There are problems with the perl update regarding symlinks: |-- 5.6.1 | `-- i686-linux | |-- perllocal.pod | `-- smbldap_conf.pm -> /etc/samba/smbldap_conf.pm |-- 5.8.0 | `-- i686-linux | |-- CORE | | |-- libperl.so -> ../../../../libperl.so.1.5.8 | | |-- libperl.so.1 -> ../../../../libperl.so.1.5.8 | | `-- libperl.so.1.5.8 -> ../../../../libperl.so.1.5.8 | |-- auto | | |-- Data | | | `-- Dumper | | |-- Test | | `-- Time | | `-- Local | |-- perllocal.pod | `-- smbldap_conf.pm -> /etc/samba/smbldap_conf.pm |-- 5.8.2 | `-- i686-linux | |-- CORE | | |-- libperl.so -> ../../../../libperl.so.1.5.8 | | |-- libperl.so.1 -> ../../../../libperl.so.1.5.8 | | `-- libperl.so.1.5.8 -> ../../../../libperl.so.1.5.8 | |-- DB_File.pm | |-- auto | | `-- DB_File | | |-- DB_File.bs | | |-- DB_File.so | | `-- autosplit.ix | |-- perllocal.pod | |-- smbldap_conf.pm -> /etc/samba/smbldap_conf.pm | `-- smbldap_tools.pm -> /etc/samba/smbldap_tools.pm |-- 5.8.4 This doesn't look clean to me. The smbldap*.pm symlinks are not recreated in the 5.8.4 directory.
updating perl is updating the perl compiled code - not anything that uses perl per se. An update of perl does not migrate symlinks - or anything else, to be honest. When an external package is compiled against perl, it is generally compiled against a specific version of perl and needs to be re-installed for the new perl (this is in particular when you are doing a version change and the package in question installs externally linked code). This isn't a bug in the perl install - this is to avoid migrating now nonfunctional code. We may need to look at rewording the closing comments in the perl ebuild to indicate that you should consider re-installing apps that compiled against perl (instead of just mentioning a few versions of perl), but aside from that there isn't anything we can do in the perl ebuild itself.
>An update of perl does not migrate symlinks - or anything else, to be honest. Let me be a bit nasty: What is Portage good for, if it doesn't take the burden from me to update/remove this sort of cruft!? :) I know that is a delicate issue - at least as long as Portage doesn't deal with reverse dependencies properly, but... >We may need to look at rewording the closing comments in the perl ebuild to indicate that you should consider re-installing apps that compiled against perl (instead of just mentioning a few versions of perl), but aside from that there isn't anything we can do in the perl ebuild itself. ...wouldn't it be better, if perl had something like the python-updater?
[ancient bug report] perl-cleaner, which replaces libperl_rebuilder and was available even at the time of this bug report, takes care of this issue. closing.
