perl bug fix update

Updated perl packages are available.

Perl is a high-level programming language with roots in C, sed, awk and
shell scripting. Perl is particularly useful at handling processes and
files, and is especially good at handling text.

This update resolves the following issues:

* the Alias.pm module contained an error in a regular expression used
internally; any script requiring the module would fail with a range error.
The error is now corrected with this release, letting
scripts use this module successfully. (BZ#203357)

* libnet.cfg is the configuration file for the Lib::Net module, and
controls whether CPAN requests use active or passive FTP. During
installation on 64-bit platforms, this file was placed in
/usr/lib64/perl5/5.8.5/Net instead of /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.5/Net. As a
result, the contents of the file would have no effect on FTP. The spec file
has been updated to make sure that the file is placed in the correct
directory during installation. (BZ#227655)

* concurrent threads may share the one CV object, which is not marked
permanent. Previously, the refcount for this object was not locked before
incrementing it. This could result in the object being freed prematurely,
at which point perl would crash during a closure and report a memory access
failure. A patch has been included from upstream that locks the CV object
before incrementing it, and unlocks it afterwards. This avoids the issue;
as such, a closure while using concurrent threads will not cause this
crash. (BZ#427343)

* previously, when concurrent threads used shared array variables, the
FETCH code could leak a shared RV address into a private SV when using a
foreach loop. This would result in a segmentation fault. A patch has been
included from upstream that identifies and handles RVs separately. Shared
array variables can now be used in concurrent threads without causing this
crash. (BZ#427523)

* a syntax error in the instmodsh script prevented it from starting and the
script would exit with an error message. The error in instmodsh has been
corrected in the version provided with this advisory, and the script now
runs as expected. (BZ#432880)

* the @INC array is a list of directories that Perl searches when loading
modules. The perl package for Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports the
inclusion of a large number of directories in the @INC array. This allows
end-users upgrading from legacy versions of perl to continue using existing
installed modules. The @INC array is initiated each time the perl
interpreter starts; at that moment, only the directories that do actually
exist on the system should be inserted into the @INC array. However,
patches used in previous build of perl disabled this function, meaning that
the @INC array would contain all the candidate directories. An @INC array
containing too many members has a negative impact on the performance of the
perl interpreter, and produces unnecessarily long error
messages. The patches that caused the problem have been replaced in this
update, avoiding this issue. (BZ#456566)

* Perl failed to allow for situations where a user might present it with a
regular expression encoded in ISO-8859-1 together with a string encoded in
UTF-8. In this situation, perl would produce a spurious error message
concerning a "Malformed UTF-8 character". This update includes a patch that
corrects this issue. Perl now converts the regular expression internally
into UTF-8, thereby avoiding the problem. (BZ#467164)

All perl users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages.

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

203357 - buggy regexp in perl5/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi/Encode/Alias.pm causes warning
227655 - libnet.cfg in wrong directory
432880 - the command instmodsh for the newest perl install is not working
456566 - @INC path too large

PERL, perl