Bug #42721 for Config-General: Config items with no values should return undef

On Wed Jul 15 14:23:04 2009, TLINDEN wrote:
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I think this is a regression tho. I have a config file where i get a stream of warnings like this:

Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /home/yorton/localperl/lib/site_perl/5.8.9/Config/General.pm line 1053.

When i traced into the code i found this:

  # avoid "Use of uninitialized value"
  if (! defined $value) {
    $value = undef; # bigfix rt.cpan.org#42721  q();
  }

  if ($this->{InterPolateVars}) {
    $value = $this->_interpolate($config, $option, $value);
  }

  # make true/false values to 1 or 0 (-AutoTrue)
  if ($this->{AutoTrue}) {
    if ($value =~ /$this->{AutoTrueFlags}->{true}/io) {
      $value = 1;
    }
    elsif ($value =~ /$this->{AutoTrueFlags}->{false}/io) {
      $value = 0;
    }
  }

Now, if the first block is correct, and i dont think it can be, then it is a no op, so it might as well just be deleted.

However, if the logic remains, code deleted or not, then there is the problem of the undefined value in the next block regardless.

Possibly it should be guarded by defined check on $value, but then how do you use AutoTrueFlags to deal with an undef value?

It is not clear to me what the correct behaviour should be or I would supply a patch.

As an aside the /o on those patterns is dodgy and should be removed.

cheers,
Yves