tye gave me a very good hint on what to do and it was in the debugger. Version 1.07 perldb.pl from ActiveState 5.6 perl In Unix dif format:

498c498
<     $usercontext = '($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W) = @saved;' .
---
>     $usercontext = '($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W, $.) = @saved;' .
546c546
<       $usercontext = '($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W) = @saved;' .
---
>       $usercontext = '($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W, $.) = @saved;' 
+.
1434c1434
<     ($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W) = @saved;
---
>     ($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W, $.) = @saved;
1496c1496
<     @saved = ($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W);
---
>     @saved = ($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\, $^W, $.);
1516a1517
>     local $saved[-1];        # Preserve the old value of $.
[download]

Can't say it's pretty, but no more ugly than before. I think I'll go check to make sure it hasn't already been fixed in a later version.

Update:Thanks to Dominus to doing what I was going to check this morning. I was just too tired to check last night.

More update: I would suggest getting the 1.07 version of perl5db.pl from www.perl.com 5.7.