concerning our $VERSION

John M. Dlugosz has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

First, I see this idiom being used:

our $VERSION = '0.01';
$VERSION = eval $VERSION;
[download]

Why does it set it and then eval it?

Second, I'd like to put the $VERSION in its own file. This is to make it easy to match up versions of the code (using git) with versions of non-code assets like large image files, which are kept out of git and saved in a simple manner.

If I include the file in a normal way, it has its own scope. Is there a simple way to just include it "in place"?

Comment on concerning our $VERSION Download Code

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Re: concerning our $VERSION by bingos (Vicar) on Mar 31, 2011 at 22:04 UTC
The rather long version (haha) of the reasoning behind evaling the $VERSION is explained here	[reply]
Re^2: concerning our $VERSION by ysth (Canon) on Apr 01, 2011 at 07:24 UTC
That gets it wrong; the proper incantation suitable for all modules is: `our $VERSION = '1.001_001'; our $XS_VERSION = $VERSION; # only needed if you have XS code $VERSION = eval $VERSION;` [download] as described in perlmodstyle -- A math joke: r = \| \|csc(θ)\|+\|sec(θ)\|-\|\|csc(θ)\|-\|sec(θ)\|\| \| Online Fortune Cookie Search	[reply] [d/l]
Re: concerning our $VERSION by wind (Priest) on Mar 31, 2011 at 22:04 UTC
Your initial question is covered here: eval $VERSION in modules?	[reply]
Re: concerning our $VERSION by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Apr 01, 2011 at 00:13 UTC
... and my “take-away” from the two articles previously cited is that the notion of “putting the version in its own file” should be answered with a resounding, Nyet! This string is intended for programmatic consumption, and so it ought not do “differently.” This reply should not be taken as an authoritative statement. I could well be wrong.