Fri May 17 22:48:59 BST 2002 Nicholas Clark Version 2.0, binary format 2.5 (but writes format 2.4 on pre 5.7.3) The perl5 porters have decided to make sure that Storable still builds on pre-5.8 perls, and make the 5.8 version available on CPAN. The VERSION is now 2.0, and it passes all tests on 5.005_03, 5.6.1 and 5.6.1 with threads. On 5.6.0 t/downgrade.t fails tests 34 and 37, due to a bug in 5.6.0 - upgrade to 5.6.1. Jarkko and I have collated the list of changes the perl5 porters have from the perl5 Changes file: - data features of upcoming perl 5.8.0 are supported: Unicode hash keys (Unicode hash values have been supported since Storable 1.0.1) and "restricted hashes" (readonly hashes and hash entries) - a newer version of perl can now be used to serialize data which is not supported in earlier perls: Storable will attempt to do the right thing for as long as possible, croaking only when safe data conversion simply isn't possible. Alternatively earlier perls can opt to have a lossy downgrade data instead of croaking - when built with perls pre 5.7.3 this Storable writes out files with binary format 2.4, the same format as Storable 1.0.8 onwards. This should mean that this Storable will inter-operate seamlessly with any Storable 1.0.8 or newer on perls pre 5.7.3 - dclone() now works with empty string scalar objects - retrieving of large hashes is now more efficient - more routines autosplit out of the main module, so Storable should load slightly more quickly - better documentation - the internal context objects are now freed explicitly, rather than relying on thread or process exit - bugs fixed in debugging trace code affecting builds made with 64 bit IVs - code tidy-ups to allow clean compiles with more warning options turned on avoid problems with $@ getting corrupted on 5.005_03 if Carp wasn't already loaded - added &show_file_magic, so you can add to /etc/magic and teach Unix's file command about Storable files We plan to keep Storable on CPAN in sync with the Perl core, so if you encounter bugs or other problems building or using Storable, please let us know at perl5-porters@perl.org Patches welcome!