beta2 is available

It's at all the usual places and also here:

   ftp://ftp.linux.activestate.com/pub/staff/gsar/APC/5.5.660/perl5.5.660.patch.gz
   ftp://ftp.linux.activestate.com/pub/staff/gsar/APC/5.5.660/perl5.5.660.tar.gz

This release is primarily bug fixes.  _All_ of the badness identified
by Purify have been fixed.

Bug fixes:

   + improvements for high-bit text literals (Gisle Aas)
                                                      **NEEDS ATTACHED PATCH**
   + lexical warnings update, ability to inspect bitmask in calling
     scope, among other things (Paul Marquess)
   + remove dual-valueness of v-strings (i.e., they are pure strings
     now); avoid the word "tuple" to describe strings represented as
     character ordinals; usurp $PERL_VERSION for $^V as suggested by
     Larry, deprecate $] ; adjust the documentation and testsuite
     accordingly
   + allow C<print v10>, $h{v13.10} etc.
   + generalize "%v" format into a flag for any integral format type:
     "%vd", "%v#o", "%*vX", etc are allowed
   + Compiler "working" again under useithreads
   + byte mode chop() clears utf8-ness properly (Gisle Aas)
   + glob() takes one or no user arguments and a non-user-visible second
     hidden argument, fix its prototype-checking accordingly
   + support for C++ exceptions is now a build-time option (avoids
     problems due to perl_run() longjmping out)
   + IO::Socket now sets $!, avoids eval/die (patch Graham Barr
     modified to use Errno more portably)
                                               **FAILS TESTS on Digital UNIX**
   + fix bug in backtracking optimizer (Makoto Ishisone)
   + longstanding bug in parsing "require VERSION", could reallocate
     current line and not know it; exposed by change#5004; manifested
     as parse failure of C<{require 5.003}>
   + formline() could wipe out readonly-ness, freeing constants
     prematurely, or affect cloning of pad constants
   + $!{ENOTHERE} doesn't fail anymore
   + POSIX::strftime got the date wrong (John Tobey)
   + make comparisons promote to utf8 as necessary (Gisle Aas)
   + set close-on-exec flag on sockets too, like we do for files
     and pipes
   + allocate sufficient buffer sizes for 64-bit wide utf8 characters
     permitted by change#5011 (Gisle Aas)
   + make /\S/ match the same things /[\S]/ matches; likewise for
     \D (Rick Delaney)
   + UNIVERSAL::can and UNIVERSAL::isa should return undef when
     given undefined values (Graham Barr)
   + avoid accidental #line directives (Rick Delaney)
   + fix misoptimization of C<my($x,$y); $x = $y = 1 + $z;> (Ilya
     Zakharevich)
   + fix leaks in *DBM_File; safemalloc()ed things need to be freed with
     safefree() rather than Safefree()
   + fix memory leak in C<$x = *Y>
   + avoid reading out-of-bounds memory when matching against reference
   + fix uninitialized memory reads found by purify
   + fix small interpreter leaks identified by Purify

Features:

   + default mkdir() mode argument to 0777
   + optimize pseudohash slice into array slice (John Tobey)
   + provide malloc stats via get_mstats() (Ilya Zakharevich)

Modules:

   + rename byte:: to bytes::
   + PodParser-1.093 update (Brad Appleton)
   + fixes for Pod::Html issues (Wolfgang Laun)
   + Fcntl has more available constants (Jarkko Hietaniemi)
                                             **GENERATES WARNINGS WITH POSIX**
   + Compiler fixups (Jan Dubois)
   + add XS version of Sys::Hostname (Greg Bacon)
   + more complete File::Spec support for Mac+VMS, tests (Barrie Slaymaker)

Ports:

