Bug#681026: perl-modules: Installation of modules via CPAN fails due to broken dependency logic

[Niko Tyni]

tag 681026 upstream
thanks

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 01:55:48AM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:

> > Note the difference in PERL5LIB: you're missing the suggested
> > lib/perl5/<archname> .
> 
> That shouldn't be necessary. The perlrun(1) man page says:
> 
>   PERL5LIB    A list of directories in which to look for Perl library
>               files before looking in the standard library and the
>               current directory.  Any architecture-specific directories
>               under the specified locations are automatically included
>               if they exist, with this lookup done at interpreter
>               startup time.
> 
> lib/perl5/<archname> doesn't exist yet initially, but I'd say
> that's up to cpan to add it automatically when necessary.

I wouldn't FWIW, but that's for upstream to decide. I certainly won't
add a Debian deviation to do that.

> Well, at least since CPAN 1.9800, the problem no longer occurs without
> having to do anything you suggested. 

As I said, only because installing a newer CPAN creates the arch-specific
subdirectory as a side effect (putting perllocal.pod and .packlist there).

I can reproduce the issue by first installing CPAN-2.00 and then removing
the arch-specific subdirectory.

> I wonder what has changed (e.g.
> whether this is intentional or the problem could reappear later).

I note that newest versions of local::lib no longer suggest putting the
arch-specific directory in PERL5LIB, precisely because Perl includes
it automatically. I suspect this bootstrapping issue with nonexistent
directories is not widely understood.

I just tried and I can also reproduce this with current bleadperl (which
includes CPAN-2.00) installed in /opt. So it's definitely an upstream
issue.
-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org