[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#942064: profphd: autopkgtest failure

[gregor herrmann]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 22:31:36 +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 09, 2019 at 08:45:36PM +0200, gregor herrmann wrote:
> > autopkgtest [01:06:02]: test installation-test: [-----------------------
> > Can't exec "pp_popcon_cnt": No such file or directory at /usr/share/profphd/prof/prof.pl line 15.
> > The Rost Lab recommends you install the pp-popularity-contest package that provides pp_popcon_cnt:
> > 
> > sudo apt-get install pp-popularity-contest
> > Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible at /usr/share/profphd/prof/prof.pl line 139.
> > autopkgtest [01:06:03]: test installation-test: -----------------------]
> 
> This one is fixed in Git[1].  However it remains:
>   Assigning non-zero to $[ is no longer possible at /usr/share/profphd/prof/prof.pl line 139.

What do you mean by "fixed"? This '$[ = 1;' is the reason for the
failure … The "Can't exec" error and the message about popcon are
just noise, I think. It aborts in /usr/share/profphd/prof/prof.pl.
 
> Any help to resolve this?

To be honest: I don't know. This "feature" of setting the array base was
deprecated in 5.12 (2010) and now seems to be completely gone. I
haven't found a way in a quick search in perl documentation or online
on how to replace it (maybe by packaging and using Array::Base).

Looking a bit further, this doesn't seem to affect only the
autopkgtest because:

% grep -r '\$\[' | wc -l
1099

I mean, it might be possible to just remove '$[ = 1;' eleven hundred
times and see what happens if all arrays are based on 0 instead of 1
but I don't know.
(I also noted that prof.pl had $[ set although I haven't seen an
array in the whole script …)

Also interesting: ChangeLog says in 2015:

  * Make prof work with Debian Jessie by requiring perlbrew package
    and have it install independent perl v5.10 instance. $[ has been
    moved from perl core >=5.16.0 into arybase, and does not produce
    the same side effects as in previous perl versions, therefore
    breaking prof when run using perl v5.20 in Jessie.

So upstream knows that $[ doesn't work and wants users to build their
own perl 5.10 to keep it running. And it also sounds like the
software relied on side-effects of $[ in perl < 5.16, which means it
might be broken since 2012 in Debian.

Cc'ing the perl team for further comments; but to be honest: if I
were responsible for this package I would be tempted to file an RM
bug.


Cheers,
gregor

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