Naive question about perl versions (LaTeXML)

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 9:36 PM, Bruce Miller wrote:
> Hi all;
>   The portfile for LaTeXML (with the help
> of mojca and others on this list) now has lines
> to the effect:
>
> PortGroup           perl5 1.0
> perl5.branches      5.8 5.10 5.12 5.14 5.16 5.18 5.20
>
> and
>
> if {${perl5.major} ne ""} {
>     depends_lib-append \
>         port:p${perl5.major}-archive-zip \
>         port:p${perl5.major}-file-which \
>   ...

- Perl 5.8-5.14 is no longer supported and those variants need to be removed
- The Portfile is somewhat misconfigured and the variants don't work at all.

> My understanding is that LaTeXML is thus
> ready to run under "any" version of perl5.
>
> But:
> (1) the listing under available ports for LaTeXML
>   shows dependencies on p5.16-archive-zip, etc.
> and
> (2) a user reported a problem when trying to install
> LaTeXML that it depended on p5.12-archive-zip which was
> obsolete, recommending p5.16-archive-zip.
>
> Is the reason for (1) that 5.16 is currently the "default" perl,
> and the reason for (2) that that user currently has perl 5.12
> installed? (and thus should upgrade to perl 5.16)

The reason for (1) is that port isn't setup properly. I can easily
configure it to list dependencies on 5.20, but it will still run

DEBUG: Executing command line:  cd
"/opt/local/var/macports/build/__path__/LaTeXML/work/LaTeXML-0.8.0" &&
/opt/local/bin/perl5.16 Makefile.PL INSTALLDIRS=vendor
CC="/usr/bin/clang" LD="/usr/bin/clang"
TEXMF='/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local'

and thus use default Perl I guess. So someone would have to tweak it a
bit further.

The slightly strange thing is that the port still tried to use perl
5.12. Did the user update MacPorts? I think I removed perl5.12 from
allowed variants of perl, so the user's Perl should long be replaced
with 5.16 and 5.12 should be defunct for about two months now
(http://trac.macports.org/changeset/130129).

> Just checking that I understand what's going on;
> I'm preparing to make a release 0.8.1 of LaTeXML
> and want to get it right...

Can you please open a ticket on Trac, so that we can discuss the issue there?

Mojca