Help make Perl 5.12 better by testing perl-5.12.0-RC3

Jesse Vincent uploaded the perl-5.12.0-RC3 release to the CPAN. It's important that that this release is tested to flag any potential release blockers. If none are found it'll be released as 5.12 on April 9.

Here's how you can do that:

All tests should have been successful. To install it (without touching your existing perl!) do:

Now you have an installed perl-5.12.0-RC3 in ~/perl5-rc3/installed/bin/perl. Now just configure CPAN to install modules without nagging:

And then maybe try installing your favorite CPAN modules, or bundles that suck down a lot of them (using sudo here because my ~/.cpan is owned by root):

Of course the most useful think you can do is test it on your own in-house code. All the code on the CPAN has probably been tested with 5.12 already.

If you encounter any issues first check if they're listed in the errata or mentioned in the perldelta for 5.12.

if you think you've found a new bug please report it with the perlbug tool installed with perl-5.12.0-RC3.

5 Comments

Hey Avar,

thanks for writing up the instructions in a way that's accessible for everyone. Getting the release candidates tested well with as much Perl code as possible (i.e. not only "make test") is a really important step towards a good new release.

--Steffen

Alternatively, install perlbrew (http://search.cpan.org/dist/App-perlbrew) and installing is as simple as:

perlbrew install perl-5.12.0-RC3
This also lets you easily switch between different versions.

Off-topic: the way you included the gists here, by using <script> tags with no fallback, means the code does not show up – at all – for those reading the newsfeed.

No sane feed reader is going to run scripts, and most scrub out any CSS.

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About Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

user-pic Blogging about anything Perl-related I get up to.