Perl v5.24 adds a linebreak word boundary, \b{lb}, to go along the new word boundaries added in v5.22. This is part of Perl’s increasing conformance with the regular expression requirements in Unicode Technical Standard #18. The Unicode::LineBreak implements the same thing, although you have to do a lot more work. Continue reading “Perl v5.24 adds a line break word boundary”
Category: 5.24
Lexical $_ and autoderef are gone in v5.24
Two features that I have previously discouraged are now gone from Perl. The lexical $_ and auto dereferencing.
The lexical $_ was a consequence of the way Perl wanted smart match to work. In a given-when, instead of aliasing $_ like foreach does, the block had an implicit my $_ = .... This interfered with the package version, as I wrote about in Use for() instead of given() and Perl v5.16 now sets proper magic on lexical $_. Continue reading “Lexical $_ and autoderef are gone in v5.24”
Postfix dereferencing is stable is v5.24
Perl’s dereferencing syntax might be, or even should be, responsible for people’s disgust at the language. In v5.20, Perl added the experimental postfix dereferencing syntax that made this analogous to method chaining. This is one of the most pleasing Perl features I’ve encountered in years. Continue reading “Postfix dereferencing is stable is v5.24”
Perl v5.24 new features
Perl v5.24 may not look like it’s packed full of exciting features (indeed, it removes some of them) but it has lots of improvements under the hood. Here’s some of the user-visible features you might like. Continue reading “Perl v5.24 new features”