File::Spec bug on VMS

swkronenfeld has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

There is some strange behavior on File::Spec->catfile on VMS (perl, v5.8.1 built for VMS_AXP)

Whenever my path length is a multiple of 8 + 1 (or a multiple of 8+3 if you count the brackets), e.g. 9, 17, 23, the path is formed incorrectly (as shown below). It discards the second argument and forms a file path based on the first argument only.

my $path = "[DIR.";
my $tmp = "";
for(my $x=0; $x<60; $x++) {
    $tmp .= "a";
    my $tmp2 = $path . $tmp . "]";
    print File::Spec->catfile($tmp2, "file") . "\n";
}

-----------------------------

$ perl test.pl
USERS:[DIR.a]file
USERS:[DIR.aa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaa]file
USERS:[DIR]aaaaa
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR]aaaaaaaaaaaaa
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]file
USERS:[DIR.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]file
[download]

I haven't been able to find anything through SuperSearch, google, cpan, etc related to this "bug". Does anyone have any idea what's going on? The next step will be to step through the Spec::File code, likely somewhere in the vmsify function or a child of it since this does not happen on UNIX.

Also, I have the latest version of File::Spec and File::Spec::VMS.

Any thoughts?

Comment on File::Spec bug on VMS Select or Download Code

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Re: File::Spec bug on VMS by swkronenfeld (Hermit) on Sep 29, 2006 at 15:37 UTC
So, after too much time stepping through with the debugger... There is a bug in the function unixify (in VMS::Filespec). A control character is added to the end of certain length paths: `47: my($npath) = unixify($path); DB<7> x $path 0 '[DIR.aaaaa]' DB<8> s File::Spec::VMS::eliminate_macros(/perl_root/lib/File/Spec/VMS.pm:48): 48: my($complex) = 0; DB<8> x $npath 0 "/USERS/DIR/aaaaa\c@" # <---- What's that \c@ doing there?!` [download] As opposed to `47: my($npath) = unixify($path); DB<9> x $path 0 '[DIR.aaaaaaa]' DB<10> s File::Spec::VMS::eliminate_macros(/perl_root/lib/File/Spec/VMS.pm:48): 48: my($complex) = 0; DB<10> x $npath 0 '/USERS/DIR/aaaaaaa/'` [download] I don't know how to solve this, but as a workaround, if you always pass the device name to the catfile function, it works. So do this: `print File::Spec->catfile("USERS:[DIR.aaaaa]", "file"); # Include USER +S:, or else this won't work!` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: File::Spec bug on VMS (rt) by tye (Sage) on Sep 29, 2006 at 20:08 UTC
Thanks for finding this and narrowing it down. Please report it to http://rt.perl.org/perlbug/ (or by going to the distribution that contains VMS::Filespec and following the "View/Report Bugs" link). - tye	[reply]
Re: File::Spec bug on VMS by syphilis (Archbishop) on Sep 29, 2006 at 09:30 UTC
Hi swkronenfeld, I see that File::Spec::VMS loads both File::Basename and VMS::Filespec - so it's at least conceivable that the bug arises from code in one of those 2 modules (the latter being more lkely than the former, I would guess). There's a couple of if/else branches in the catfile() sub in File::Spec::VMS. I'd probably start with some debug print() statements inside that sub to determine just which route is being followed and trace it back from there ... if I had access to a VMS system: -:) Cheers, Rob	[reply]