Re: version change on solaris

Regardless of which version you are changing to/from you will always need to run all your tests on your scripts again. You do have a complete set of tests, don't you? If you don't then now might be a good time to write them.

You should also carry out a sequence of parallel running with both versions - there should be no problem with having two versions installed provided your #! lines and/or your PATHs are correct.

Why so old versions? 5.8.4 is at least seven years old and there is a lot of really cool stuff in the latest releases. Many people stick with 5.8.8, and that is pretty stable, but to go for some abritary maintenance release seems strange.

Comment on Re: version change on solaris

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Re^2: version change on solaris by marto (Cardinal) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:25 UTC
"Why so old versions? 5.8.4 is at least seven years old and there is a lot of really cool stuff in the latest releases." I suspect because 5.8.4 is the version installed with Solaris 10.	[reply]
Re^3: version change on solaris by cdarke (Prior) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:29 UTC
Yes, looks like it, although that wasn't clear from the original post. I would still ask the same question though, particualrly if moving everything over. Just about everything has to be tested again anyhow (I'll bet there is a later version of ksh, bash, sed, gcc, etc.), so why not upgrade now?	[reply]
Re^4: version change on solaris by marto (Cardinal) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:40 UTC
I agree, we had to argue this case with our clients Unix admin team and their security team. They came round to our way of thinking and we built our own perl. In certain industries/companies it's not always as straightforward as you'd think to get upgrades done :)	[reply]
Re^4: version change on solaris by krishnapriya (Initiate) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:38 UTC
yea we are planning to upgrade only. But i am interested to know for my knowledge would it be possible to downgrade the perl version. can you please just let me know whether that option is there.	[reply]
Re^5: version change on solaris by johngg (Canon) on Mar 15, 2011 at 15:09 UTC
Re^3: version change on solaris by krishnapriya (Initiate) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:28 UTC
when i give perl -v i have got the below message This is perl, v5.8.4 built for sun4-solaris-64int (with 31 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail) Actually we are going to do all the tests. But i would to know whether there is any possibility for downgrade of perl.	[reply]
Re^4: version change on solaris by marto (Cardinal) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:36 UTC
Just do all of your tests, forget about downgrading lest you end up with an unstable system.	[reply]
Re^4: version change on solaris by cdarke (Prior) on Mar 15, 2011 at 14:36 UTC
It depends where you put the old release, and what else on your system uses perl. For example, if there are some Sun scripts which use 5.8.4 then they might not work with an earlier release. If you totally isolate all your old stuff then it should work, but I have to ask why you would want to, particularly since you say you are testing everything anyway.	[reply]