Re: Perl modules and perl upgrade

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

Raphael Hertzog wrote:

>I'll try a summary but I may be wrong on some points :
>- all CPAN perl modules will use the versionned directories and they'll
>  depend on perl5.005 (and NOT perl). That way, when perl5.006 comes out
>  they won't break.
>- perl programs/scripts should still depend on perl (perl should be 
>  provided by perl5.005 even if perl may be a dummy package that would depend
>  on the latest perl => if a package depend on a specific perl they'll need
>  to change the dependency to perl5.005 or we may encounter problems
>  with versionned provides !)

I think Lintian will be greatly confused by these :)  I'll see if I can
update Lintian in time.

>- there is currently no policy for the possible perl-thread, but that can 
>  be easily added when perl-thread will be packaged
>
>BTW, people who will have to upgrade perl modules could check for .packlist
>files in their packages. They are not needed. Simply add this at the good 
>place in the rules file :
>find debian/tmp -type f -name .packlist | xargs -r rm
>find debian/tmp/usr/lib -type d -empty | xargs -r rmdir -p

Lintian 1.2 will have a check for .packlist files.

I still don't see anything that will keep a system from breaking when
perl 5.005 is installed, though.  Saying "upgrade everything" is not
good enough -- we support partial upgrades.  If a user installs one
package from the new distribution, and this pulls in the new perl, and
that breaks every other perl module on the system, then there is a
problem.

Richard Braakman