Bug #66613 for Test-ConsistentVersion: die on $VERSION set by base.pm

In one of my dists I had a module without an explicit $VERSION and which ended up being set by base.pm. Test::ConsistentVersion (0.2.3) with recent debian i386 perl 5.10.1 died with Invalid version format (non-numeric data) at /home/gg/perl/lib/Test/ConsistentVersion.pm line 94. The offending data is $VERSION = '-1, set by base.pm'; It arose from a subclass doing a "use base 'Foo'" of the Foo with no $VERSION. If "use version" is in use then when checking Foo the _check_module_versions() code $module->VERSION throws an error. It'd be good if Test::ConsistentVersion could catch a croak from $module->VERSION, instead of die()-ing out completely. It could report a failing $module->VERSION as an "inconsistent" version, inconsistent in the sense of not working at all :-). It could also dig into ${"${module}::VERSION"} directly to show the offending data as a diagnostic, to give a hint what's wrong. I think the $module->VERSION call is subtly different according to whether you've loaded version.pm or not. Without version.pm it's more relaxed, and presumably in older perl too.