I'm attempting to write a quick script for my Unix account at work, and I am running into some errors. It's an HPUX system running (gasp!) Perl 4.0 (Revision 4.0.1.8). I don't have any privileges to upgrade to Perl 5.x.

I started creating a script, and wondered if Getopt::Long was available. So I perl -wc'ed it. And it says that use may clash with a future reserved word, and use strict is a syntax error.

Here is the test script (after I tried to simplify it down to the base problem): 

#!/usr/contrib/bin/perl
# Note that this path to Perl was
# verified using 'which perl'

use strict;
use Getopt::Long;

print "Hello, HPUX.\n";

[download]

And this is the error message from perl -wc try.pl: 

"use" may clash with future reserved word at try.pl line 3.
syntax error in file try.pl at line 3, next 2 tokens "use strict"
"use" may clash with future reserved word at try.pl line 4.
try.pl had compilation errors.

[download]

The perldoc -f use reports that all is like it should be. Removal of the Getopt::Long module provides similar results, and this script was created using nano compiled for HPUX (so there isn't an issue with line endings). And just for giggles I checked the results before and after a chmod +x try.pl call, with no changes.

Pointers to web pages would be welcomed, as would ideas to try out. This isn't mission critical or anything, but it is slightly annoying. I don't know enough shell scripting to be able to write my script without Perl...

And of course, a swift kick would be appreciated if I am missing something glaringly obvious. :)

In reply to Perl 4 errors by Nkuvu

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