"Perl Programmers Reference Guide (англ.) (программ.) /19.12.1998/ " - читать интересную книгу автора

program exits. As a degenerate case they work just
like awk's BEGIN and END when you use the ----pppp or ----nnnn
switches.

+o Multiple simultaneous DBM implementations
A Perl program may now access DBM, NDBM, SDBM, GDBM,
and Berkeley DB files from the same script
simultaneously. In fact, the old dbmopen interface



4 perl 5.005, patch 02 22/Jul/98





PERL(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERL(1)


has been generalized to allow any variable to be tied
to an object class which defines its access methods.

+o Subroutine definitions may now be autoloaded
In fact, the AUTOLOAD mechanism also allows you to
define any arbitrary semantics for undefined
subroutine calls. It's not for just autoloading.

+o Regular expression enhancements
You can now specify nongreedy quantifiers. You can
now do grouping without creating a backreference.
You can now write regular expressions with embedded
whitespace and comments for readability. A
consistent extensibility mechanism has been added
that is upwardly compatible with all old regular
expressions.

+o Innumerable Unbundled Modules
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network described in
the _p_e_r_l_m_o_d_l_i_b manpage contains hundreds of plug-and-
play modules full of reusable code. See
_h_t_t_p_:_/_/_w_w_w_._p_e_r_l_._c_o_m_/_C_P_A_N for a site near you.

+o Compilability
While not yet in full production mode, a working
perl-to-C compiler does exist. It can generate
portable byte code, simple C, or optimized C code.

Okay, that's _d_e_f_i_n_i_t_e_l_y enough hype.