11 days ago
- Perl v5.44.0 introduces named parameters in subroutine signatures, allowing parameters to be passed by name/value pairs.
- Multi-variable foreach loops can now use aliased references, combining reference aliases with multiple iteration variables.
- Enhanced /xx regular expression modifier allows bracketed character classes to extend across multiple lines and contain comments.
- Unicode 17.0 support is added, and PRNG seeding now uses getentropy() system call for improved entropy sourcing.
- Multiple security vulnerabilities fixed, including buffer overflows in Perl_study_chunk, S_measure_struct, and regex trie optimization.
- Unicode rules are now fully enforced on identifiers and regex group names, disallowing characters that match \w but not XID properties.
- Deprecations include using goto to jump into loops and unescaped # or vertical space in /xx bracketed character classes.
- Performance enhancements include faster integer arithmetic and hash population from constant key/value pairs.
- Many core modules updated, including Archive::Tar, Encode, and IO::Compress, with security fixes for several CVEs.
- Documentation improvements, new diagnostics, and internal API changes, such as new functions for numeric comparison and UTF-8 handling.