Re: Minimum Perl version?

["Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 20:40, Tait <git.git@t41t.com> wrote:
>> > What is the minimum Perl version git expects to support?
>> >
>> > I ask, because f922df8... seems to have introduced a open() syntax that
>> > is not compatible with some older Perl versions.
>>
>> We generally support 5.6 or above, but 5.8 or above for some other
>> programs.
>
> I am having to use a system with 5.6.1 to do cvsimport and cvsexportcommit,
> and interactive add. I haven't tried sendmail or other functions, yet. This
> system was previously using git 1.6.5.something, and did not have these
> problems as of that release, but now that I'm building git 1.7.3, they
> have appeared.

Maybe marking everything as needing 5.8 or later isn't the right thing
to do. E.g. the git-*cvs*.perl code mostly isn't touched, but
cvsexportcommit does use Git.pm, so that would also need to be pinned
at 5.6 if cvsexportcommit was.

> Perl 5.6.1 doesn't support the list open syntax, so one must replace
> open(my $fh, '-|', @list) with open(my $fh, '-|'), and then exec(@list).
> I'm working up a patch set to fill my own needs on this system, but based
> on the subsequent discussion about setting 5.8 as the minimum, it sounds
> like it's not worth submitting.

The issue isn't that we don't have a workaround for individual bits
like open(my $fh, '-|', @list), but rather that keeping all of the
code 5.6 compatible is a burden on ongoing maintenance for a very
marginal benefit.