Subject: Re: Minimum Perl version?

From: Andreas Ericsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 12:22:23 +0200

On 09/25/2010 12:39 AM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 20:40, Tait<[email-masked]>  wrote:
>>>> What is the minimum Perl version git expects to support?
>>>>
>>>> I ask, because f922df8... seems to have introduced a open() syntax that
>>>> is not compatible with some older Perl versions.
>>>
>>> We generally support 5.6 or above, but 5.8 or above for some other
>>> programs.
>>
>> I am having to use a system with 5.6.1 to do cvsimport and cvsexportcommit,
>> and interactive add. I haven't tried sendmail or other functions, yet. This
>> system was previously using git 1.6.5.something, and did not have these
>> problems as of that release, but now that I'm building git 1.7.3, they
>> have appeared.
> 
> Maybe marking everything as needing 5.8 or later isn't the right thing
> to do. E.g. the git-*cvs*.perl code mostly isn't touched, but
> cvsexportcommit does use Git.pm, so that would also need to be pinned
> at 5.6 if cvsexportcommit was.
> 
>> Perl 5.6.1 doesn't support the list open syntax, so one must replace
>> open(my $fh, '-|', @list) with open(my $fh, '-|'), and then exec(@list).
>> I'm working up a patch set to fill my own needs on this system, but based
>> on the subsequent discussion about setting 5.8 as the minimum, it sounds
>> like it's not worth submitting.
> 
> The issue isn't that we don't have a workaround for individual bits
> like open(my $fh, '-|', @list), but rather that keeping all of the
> code 5.6 compatible is a burden on ongoing maintenance for a very
> marginal benefit.

If someone steps up and makes various snippets of code 5.6 compatible while
not introducing any penalties for 5.8 users, I see no reason to drop those
patches.

Tait, submit your patches and I'm sure they'll be reviewed the same as
everything else. If they make the code a lot harder to understand or a lot
slower, I'm sure they'll be dropped. If they don't, I'm reasonably certain
Junio will take them on. I barely speak Perl though, so reviewing them will
have to be done by someone else.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   [email-masked]
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

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