Bug #122166 for Module-Install: M:I:DSL: Syntax derived configure failures exit true

Thu Jun 22 02:25:45 2017 KENTNL [...] cpan.org - Ticket created

Subject:

M:I:DSL: Syntax derived configure failures exit true

This looks like legal Perl code, however, it isn't legal for M:I:DSL

use lib q[.]; use inc::Module::Install::DSL;

version 1;

M:I:DSL seems to have its own dark magic where it parses the "use" line itself.

And when that fails, it fails as follows:

perl Makefile.PL ; echo $?
Failed to execute the generated code...
syntax error at (eval 20) line 4, near "use 'lib'"
0


Note: the complaint here is not that DSL is spooky,
but that fatal errors are "true" instead of "false"

And this can lead tools to proceed to later stages
when they should halt in configure.

--
- CPAN kentnl@cpan.org
- Gentoo Perl Maintainer kentnl@gentoo.org ( perl@gentoo.org )

Thu Jun 22 12:14:41 2017 ether [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

On 2017-06-21 23:25:45, KENTNL wrote: Show quoted text

> This looks like legal Perl code, however, it isn't legal for M:I:DSL

Unless someone has an appetite for diving in and figuring out what's going on (not me!!) probably the best recourse here is to slap huge documentation warnings on this module and try to persuade any cpan users to stop using it... fortunately for me (yayyy! I am full of sarcasm already), it looks like most consumers are ADAMK dists... http://grep.cpan.me/?q=Module%3A%3AInstall%3A%3ADSL+file%3AMakefile.PL

Thu Jun 22 12:14:42 2017 The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

Thu Jun 22 14:46:06 2017 KENTNL [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

Well, for a good start, checking what "$@" contains and invoking "die" somehow, instead of just printing "we had an error" and then calling exit(0) .... that might be a huge improvement.

https://metacpan.org/source/ETHER/Module-Install-1.18/lib/Module/Install/DSL.pm#L48-51

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- CPAN kentnl@cpan.org
- Gentoo Perl Maintainer kentnl@gentoo.org ( perl@gentoo.org )

Thu Jun 22 14:47:18 2017 KENTNL [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

( And well, printing the generated code along with the exception might be helpful too )

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- CPAN kentnl@cpan.org
- Gentoo Perl Maintainer kentnl@gentoo.org ( perl@gentoo.org )