| What | A New Perl Release |
| Version | 5.002 |
| Who | a lot of people |
| Where | Download or see CPAN |
| What |
Perl 5.002 is released. (It was actually released on February 29th, but
we had a little mixup about getting the word out.)
Read the INSTALL file before installing the software! It will answer
most of your questions. If you still have problems after following the
advice therein read the hints file for your OS (if there is one). The
hints files are in the hints subdirectory of the source tree. If that
doesn't help contact the Perl5 Porters by sending mail to
perl5-porters@nicoh.com.
Among the differences between this release and 5.001m are:
- Lots and lots of bugs were fixed. Doubtless new bugs were
introduced, but with any luck the bug population took a big net hit.
- The biggest new feature in the Perl core with this release is that
of subroutine prototypes. See the perlsub(1) man page for details.
- The documentation has been greatly expanded and enhanced, both for
the core and for the standard libraries. 5.002 contains about twice
as much documentation as 5.001m had. All of the standard libraries
have man pages now.
- A couple of new functions were added to the core (tied() and
sysopen()).
- Some new command line switches are supported by the perl binary (-h,
-m, -M, -V, -V:name and the :debugger part of -d:debugger), see
perlrun(1).
- A number of new standard modules were added, including
Devel::SelfStubber
DirHandle
File::Copy
FileCache
Pod::Text
Safe
SelectSaver
SelfLoader
Symbol
Text::Wrap
Tie::Scalar
diagnostics
overload
vars
See the individual man pages for details.
- A number of modules were greatly enhanced. (The FileHandle module
is definitely worth revisiting.)
- Some modules were renamed.
is now
------
TieHash Tie::Hash
SubstrHash Tie::SubstrHash
(We meant to leave stubs in place of the old names for these
(explaining where they went), but that slipped through the cracks.)
- The standard @INC path has been restructured a bit. The
architecture-dependant directory is now named after the version of
Perl it's meant to work with (/usr/local/lib/perl5/$arch/5.002, eg).
An additional architecture-dependant directory has been added under
site_perl (/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$arch). Locally installed
modules now install into site_perl by default.
- A new standard sub-version number has been added so we can
circumvent "official unofficial" release numbers in the future,
beloved though they were. Subversions will be numbered like
5.002_01; `require 5.002_01' works as you'd expect (failing for
5.002, succeeding for 5.002_01, 5.002_23 and 5.003).
- Signal handlers installed via %SIG are now installed using
sigaction() on all platforms which support it.
Availability for non-Unix platforms:
- VMS: The standard distribution contains support for VMS, but due to
a last-minute glitch you can't use 5.002 as distributed. Sorry
about that. The 5.002_01 development release (coming soon) will
support VMS. It will be found on CPAN in the src/5.0/unsupported
directory.
- OS/2: 5.002 builds on OS/2. Read the files in the os2/ directory
of the distribution.
- Windows 95 and Windows NT: The most current version of Perl for
your system is still based on 5.001m, unfortunately. See
http://www.perl.hip.com
for more info.
- Mac, DOS, Windows 3.1 and Amiga: Perl 5.002 isn't available for any
of these platforms yet. Watch comp.lang.perl.announce for
availability.
The 5.002 distribution file is 1544222 bytes big. The MD5 hash of it is
MD5(perl5.002.tar.gz): 2c76296aee35a98451110d3d985cae65
. You can download it from
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0/perl5.002.tar.gz
, this will actually connect you to a CPAN site near you (for some
definition of near) (Thanks, Tom!). If you want to do it the old
fashioned way it's in the file
src/5.0/perl5.002.tar.gz
at all the CPAN sites. (CPAN is the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network.) The currently registered CPAN sites are
Africa
South Africa
ftp://ftp.is.co.za/programming/perl/CPAN/
Asia
Japan
ftp://ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp/lang/perl/CPAN/
Taiwan
ftp://dongpo.math.ncu.edu.tw/perl/CPAN/
Australasia
Australia
ftp://coombs.anu.edu.au/pub/perl/CPAN/
ftp://ftp.mame.mu.oz.au/pub/perl/CPAN/
New Zealand
ftp://ftp.tekotago.ac.nz/pub/perl/CPAN/
Canada
British Columbia
ftp://mango.pinc.com/pub/mirrors/CPAN/
Europe
Austria
ftp://ftp.tuwien.ac.at/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
Czech Republic
ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/MIRRORS/ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
Denmark
ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
Finland
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
France
ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/perl/CPAN/
ftp://ftp.pasteur.fr/pub/computing/unix/perl/CPAN/
Germany
ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/programming/languages/perl/CPAN/
ftp://ftp.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pub/CPAN/
Greece
ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/lang/perl/
Poland
ftp://ftp.pk.edu.pl/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/
Portugal
ftp://ftp.ci.uminho.pt/pub/lang/perl/
Slovenia
ftp://ftp.arnes.si/software/perl/CPAN/
Spain
ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/CPAN/
Sweden
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/
Switzerland
ftp://ftp.switch.ch/mirror/CPAN/
the Netherlands
ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/Perl/CPAN/
UK
ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/perl/CPAN/
ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/perl-CPAN/
USA
California
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/perl/CPAN/
Florida
ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/
Illinois
ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/
Massachusetts
ftp://ftp.delphi.com/pub/mirrors/packages/perl/CPAN/
Oklahoma
ftp://ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/CPAN/
Texas
ftp://ftp.metronet.com/pub/perl/
ftp://ftp.sedl.org/pub/mirrors/CPAN/
ftp://ftp.sterling.com/CPAN/
A note about the next release: 5.002_01 and above will enable EMBED by
default. This will break binary compatibility with 5.001m and 5.002.
