Subject: RE: Updated: perl-5.8.0-4
From: "Tony Arnold" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: "'The Cygwin Mailing List'" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 10:47:46 +0100

I'm confused! My current version of perl is 5.8.1-1 and yet this update is a
lower version of 5.8.0-4! I can only assume I've installed a test version at
some time. Should I stay with 5.8.1-1 or revert/update to 5.8.0-4?

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, Deputy to the Head of COS Division, Manchester Computing,
University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E-mail: [email-masked], Home: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Gerrit P. Haase
> Sent: 29 August 2003 10:06
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Updated: perl-5.8.0-4
> 
> 
> perl-5.8.0-4 release has been uploaded to sourceware
>                    -- it should be on the mirrors soon.
> 
> New in this release:
> 
> - This is a bugfix release.
> - Fixed a binmode() issue.  Building recent version of Cygwin should
>   be possible with this release.  Many thanks to Don Slutz 
> who provided
>   a patch and a testsuite for this bug.
> - Some modules updated to latest.
> - *DBM modules linked against libgdbm3 now.
> - New FHS layout.
> - Try `instmodsh`
> 
> 
> THIS IS A REAL NEW PERL RELEASE THAT IS BINARY INCOMPATIBLE 
> WITH ANY PREVIOUS PERL RELEASE.  THIS MEANS THAT YOUR OLD 
> EXTENSIONS (.xs code, those Perl modules requiring a C 
> compiler) WILL NOT WORK AND WILL HAVE TO BE RECOMPILED.  
> (Pure Perl modules should continue working.)
> 
> 
> NOTES
> =====
> 
> Of course your installed perl-5.8.0 modules should continue 
> to work if you just upgrade to 5.8.0-4.
> 
> 
> README
> ------
> 
> A short document, perl-5.8.0.README is in 
> /usr/share/doc/Cygwin. The output of 'perl -V' gives some 
> infos about the compiletime and runtime settings of this perl binary.
> 
> 
> Setup.exe:
> ----------
> 
> Perl is in the category 'Interpreters'.  setup.exe will remove 
> perl-5.6.1-2 if you install perl-5.8.0-4.
> 
> 
> Modules:
> --------
> 
> To get a summary of all the modules you installed for 
> perl-5.6.1 you can use the CPAN module (before you install 
> perl-5.8.0), just start it as usual ($ /usr/bin/cpan) and 
> type in the CPAN shell:
> cpan> autobundle
> to get a snapshot of 'your own' perl installation.
> 
> To reinstall all the modules (after installing perl-5.8.0) type in the
> new CPAN shell:
> cpan> install Bundle::Snapshot_2002_07_29_00
> 
> 
> Different Perl versions:
> ------------------------
> 
> It is possible to use more than one perl.  To achieve this you cannot
> use setup.exe since it will remove perl-5.6.1 before it installs
> perl-5.8.0, so you'll need to install perl-5.8.0 or 
> perl-5.6.1 manually.
> 
> >From your scripts you can call the different perl versions now with
> perl5.6.1 or perl5.8.0, /usr/bin/perl will be the version you 
> installed 
> lastly (and also the scripts, so it is a good idea to install 
> perl-5.8.0
> after perl-5.6.1).
> 
> 
> 
> >From the official 'Perl 5.8.0 Release Announcement'
> ---------------------------------------------------
> 
> - New IO Implementation:
>   the new PerlIO implementation is both a portable stdio 
> implementation
>   (at the source code level) and a flexible new framework for richer
>   I/O behaviours
> 
> - Better Unicode Support:
>   Unicode support has been much enhanced since 5.6, at all levels:
>   - now supports Unicode 3.2.0 (5.6.1 supports 3.0.1)
>   - at the language (and internals) level Unicode support is
>     now more ubiquitous and robust
>   - regular expressions now work with Unicode
>   - support for non-Latin encodings (such as the various
>     Chinese/Japanese/Korean encodings) through the Encode module
> 
> - Better Numeric Accuracy:
>   previous Perls relied on vendors' string-to-number and back
>   routines which in some cases proved to be too much trust
>   leading to nonportable and wrong behaviours
> 
> - 64-bit support:
>   64-bit support is now considered to be mature -- if your platform
>   supports 64-bit integers or address space, you can compile Perl to
>   use those
> 
> - Safe Signals:
>   in previous versions of Perl signals could corrupt Perl's internal 
>   state
> 
> - Many New Modules:
>   Digest::MD5, File::Temp, Filter::Simple, libnet, List::Util,
>   Memoize, MIME::Base64, Scalar::Util, Storable, Switch,
>   Test::More, Test::Simple, Text::Balanced, Tie::File, ...
> 
> 
> Incompatibilities
> 
> - BINARY INCOMPATIBLE:
>   mainly because of the PerlIO introduction, Perl 5.8 is not
>   binary compatible with any earlier Perl release, XS MODULES
>   WILL HAVE TO BE RECOMPILED!
> 
> - Unicode Model Changed (no more "use utf8", almost)
>   In Perl 5.6 "Unicodeness" was lexically scoped to the operations;
>   in Perl 5.8 "Unicodeness" is bound to the data.  The only remaining
>   use of "use utf8" is when the Perl script itself is written in the
>   UTF-8 encoding of Unicode.
> 
> - This Cygwin Perl version is compiled without threads support, though
>   it is possible to compile Perl with internal threads on Cygwin it is
>   still experimental.
> 
> As always, you should conduct an appropriate level of testing before
> using any new product in your production environment.
> 
> 
> MAINTAINER:
> ===========
> Gerrit P. Haase, 2003-08-29
> 
> 
> GENERIC INFORMATION:
> 
> INSTALLATION:
> =============
> To update your installation, click on the "Install Cygwin now" link on
> the http://cygwin.com/ web page.  This downloads setup.exe to your
> system.  Save it and run setup, answer the questions and pick up
> 'perl' from the 'Interpreters' category.  The perl manpages are in a
> separate package called perl_manpages in the category 'Doc'.
> 
> Previous perl installed with setup.exe will be removed, but your
> custom modules won't be removed.  See 'Modules' and 'Different Perl
> versions' section in the 'NOTES' below for details about possibilities
> of custom installation.
> 
> 
> DOWNLOAD:
> =========
> Note that downloads from sources.redhat.com (aka cygwin.com) aren't
> allowed due to bandwidth limitations.  This means that you will need
> to find a mirror which has this update.
> 
> These mirrors already got the package, the others will probably have 
> the latest version of this package fairly soon:
> 
> In the US, 
>         ftp://planetmirror.com/pub/cygwin/ and
>         ftp://mirrors.rcn.net/mirrors/sources.redhat.com/cygwin/ 
> are reliable high bandwidth connection.
> 
> 
> QUESTIONS:
> ==========
> If you want to make a point or ask a question the Cygwin mailing
> list is the appropriate place.
> 
> 
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