A new version of Perl open source scripting language – 5.10 has been released after almost five years since the last one came out.

5.10 adds language features and improves the Perl interpreter itself. Perl is used in web application development. According to Infoworld a key feature in the version is a smart match operator, which will compare variables in an array and makes it easier for programmers to perform functions such as finding an element in an array or an element in a hash. Also featured is a switch statement capability.

“Also included in version 5.10 is state variables allowing variables to persist between calls to subroutines. User-defined pragmata allows users to write modules to influence the way way Perl behaves. Better error messages are highlighted as well”, reports Inforworld’s website.

The reviews also say that Perl interpreter in this version is faster and has a smaller memory footprint. The installation of Perl can be relocated, which benefits systems administrators and operating system packagers.

Other features include:

• defined-or operator that relates to how Perl keeps track of true or false statements
• field hashes for inside-out objects, for implementing data-hiding in Perl

Perl community celebrated this year 20 years of Perl release.