perl threads and perl versions

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

I have a script that uses threads and threads::shared. It works fine on fedora14 and some other distros, though I forget the different ones it worked correctly on.

In any event, I'm now on a centos 5.3 box with perl V5.8.8 and when I execute the following to join the threads befor exiting:

foreach my $thread (threads->list(threads::joinable))
{ $thread->join(); }
[download]

I get an error:

Usage: threads::list(classname) at ./colmux.pl line 295.

I've observered a couple of things:

on the centos system if I just comment out this look my program exists cleanly and so it doesn't even look like I need it!
on the fedora system if I comment out that look I get the following:
Perl exited with active threads: 0 running and unjoined 6 finished and unjoined 0 running and detached which was why I included it in the first place.

so my question is, is this a version thing? Should I just skip that loop if perl is less than a particular version number and if so what? or is there some simply test I can run to see if this is supported by my persion of perl, which might be the cleanest.

-mark

Comment on perl threads and perl versions Download Code

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Re: perl threads and perl versions by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Feb 14, 2011 at 15:23 UTC
What do you get if you do `perl -Mthreads -le'print $threads::VERSION'` ? Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: perl threads and perl versions by markseger (Beadle) on Feb 14, 2011 at 16:28 UTC
aha! the system with the problem is running threads 1.07 and the one that works is 1.81! So should I just assume the problem IS with the threads version? Of course the challenge is which version fixed the problem. any clues on that one? -mark	[reply]
Re^3: perl threads and perl versions by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Feb 14, 2011 at 17:31 UTC
Of course the challenge is which version fixed the problem. any clues on that one? The "problem" is that you are trying to use functions that were not a part of the module at that time. Any version after 1.59 will not give the error you posted. But I strongly advise going for the latest version available when you upgrade. Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.	[reply]
Re^4: perl threads and perl versions by markseger (Beadle) on Feb 14, 2011 at 19:08 UTC
Re^5: perl threads and perl versions by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Feb 14, 2011 at 19:22 UTC