Portable way to require Perl 5.8.8

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

What is the best (portable) way to express that a Perl program requires 5.8.8 or later?

I tried

require v5.8.8;
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but got a warning since this doesn't work with old Perl versions. For old versions, the version needs to be syntacically a number. I googled for examples, but did not find any for 5.8.8. I tried the following:

require 5.008_008;
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This is syntactically correct, but I wonder whether I really pick the "right" Perl version with this expression.

--
Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>

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Re: Portable way to require Perl 5.8.8 by ikegami (Patriarch) on Mar 18, 2011 at 17:21 UTC
Works on 5.8+: `use v5.8.8;` [download] Works on 5.6+: `use 5.008_008;` [download] Works on 5.0+: `BEGIN { $] >= 5.008_008 or die("Need half-decent Unicode support. " . "Please use Perl 5.8.8 or higher\n"); }` [download] I could be wrong as to when each started working.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Portable way to require Perl 5.8.8 by chromatic (Archbishop) on Mar 18, 2011 at 17:10 UTC
The most portable form is: `use 5.008_008;`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Portable way to require Perl 5.8.8 by JavaFan (Canon) on Mar 18, 2011 at 20:54 UTC
I haven't been able to find a version of Perl that actually warns in `require v5.8.8;`. All versions I tried either fail (because they don't understand `v5.8.8;`), or they just accept it. I've seen people suggesting to use: `use 5.006; # First version to accept v-numbers. require v5.8.8;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Portable way to require Perl 5.8.8 by rovf (Priest) on Mar 21, 2011 at 09:19 UTC
I haven't been able to find a version of Perl that actually warns in require v5.8.8;. For Instance, 5.10.0 does: `H:\>perl -lwe "use v5.8.8; print 6" v-string in use/require non-portable at -e line 1. 6` [download] -- Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Portable way to require Perl 5.8.8 by JavaFan (Canon) on Mar 21, 2011 at 10:08 UTC
I see. Interestingly, 5.10.1 doesn't warn.	[reply]