Re: [PATCH] RelNotes: add details on Perl module changes

[Todd Zullinger <tmz@pobox.com>]

I wrote:
> Document changes to core and non-core Perl module handling in 2.17.

This should have:

Signed-off-by: Todd Zullinger <tmz@pobox.com>

And perhaps also:

Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

since I borrowed liberally from your initial text. :)

> ---
> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> 
>>> I haven't wordsmithed it fully, but it should say something along
>>> the lines of ...
>>>
>>>  Documentation/RelNotes/2.16.0.txt | 10 ++++++++++
>>>  1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
>>
>> Eh, of course the addition should go to 2.17 release notes ;-)  I
>> just happened to be reviewing a topic forked earlier.
> 
> Maybe something like this?  I had intended to suggest a note about
> NO_PERL_CPAN_FALLBACKS as well, so that's included too.  I don't know if that
> should be expanded to provide more of a hint to users/packagers on platforms
> where these modules are harder to install, letting them know that we now have
> fallbacks to Error and Mail::Address.  That might allow scripts which were
> previously excluded to be included on their platforms.
> 
>  Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt | 14 ++++++++++++++
>  INSTALL                           |  3 ++-
>  2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt
> index c828d37345..085bf1dba1 100644
> --- a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt
> @@ -75,6 +75,20 @@ Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
>   * The build procedure for perl/ part has been greatly simplified by
>     weaning ourselves off of MakeMaker.
>  
> + * Perl 5.8 or greater has been required since Git 1.7.4 released in
> +   2010, but we continued to assume some core modules may not exist and
> +   used a conditional "eval { require <<module>> }"; we no longer do
> +   this.  Some platforms (Fedora/RedHat/CentOS, for example) ship Perl
> +   without all core modules by default (e.g. Digest::MD5, File::Temp,
> +   File::Spec, Net::Domain, Net::SMTP).  Users on such platforms may
> +   need to install these additional modules.
> +
> + * As a convenience, we install copies of Perl modules we require which
> +   are not part of the core Perl distribution (e.g. Error and
> +   Mail::Address).  Users and packagers whose operating system provides
> +   these modules can set NO_PERL_CPAN_FALLBACKS to avoid installing the
> +   bundled modules.
> +
>   * In preparation for implementing narrow/partial clone, the machinery
>     for checking object connectivity used by gc and fsck has been
>     taught that a missing object is OK when it is referenced by a
> diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
> index 60e515eaf7..c39006e8e7 100644
> --- a/INSTALL
> +++ b/INSTALL
> @@ -126,7 +126,8 @@ Issues of note:
>  	  Redhat/Fedora are reported to ship Perl binary package with some
>  	  core modules stripped away (see http://lwn.net/Articles/477234/),
>  	  so you might need to install additional packages other than Perl
> -	  itself, e.g. Time::HiRes.
> +	  itself, e.g. Digest::MD5, File::Spec, File::Temp, Net::Domain,
> +	  Net::SMTP, and Time::HiRes.
>  
>  	- git-imap-send needs the OpenSSL library to talk IMAP over SSL if
>  	  you are using libcurl older than 7.34.0.  Otherwise you can use

-- 
Todd
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