   + Solaris 7 64-bit support (Alan Burlison)
   + dos-djgpp updates (Laszlo Molnar)
   + EPOC port update (Olaf Flebbe)
   + don't blindly set bool=char on linux (Andy Dougherty)
   + some rearrangement of the includes for easier "microperl" build;
     add PERL_MICRO guards (Simon Cozens)
   + HP-UX 64-bitness/largefile fixes. (Jeff Okamoto and Jarkko Hietaniemi)
   + avoid $@-clearing sideeffect of require in Carp
   + 64-bit updates; uselonglong is gone (Jarkko Hietaniemi)
   + Windows fixes for virtualizing child std{in,out,err} handles,
     attempts to lock uninitialized critical section in files that
     were never explicitly opened (Doug Lankshear)
   + Windows bugfixes for virtual directories under USE_ITHREADS:
     allows path mapping to unknown devices to work properly;
     special file names like CONOUT$ can be opened with sysopen()
     again
   + fix AIX and multiplicity problems (Jarkko Hietaniemi)
   + Configure probes for more functions (Jarkko Hietaniemi)

Utilities:

   + allow optional XSUB parameters without being forced to use a
     default, via C<arg = NO_INIT> (Hugo van der Sanden)
   + various xsubpp enhancements that make it easier to use with
     C::Scan (Ilya Zakharevich)
                                                       **NEEDS DOCUMENTATION**

Documentation:

   + README.vms and related updates (Peter Prymmer)
   + document behavior of splice(@ary) (Gisle Aas)
   + revise docs on @+ and @- (Tom Christiansen)
   + Todo-5.6 added
   + notes about running Purify

With all that, I believe we're in the home stretch for the 5.6 release.
I'd like to stress that my canonical release date continues to be Feb 29.
At worst, I'd like to have put out a release candidate by then, with
perhaps one or two days of time for reining in eleventh-hour issues.

It is important for me to hit that deadline this time, because I have
various other commitments that I badly need to focus on afterwards.  I do
believe we'll have everything on hand except perhaps for the utf8 stuff.
If we don't get that settled right, we may have to suffer it the dread
"experimental" status and see how it fares between 5.6 and the next major
release.  Which could well be 6.0, if I've been hearing Larry's mumblings
right.  We'll see.

Here are the things that are still missing:

   - I/O disciplines
   - thread-safe REs
   - utf8-polymorphism in RE engine
   - documentation once-over
   - v-strings are still missing some syntax sugar
   - Configure and MakeMaker loose ends for sitelib et al.
   - Unicode::Map8 integration?

I promise all of you a busy week. :-)


	`Hi!  Nob!' he shouted.  `Where are you, you wolly-footed slow-
	coach?  Nob!'

	`Coming, sir!  Coming!'  A cheery-looking hobbit bobbed out of a
	door, and seeing the travellers, stopped short and stared at them
	with great interest.

	`Where's Bob?' asked the landlord.  `You don't know?  Well find
	him!  Double sharp!  I haven't got six legs, nor six eyes neither!
	Tell Bob there's five ponies that have to be stabled.  He must
	find room somehow.'  Nob trotted off with a grin and a wink.

				     --At the Sign of the Prancing Pony,
				       LOTR I, J R R Tolkien

Enjoy,


Sarathy
gsar@ActiveState.com

P.S: If you see warnings.t fail with a memory overwrite or similar, you'd
want to apply this.
-----------------------------------8<-----------------------------------
--- perl/toke.c.~1~	Tue Feb 22 09:54:06 2000
+++ perl/toke.c	Tue Feb 22 09:54:06 2000
@@ -1298,9 +1298,9 @@
 	   (void)utf8_to_uv((U8*)s, &len);
 	   if (len == 1) {
 	       /* illegal UTF8, make it valid */
-	       /* need to grow with 1 char to be safe */
 	       char *old_pvx = SvPVX(sv);
-	       d = SvGROW(sv, SvCUR(sv)+2) + (d - old_pvx);
+	       /* need space for one extra char (NOTE: SvCUR() not set here) */
+	       d = SvGROW(sv, SvLEN(sv) + 1) + (d - old_pvx);
 	       d = (char*)uv_to_utf8((U8*)d, (U8)*s++);
 	   }
 	   else {
End of Patch.

• beta2 is available by Gurusamy Sarathy
• Re: beta2 is available by Jean-Louis Leroy
• Re: beta2 is available by Alan Burlison