new features – Page 2 – The Effective Perler

Perl 5.16 new features

The Perl 5 Porters are currently working on Perl 5.15, the development track that will end up as Perl 5.16. By reading the perldelta515* documentation, you can get a peek at what will mostly likely be in the next maintenance version of Perl. You need to read each of the perldelta5* in a development series because they only document the changes in to the previous development release, not the cumulative changes since the last major release.

We’ll cover these features, although we might have to stretch some of the posts a bit since some of these aren’t that radical:

Perl v5.16 now sets proper magic on lexical $_
__SUB__ returns a reference to the current subroutine
Proper case folding with fc and \F
Look up Unicode properties with an inversion map
CORE:: works on all keywords
continue no longer requires the “switch” feature
$$ is no longer read-only
\N{...} can now have Unicode loose name matching
Features inside the debugger
Breakpoints with file names

Use the \N regex character class to get “not a newline”

Perl 5.12 introduced an experimental regex character class to stand in for every character except one, the newline. The \N character class is everything but the newline.

In prior versions of Perl, this is the same thing as the . meta character. That is, it’s the same as long as someone doesn’t add the /s to the match or substitution operator or the regex quoting operator, or doesn’t insert the option inside the pattern: Continue reading “Use the \N regex character class to get “not a newline””

Use when() as a statement modifier

Perl 5.10 introduced the given-when statement, and Perl 5.12 refines it slightly by letting you use the when as a statement modifier. A statement modifier puts the conditional expression at the end of the statement (see perlsyn). You’ve probably already used many of these: Continue reading “Use when() as a statement modifier”

Perl 5.14 new features

The Perl 5 Porters released 5.14. By reading the perldelta51[34]* documentation, you can see what’s new in this maintenance version of Perl. David Golden, one of the Perl 5.13 release managers, put together what he’s calling the perldeltadelta, which is just the most interesting bits of the longish perl*delta files for Perl 5.13, the experimental track that led up to Perl 5.14. He’s covered most of the interesting bits. Continue reading “Perl 5.14 new features”

Perl 5.10 new features

Perl 5.10 introduced many new features that had built up over the years. Some of these we covered in the book, but we’ll cover some of those that we neglected. It might take us some time to get around to them all, but we’ll eventually make it. If you want to read about some sooner than others, let us know. Continue reading “Perl 5.10 new features”

Perl 5.8 features

Perl 5.8, mostly a release that improved much of the unseen things in Perl, did have some notable, user-visible features.

Restricted hashes with Hash::Util (5.8.0)
Use sitecustomize.pl to affect all programs (5.8.7)
PerlIO is now the default (5.8.0)