[BUG] Broken Perl package (was: Upgrade to Dapper (from breezy) broke SVK)

[Randy W. Sims]

Randy W. Sims wrote:
> 
> I had just used svk without problem prior to running the upgrade to 
> Dapper. Has anyone seen this?
> 
> randys at new-pieria:~/Module-Build$ svk up
> Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at 
> /usr/share/perl5/Class/Autouse.pm line 506.
> Weak references are not implemented in the version of perl at 
> /usr/share/perl5/PerlIO/via/dynamic.pm line 61
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at 
> /usr/share/perl5/PerlIO/via/dynamic.pm line 61.
> Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/SVK/XD.pm line 17.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/SVK/XD.pm line 17.
> Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Class/Autouse.pm line 
> 381.
>  at /usr/bin/svk line 75


I finally had time to sit down and look at this. The problem is that the 
Perl installed with Ubuntu comes with the pure-perl version of the core 
Scalar::Util module which has no support for weak references. I believe 
this differs from Ubuntu 5.10 and it will cause some perl modules and 
applications to fail. As you can see in the output above, the failure is 
not obvious and the failing module is not identified, so it would be 
difficult to find for users unfamiliar with perl.

Ideally, the XS version of Scalar::Util should be installed. Failing 
that there should be a libscalar-util-xs-perl package.

Randy.