From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 6 19:26:08 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA61B16A4CE for ; Wed, 6 Oct 2004 19:26:08 +0000 (GMT) Received: from hotmail.com (bay15-f24.bay15.hotmail.com [65.54.185.24]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9577C43D2F for ; Wed, 6 Oct 2004 19:26:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ryannewman47@hotmail.com) Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:26:03 -0700 Received: from 198.93.75.2 by by15fd.bay15.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Wed, 06 Oct 2004 19:25:44 GMT X-Originating-IP: [198.93.75.2] X-Originating-Email: [ryannewman47@hotmail.com] X-Sender: ryannewman47@hotmail.com From: "Ryan Newman" To: drosih@rpi.edu, rainer@ultra-secure.de Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 19:25:44 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 06 Oct 2004 19:26:03.0705 (UTC) FILETIME=[51D06A90:01C4ABDA] cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: perl 5.8.5 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 19:26:08 -0000 >From: Garance A Drosihn >To: "Ryan Newman" , rainer@ultra-secure.de >CC: current@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: perl 5.8.5 >Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 15:12:00 -0400 > >At 6:51 PM +0000 10/6/04, Ryan Newman wrote: >>>From: Rainer Duffner >>> >>>Is there actually anything that doesn't work with 5.8 but does >>>work with 5.6? >> >>The biggest problem is that 5.8 defaults to unicode support which >>ends up breaking a lot of complex applications. I know that linux >>has shifted from 5.6 to 5.8 and this has caused a lot of people >>problems on the linux platform. > >Here at work we are in the process of upgrading some older Linux >systems to a newer release of Redhat, and we have been nailed by >these unicode-related bugs in perl, particularly with some regexp >patterns. In some cases this has caused a few scripts to fail >in subtle ways, which is to say the script "succeeds" and claims >everything went just fine, but the script didn't actually do what >it was supposed to do, and what it had been doing for the past >few years. In at least some of those cases, I think these are >BUGS in the way perl handles the expression, and not "unavoidable >consequences of Unicode support". That's just my opinion, though. > >I don't know if perl 5.8 on FreeBSD will cause the same issues. >I have the impression that the default for unicode-handling can >be changed on a system-wide basis (at least on Redhat), but I am >not sure of the details. > >Even though I have hit some of these problems, I do think it is a >good idea to make the change to 5.8 as part of FreeBSD 5.3-release. >People should be taking a bit more time to check, cross-check, and >re-check everything they are running if they are upgrading to >5.3-release from 4.x-release. > Having 5.3 default to perl 5.8 will add a lot of delay in several peoples migration from 4.x for sure. _________________________________________________________________ Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/