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✏️ Editing: perl5142delta.pod

=encoding utf8

=head1 NAME

perl5142delta - what is new for perl v5.14.2

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This document describes differences between the 5.14.1 release and
the 5.14.2 release.

If you are upgrading from an earlier release such as 5.14.0, first read
L<perl5141delta>, which describes differences between 5.14.0 and
5.14.1.

=head1 Core Enhancements

No changes since 5.14.0.

=head1 Security

=head2 C<File::Glob::bsd_glob()> memory error with GLOB_ALTDIRFUNC (CVE-2011-2728).

Calling C<File::Glob::bsd_glob> with the unsupported flag GLOB_ALTDIRFUNC would
cause an access violation / segfault.  A Perl program that accepts a flags value from
an external source could expose itself to denial of service or arbitrary code
execution attacks.  There are no known exploits in the wild.  The problem has been
corrected by explicitly disabling all unsupported flags and setting unused function
pointers to null.  Bug reported by Clément Lecigne.

=head2 C<Encode> decode_xs n-byte heap-overflow (CVE-2011-2939)

A bug in C<Encode> could, on certain inputs, cause the heap to overflow.
This problem has been corrected.  Bug reported by Robert Zacek.

=head1 Incompatible Changes

There are no changes intentionally incompatible with 5.14.0. If any
exist, they are bugs and reports are welcome.

=head1 Deprecations

There have been no deprecations since 5.14.0.

=head1 Modules and Pragmata

=head2 New Modules and Pragmata

None

=head2 Updated Modules and Pragmata

=over 4

=item *

L<CPAN> has been upgraded from version 1.9600 to version 1.9600_01.

L<CPAN::Distribution> has been upgraded from version 1.9602 to 1.9602_01.

Backported bugfixes from CPAN version 1.9800.  Ensures proper
detection of C<configure_requires> prerequisites from CPAN Meta files
in the case where C<dynamic_config> is true.  [rt.cpan.org #68835]

Also ensures that C<configure_requires> is only checked in META files,
not MYMETA files, so protect against MYMETA generation that drops
C<configure_requires>.

=item *

L<Encode> has been upgraded from version 2.42 to 2.42_01.

See L</Security>.

=item *

L<File::Glob> has been upgraded from version 1.12 to version 1.13.

See L</Security>.

=item *

L<PerlIO::scalar> has been upgraded from version 0.11 to 0.11_01.

It fixes a problem with C<< open my $fh, ">", \$scalar >> not working if
C<$scalar> is a copy-on-write scalar.

=back

=head2 Removed Modules and Pragmata

None

=head1 Platform Support

=head2 New Platforms

None

=head2 Discontinued Platforms

None

=head2 Platform-Specific Notes

=over 4

=item HP-UX PA-RISC/64 now supports gcc-4.x

A fix to correct the socketsize now makes the test suite pass on HP-UX
PA-RISC for 64bitall builds.

=item Building on OS X 10.7 Lion and Xcode 4 works again

The build system has been updated to work with the build tools under Mac OS X
10.7.

=back

=head1 Bug Fixes

=over 4

=item *

In @INC filters (subroutines returned by subroutines in @INC), $_ used to
misbehave: If returned from a subroutine, it would not be copied, but the
variable itself would be returned; and freeing $_ (e.g., with C<undef *_>)
would cause perl to crash.  This has been fixed [perl #91880].

=item *

Perl 5.10.0 introduced some faulty logic that made "U*" in the middle of
a pack template equivalent to "U0" if the input string was empty.  This has
been fixed [perl #90160].

=item *

C<caller> no longer leaks memory when called from the DB package if
C<@DB::args> was assigned to after the first call to C<caller>.  L<Carp>
was triggering this bug [perl #97010].

=item *

C<utf8::decode> had a nasty bug that would modify copy-on-write scalars'
string buffers in place (i.e., skipping the copy).  This could result in
hashes having two elements with the same key [perl #91834].

=item *

Localising a tied variable used to make it read-only if it contained a
copy-on-write string.

=item *

Elements of restricted hashes (see the L<fields> pragma) containing
copy-on-write values couldn't be deleted, nor could such hashes be cleared
(C<%hash = ()>).

=item *

Locking a hash element that is a glob copy no longer causes subsequent
assignment to it to corrupt the glob.

=item *

A panic involving the combination of the regular expression modifiers
C</aa> introduced in 5.14.0 and the C<\b> escape sequence has been
fixed [perl #95964].

=back

=head1 Known Problems

This is a list of some significant unfixed bugs, which are regressions
from 5.12.0.

=over 4

=item *

C<PERL_GLOBAL_STRUCT> is broken.

Since perl 5.14.0, building with C<-DPERL_GLOBAL_STRUCT> hasn't been
possible. This means that perl currently doesn't work on any platforms that
require it to be built this way, including Symbian.

While C<PERL_GLOBAL_STRUCT> now works again on recent development versions of
perl, it actually working on Symbian again hasn't been verified.

We'd be very interested in hearing from anyone working with Perl on Symbian.

=back

=head1 Acknowledgements

Perl 5.14.2 represents approximately three months of development since
Perl 5.14.1 and contains approximately 1200 lines of changes
across 61 files from 9 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 5.14.2:

Craig A. Berry, David Golden, Father Chrysostomos, Florian Ragwitz, H.Merijn
Brand, Karl Williamson, Nicholas Clark, Pau Amma and Ricardo Signes.

=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 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

MR SKB