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cog (4665)

cog
{cog} {at} {cpan.org}
http://jose-castro.org/
Yahoo! ID: jose_alves_castro (Add User, Send Message)

Internacional Man of Mystery.

Journal of cog (4665)

Thursday December 30, 2004

07:33 PM

Is this a bug in Perl?

[ #22513 ]

I can't do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict
print "Hello World\n"

but I can do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use integer
print "Hello World\n"

I can't do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Lingua::Identify
print "Hello World\n"

but I can do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Date::Easter
print "Hello World\n"

Exactly... what is going on around here? :-)

Preliminary testing seemed to reveal that the reason it would only work sometimes would be that it only worked when the module version number was equal or above 1 (see * in the bottom, for the reason), but there were exceptions (strict 1.03 not working and CPAN::Mini 0.20 working, for instance).

Finding the solution would probably involve looking into the modules, which I don't think I'm able to after the day I had :-)

This seems rather odd... :-)

* - a sample error:

Lingua::Identify version 1 required--this is only version 0.10 at usr/lib/perl5/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm line 121.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./script line 3.

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$title =~ s/Perl/perl/ (Score:1)

by cog (4665)

Subject says it all... O:-)
consult perldoc (Score:1)

by rjbs (4671)

One signature for use is "use Module VERSION"

You can use an expression for VERSION, even though the manual isn't crystal clear on that. A little testing goes a long way.

print returns 1 on success, so you're trying to use that module with version 1 or more.

--
rjbs
- Re:consult perldoc (Score:1)
  
  by cog (4665)
  
  That makes sense. Now that I think about it, I don't know how I didn't get it at first...
  
  But come to think about it again, what about CPAN::Mini (version 0.20) and strict?
  
  Wait... strict was giving a different error...
  
  I need to get some sleep... over and out, back again sometime tomorrow... :-)
All perfectly normal, nothing to see, move along (Score:1)

by Aristotle (5147)

It all depends on the &import of a module.

Lingua::Identify [cpan.org] uses Exporter [cpan.org] which considers the parameter a version number and croaks because it's higher than the module's.
strict [cpan.org] uses a custom importer which considers the number a non-existant pragma tag and croaks.
In case noone else defines an &import, modules inherit &UNIVERSAL::import. Interestingly, that one does differentiate between a literal number and an expression:
$ echo 'package Foo; our $VERSION = 0.1; 1;' > Foo.pm $ perl -le
Re: Is this a bug i Perl? (Score:1)

by uniejo (5562)

You need a semi colon after the use statement.
Without that you only have one statement:

#!/usr/bin/perl use strict print "Hello World\n"

The return of the print statement is 1 (unless it fails).
This effectively changes it into use strict 1.0 , whereby the module is required to be at least version 1.0

Of course your code should look like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; print "Hello World\n";
- Re: Is this a bug i Perl? (Score:1)
  
  by cog (4665)
  
  That was the precise point, the fact that the code would work some of the times without the semicolon :-)
  The part of the version one was taken care of pretty quickly [perl.org], but it took Aristotle [perl.org] to find out the reason for the exceptions [perl.org] (that is, modules below version 1 working and vice-versa).
  You wouldn't believe how ashamed of myself I am for not having solved the problem before posting it... oh well, one learns new things everyday :-)
  Anyway, if that's what it takes to bring a new user [perl.org] to the site, you ca