I added a -d to the initial (bang) line of a program that's years old, to see why it worked funny recently. Here's what happened: 
-------------------------------------------
dual-1-25:/Documents/Ours/logs/bin $ ./list_db_all>../to_excel/exc1081
+103.txt

Loading DB routines from perl5db.pl version 1.28
Editor support available.

Enter h or `h h' for help, or `man perldebug' for more help.

main::(./list_db_all:56):    our $bigpack = 'dI'.FIXED_CTS.'d'.CELLS_P
+ER;
Unable to get Terminal Size. The TIOCGWINSZ ioctl didn't work. The COL
+UMNS and LINES environment variables didn't work. The resize program 
+didn't work. at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/darwin-2level/Te
+rm/ReadKey.pm line 362.
Compilation failed in require at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/
+Term/ReadLine/Perl.pm line 63.
 at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/Term/ReadLine/Perl.pm line 63
    Term::ReadLine::Perl::new('Term::ReadLine', 'perldb', 'GLOB(0x848b
+b8)', 'GLOB(0x83d20c)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl5db.
+pl line 6029
    DB::setterm called at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl5db.pl line 2
+203
    DB::DB called at ./list_db_all line 56
Debugged program terminated.  Use q to quit or R to restart,
------------------------------------------

[download]
This is with 5.8.8 under Mac OS X -- the most current Leopard. Sent the file up to my server (also 5.8.8 but FreeBSD): no such problems. Put a -d into a related program on my home (OS X) machine, and it starts up cleanly. Tried "zapping gremlins" (non-printable characters) in BBEdit: no help.

Do you think something has gotten corrupted? I revitalized my CPAN collection last night with an 'upgrade': lots of output and fury (and an upgrade of Term::ReadLine from the 5.8.6 directory to 5.8.8) but no help for this problem.

How would you attack this problem?

Thanks, cmac

In reply to debug startup problem by cmac

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