After reading tye's comment i decided to do little searching. In one of the nodes in the thread he references, he points out that CGI::Carp V1.14 handles compile time errors just fine. I headed on over to Mr. Stein's backpan folder and started grabbing older versions, trying to see where CGI::Carp no longer handles compile time errors. It looks like Version 1.23 was the most recent version that doesn't have this bug ... and i am convinced it is a bug as the following script:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
$i = 1 / 0;
[download]

did not produce an Internal Server Error, whereas CGI::Carp versions 1.24 and 1.25 do produce ISE's on my machine when that script is run. I diff'ed version 1.23 against 1.24, but i didn't see understand anything. ;)

If you want to find CGI::Carp 1.23 right now, it is located in CGI.pm-2.81. I simply untar'ed the file and copied it's Carp.pm over the one currently installed. A bug ticket has been reported.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)