This means that when you install 5.002_01 you'll have to recompile all
your locally installed dynamically loadable modules. We're going to try
to make that the last time that recompiling modules will be necessary
for a while.
|
| What | MiniVend - A Shopping Cart System |
| Version | .02 |
| Who | Andrew Wilcox and Mike Heins |
| Where | Vend Home Page |
| Comments | MiniVend is part of what makes the net, Perl, and freeware communities great. It is a full featured system, rivaling any commercial product. It's well done and well thought out. Just amazing. |
| What | See the home pages. All the information is there. |
| What | Gann Perl Generic Neural Networks Module |
| Version | 0.01 |
| Who | Tuomas J. Lukka, Tuomas.Lukka@Helsinki.FI |
| Where | Download or see CPAN |
| What |
This purpose of this message is to announce the availability of
Gann version 0.01, a copylefted artificial neural network simulator.
Unlike Version 0.00, Version 0.01 is already almost usable.
Therefore, Gann can be considered alpha software from now on.
However, even though the documentation is there, there are
lots of things still missing.
The purpose of announcing Gann at this early stage is to solicit
comments on the programming and user interfaces to the simulator.
Currently, Gann only contains routines to do back-propagation with
gradient descent or momentum descent. However, the interfaces are
very generic and adding new algorithms is very easy.
Gann is copylefted, see the file COPYING in the distribution for details.
What's new?
- Graphical user interface, requires Tk-b9.01 (available from CPAN)
see http://www.helsinki.fi/~lukka/gann.html for screen shots.
- Nomenclature: Changed all package names to be under Math::Neural.
- Convergence detection in minimization.
- Temporal difference algorithm (TD(lambda))
- Bug fixes
Gann is implemented as a Perl module using C++ for the speed-critical
parts and Perl for everything else, for maximum flexibility.
You need perl version 5.002b2 or higher (perl 5.001 is rumoured to work but..).
The package contains an example program demonstrating the learning
of the 'xor' function.
If you are interested in seeing the package developed in a certain
direction, please send me email. I'm especially interested in comments
about the following issues
- What is good and what is bad about the current interfaces in Gann
- What other net types than backprop should I include?
(for example, Kohonen etc. Which types of nets are currently
'hot' and which are not so interesting)
- What minimization algorithms should I include, what algorithms
do you have good and/or bad experiences with?
If possible, please include references to publications, or code
on the net.
I'd like to make Gann a general grab-bag of neural network algorithms
containing well-documented code and examples for any algorithms
one might want to use, implemented in an object-oriented fashion to encourage
reuse and interesting multi-network experiments.
The next revision will probably happen in a few weeks, after
I've had time to consider the shape of the interface based on the
comments obtained about this version.
In the future, I intend to keep the release rate high in order to make
new code and network types accessible as fast as possible.
|
| PerlShop | PerlShop is an easy to use CGI shopping cart script written in perl. It is very close to free as the web page will explain. |
| What | Biological sequence handling subroutines. |
| Version | |
| Who | jong@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk |
| Where | ftp.mrc-cpe.cam.ac.uk /pub/jong/perl |
| What |
|
| What | Getopt::Long |
| Version | 2.3 |
| Who | jvromans@squirrel.nl (Johan Vromans) |
| Where | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Johan_Vromans or CPAN |
| What |
Version 2.3beta2 of module Getopt::Long is now available via CPAN. It
should soon appear in directory authors/Johan_Vromans as file
GetoptLong-2.3b2.tar.gz.
Module Getopt::Long implements an extended getopt function called
GetOptions(). This function implements the POSIX standard for command
line options, with GNU extensions, while still capable of handling
the traditional one-letter options.
