[Popcon-developers] Bug#218759: v-string in use/require non-portable at /usr/sbin/popularity-contest line 26

[Cesar Eduardo Barros]

Package: popularity-contest
Version: 1.7
Severity: normal

popularity-contest works fine in this box (with perl 5.8.1-4); however,
in another box (with perl 5.8.0-18) cron sent me the following mail:

/etc/cron.weekly/popularity-contest:
v-string in use/require non-portable at /usr/sbin/popularity-contest line 26.

Running by hand in that box generates the same error message, and
running by hand in this box does not. Looks like something changed
between perl versions.

man perldiag says the following about this:
       v-string in use/require is non‐portable
           (W portable) The use of v-strings is non‐portable to older,
           pre-5.6, Perls.  If you want your scripts to be backward portable,
           use the floating point version number: for example, instead of "use
           5.6.1" say "use 5.006_001".  This of course won’t help: the older
           Perls won’t suddenly start understanding newer features, but at
           least they will show a sensible error message indicating the
           required minimum version.