Hi monks,

i tried to pack an older perl application having a lot of local modules using App::FatPacker::Simple. But when i tried to run the packed script, I got a "Can't locate Local/Foo/Bar.pm in @INC" error. By reducing the code step by step, I finally found out that the problem is caused by Exception::Class which is used for the exceptions. Small example:

File ./local/Local/Foo.pm

package Local::Foo;
use strict;
use warnings;

sub foo_func {
  print("This is the Foo module\n");
}


1;
[download]

File ./local/Local/Exception.pm (note that the round parens and their content are commented out after Exception::Class.)

package Local::Exception;
use strict;
use warnings FATAL => 'all';

use Exporter 'import';


our @EXPORT = qw(throw_local);


use Exception::Class
  #(
  # 'Local::Exception' =>
  # {
  #  description => 'My local exception',
  #  alias       => 'throw_local'
  # }
  #)
  ;


1;
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File main.pl:

use strict;
use warnings;
use Local::Exception;

BEGIN{
  use Data::Dumper; print("\n>>>\n", Dumper(\@INC), "\n<<<\n");
}

use Local::Foo;

Local::Foo::foo_func();
[download]

The output (using Strawberry Perl 5.26) is as expected:

$VAR1 = [
          bless( {
                   'Local/Exception.pm' => '#line 8 "main.fatpack.pl"
package Local::Exception;use strict;use warnings FATAL=>\'all\';use Ex
+porter \'import\';our@EXPORT=qw(throw_local);use Exception::Class ;1;
',
                   'Local/Foo.pm' => '#line 12 "main.fatpack.pl"
package Local::Foo;use strict;use warnings;sub foo_func {print("This i
+s the Foo module\\n")}1;
'
                 }, 'FatPacked::41105272' ),
          '.\\local',
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/site/lib',
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/vendor/lib',
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/lib'
        ];

<<<
This is the Foo module
[download]

It is also correct for Strawberry Perl 5.14, 5.38 and Perl 5.34 on Ubuntu. But if i remove the comment chars changing Local::Exception to:

package Local::Exception;
use strict;
use warnings FATAL => 'all';

use Exporter 'import';


our @EXPORT = qw(throw_local);


use Exception::Class
  (
   'Local::Exception' =>
   {
    description => 'My local exception',
    alias       => 'throw_local'
   }
  )
  ;


1;
[download]

Then i get:

>>>
$VAR1 = [
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/vendor/lib/Exception
+/Class.pm',
          '.\\local',
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/site/lib',
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/vendor/lib',
          'C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/lib'
        ];

<<<
Can't locate Local/Foo.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Local::
+Foo module) (@INC contains: C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/ve
+ndor/lib/Exception/Class.pm .\local C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit
+/perl/site/lib C:/Strawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/vendor/lib C:/S
+trawberry-perl-5.26.3.1-64bit/perl/lib) at main.fatpack.pl line 59.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at main.fatpack.pl line 59.
[download]

The structure that fatpacker adds to @INC is gone causing the error. Basically the same error i get for 5.14 and 5.34. It only works for Strawberry Perl 5.38. Seems that something has been fixed in Perl between 5.34 and 5.38.

Is this a known problem? Is there a workaround for older Perl versions? It would be best if it worked for 5.14, but I could live with 5.34 as well.