utils" directory of the distribution.  Since you may have older versions
of "perlbug" installed, run it as "./perl utils/perlbug"; to display its
documentation, use the "-h" flag.  If you cannot send external E-Mail from
your development platform, you can still use "perlbug" to prepare the bug
report and save it to a file, which you should then mail to
<[email protected]>.

If Perl didn't even compile, then you won't be able to use "perlbug".
Instead, compose your bug report by hand, being sure to include the output
of the "myconfig" shell script included in the distribution, and mail it to
<[email protected]>.

We re-emphasize: *Please* read "INSTALL" and "pod/perldelta.pod" carefully.
We are happy to answer questions, but our time is limited.  By reading the
excellent documentation included with Perl before asking for help, you will
save yourself time, you will save us time, and you will help us debug the
documentation.

WHERE TO FIND IT

You will find this release on CPAN, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.
The following URL at Tom Christiansen's web server (perl.com) will
automatically direct your request to a CPAN FTP site appropriate for your
location:

   http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0/perl5.004_01.tar.gz
   http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0/perl5.004_01.patch.gz

If you wish to retrieve the file entirely with HTTP, you can use this URL
at The Perl Institute (perl.org):

   http://www.perl.org/CPAN/src/5.0/perl5.004_01.tar.gz
   http://www.perl.org/CPAN/src/5.0/perl5.004_01.patch.gz

MD5 checksums:
   perl5.004_01.tar.gz   => 'bc29b3bd93b6511234455ba733913ea0'
   perl5.004_01.patch.gz => 'd9fdf41a62ff7e78be1b5aba169c225b'


Finally, to quote Douglas Adams: "Share and enjoy!"

       Signed,

       The Perl Development Team

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