division sign, even in comment results in syntax error

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

Dear All,

A weird one: I have a lengthy subroutine (that I cannot post here) that runs fine on ubuntu 9.04 (perl 5.10), but does not compile on ubuntu 8.04 (perl 5.8.8) that I have to use for production.

If at line 434 I add / sign, be it my $a=4/3; or in comment ( # blabla/bla), I get

syntax error at sub.pm line 523, near "){"
syntax error at sub.pm line 543, near "){"
syntax error at sub.pm line 552, near "){"
syntax error at sub,pm line 561, near "else"

which correspond to switch, case, else statements.

I could use sign($a)*exp(-log(abs($a))) instead of /$a, but this does not really solve my problem.

Does it ring a bell to anyone?

Thanks

Damien

Comment on division sign, even in comment results in syntax error

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Re: division sign, even in comment results in syntax error by salva (Canon) on Jul 31, 2009 at 08:41 UTC
...but does not compile on ubuntu 8.04 (perl 5.8.8) ...which correspond to switch, case, else statements Are you using Switch? don't do it! Switch is not reliable, it is a source filter that parses perl code and modifies it on the fly and sometimes does it wrongly.	[reply]
Re^2: division sign, even in comment results in syntax error by dcy (Initiate) on Jul 31, 2009 at 16:59 UTC
You were right, I have replaced my switch case statements with ifs elsifs and now everything works fine. Thanks really a lot. Damien	[reply]
Re: division sign, even in comment results in syntax error by moritz (Cardinal) on Jul 31, 2009 at 08:49 UTC
Maybe you are using the `//` (defined-or) operator somewhere? It was introduced in perl-5.10, so 5.8 might give syntax errors.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: division sign, even in comment results in syntax error by mzedeler (Pilgrim) on Jul 31, 2009 at 08:36 UTC
Here is an approach to identify the problem. Start cutting out half of the source code, making sure that it is still syntactically correct (according to your opinion) and see if the error still persists. If it doesn't, backtrack and cut away the other half. Keep reducing your code like this until you have less than 10 lines that exhibits the error. The solution should then be apparent. If the solution is not apparent, post the 10 lines here.	[reply]
Re: division sign, even in comment results in syntax error by xyzzy (Pilgrim) on Jul 31, 2009 at 16:07 UTC
you may also have an open regex somewheres (or something that is being read as a regex). finding unpaired delimiters is one of the most annoying things ever since it is usually miles away from the line where perl actually catches the problem Everything is true." "Even false things?" "Even false things are true" "How can that be?" "I dunno man, I didn't do it."	[reply]