The kit contains:
README -- Introductionary text
GetoptLong.pm -- version 2.3b2 of Getopt::Long (subroutine GetOptions)
newgetopt.pl -- version 1.15 of newgetopt.pl (subroutine NGetOpt)
Makefile.PL -- Makefile for installation
skel.pl -- Skeleton program to use Getopt::Long
The README document is attached to this message.
The best way to download from CPAN is to use a Web browser and point
it to http://www.perl.com/CPAN It will automagically be redirected to
a CPAN site in your neighborhood.
URL: http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Johan_Vromans
New features in this version
----------------------------
* Support for single-letter command line options and bundling of these
options.
---- README ----
Module Getopt::Long - extended processing of command line options
=================================================================
Module Getopt::Long implements an extended getopt function called
GetOptions(). This function implements the POSIX standard for command
line options, with GNU extensions, while still capable of handling
the traditional one-letter options.
In general, this means that command line options can have long names
instead of single letters, and are introduced with a double dash `--'.
Optionally, Getopt::Long can support the traditional bundling of
single-letter command line options.
Getopt::Long::GetOptions() comes with the Perl 5 distribution. It is
the successor of newgetopt.pl that came with Perl 4. It is fully
upward compatible. In fact, the Perl 5 version of newgetopt.pl is just
a wrapper around the module.
* Long option names
Major advantage of using long option names is that it is much easier
to memorize the option names. Using single-letter names one quickly
runs into the problem that there is no logical relationship between
the semantics of the selected option and its option letter.
Disadvantage is that it requires more typing. Getopt::Long provides
for option name abbreviation, so option names may be abbreviated to
uniqueness. Also, modern shells like Cornell's tcsh support option
name completion. As a rule of thumb, you can use abbreviations freely
while running commands interactively but always use the full names in
scripts.
Examples (POSIX):
--long --width=80 --height=24
Extensions:
-long (convenience) +width=80 (deprecated) -height 24 (traditional)
By default, long option names are case insensitive.
* Single-letter options and bundling
When single-letter options are requested, Getopt::Long allows the
option names to be bundled, e.g. "-abc" is equivalent to "-a -b -c".
In this case, long option names must be introduced with the POSIX "--"
introducer.
Examples:
-lgAd (bundle) -xw 80 (bundle, w takes a value) -xw80 (same)
By default, single-letter option names are case sensitive.
* Flexibility:
- options can have alternative names, using an alternative name
will behave as if the primary name was used;
- options can be negatable, e.g. "debug" will switch it on, while
"nodebug" will switch it off.
- options can set values, but also add values producing an array
of values instead of a single scalar value.
* Options linkage
Using Getopt::Long gives the programmer ultimate control over the
command line options and how they must be handled:
- by setting a global variable in the calling program;
- by setting a specified variable;
- by entering the option name and the value in an associative array
(hash);
- by calling a user-specified subroutine with the option name and
the value as arguments;
- combinations of the above.
* Customization:
A couple of configuration variables can be used to activate (or
de-activate) specific behavior:
- $Getopt::Long::autoabbrev
Allow option names to be abbreviated to uniqueness.
Default is 1 unless environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT
has been set.
- $Getopt::Long::getopt_compat
Allow '+' to start options.
Default is 1 unless environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT
has been set.
- $Getopt::Long::order
Whether non-options are allowed to be mixed with options.
Default is $REQUIRE_ORDER if environment variable
POSIXLY_CORRECT has been set, $PERMUTE otherwise.
$PERMUTE means that
-foo arg1 -bar arg2 arg3
is equivalent to
-foo -bar arg1 arg2 arg3
(provided -foo does not take an argument value).
If $Getopt::Long::order is $REQUIRE_ORDER, options processing
terminates when the first non-option is encountered.
-foo arg1 -bar arg2 arg3
is equivalent to
-foo -- arg1 -bar arg2 arg3
- $Getopt::Long::bundling
Setting this variable to a non-zero value will allow
single-character options to be bundled. To distinguish bundles
from long option names, long options must be introduced with
"--" and single-character options (and bundles) with "-".
- $Getopt::Long::ignorecase
Ignore case when matching options. Default is 1. When bundling
is in effect, case is ignored on single-character options only
if $Getopt::Long::ignorecase is greater than 1.
- $Getopt::Long::error
Internal error flag. May be incremented from a call-back
routine to cause options parsing to fail.
- $Getopt::Long::debug
Enable copious debugging output. Default is 0.
* Availability
The official version for module Getopt::Long comes with the Perl 5
distribution.
Newer versions will be made available on the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network (CPAN), see "http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Johan_Vromans".
|