Bug#824511: Perl-5.22.2 does not inherit shell enviorment

[Niko Tyni]

retitle 824511 perl: shell execution removes exported bash functions
block 824511 with 814358
thanks

(Please keep 824511 at bugs.debian.org cc'd on replies)

On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 11:25:26AM -0600, Christoph Junghans wrote:
> 2016-05-17 9:06 GMT-06:00 Niko Tyni <ntyni at debian.org>:
> > On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 04:07:42PM -0600, Christoph Junghans wrote:
> >> Package: perl
> >> Version: 5.22.2-1
> >>
> >> The behavior when calling an exported shell function from whitin perl
> >> has changed in version 5.22.2
> >>
> >> $ bash
> >> $ fct() { echo "Hello from within function";}
> >> $ export -f fct
> >> $ perl -e '$x=`bash -c "fct"`; print $x'
> >> bash: fct: command not found

> > this has nothing to do with Perl. It's a change in dash (which is /bin/sh
> > on Debian and Ubuntu systems) 0.5.8, which now filters environment
> > variable names at startup. See <https://bugs.debian.org/814358>.
> Ok, doing
> $ sudo ln -fs bash /bin/sh
> helps!

Yeah, that's a viable workaround.
 
> > Note that perl optimizes the intervening /bin/sh away for simple commands:
> >   perl -e '$x=`bash -c fct`; print $x'
> > works but
> >   perl -e '$x=`bash -c "fct"`; print $x'
> > doesn't because it contains shell metacharacters (double quotes).
> Thanks for the information, dropping the quotes works, however in our
> case it is a bit more complicated as the fct() takes an argument.
> E.g.
> >> $ bash
> >> $ fct() { echo "Hello from within function: args $@";}
> >> $ export -f fct
> >> $ perl -e '$x=`bash -c "fct 1 2 3"`; print $x'
> Do you have a trick for that, too?

Sorry, no more tricks I'm afraid :)

> > There's not much we can do on the Perl side. Do you want me to
> > merge this with #814358, or what should we do with this report?
> Please merge the reports!

Elsewhere it was suggested to me that we keep this against perl and
mark it as blocked by the dash one. I suppose it would be possible to
make perl use /bin/bash instead of /bin/sh if dash doesn't get fixed.
(I'm not exactly thrilled about that option though.)

So leaving the bug here at least for now, hope that's OK by you.
-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org