pod/buildtoc fails to complete in perl-5.42.0.

[jkeenan]

I'm encountering a failure in pod/buildtoc at the end of make after I merged #23193 (sync Math-BigInt) into blead following the release of perl-5.42.0.

Writing Makefile for Unicode::Normalize
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize'
Running Mkbootstrap for Normalize ()
"../../miniperl" "-I../../lib" "../../lib/ExtUtils/xsubpp"  -typemap '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize/../../lib/ExtUtils/typemap'  Normalize.xs > Normalize.xsc
chmod 644 "Normalize.bs"
/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize/../../miniperl "-I../../lib" -MExtUtils::Command::MM -e 'cp_nonempty' -- Normalize.bs ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.bs 644
mv Normalize.xsc Normalize.c
cc -c   -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -fstack-protector-strong -I/usr/local/include -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -Wall -Werror=pointer-arith -Werror=vla -Wextra -Wno-long-long -Wno-declaration-after-statement -Wc++-compat -Wwrite-strings -Wno-use-after-free -O2   -DVERSION=\"1.32\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.32\" -fPIC "-I../.."   Normalize.c
rm -f ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.so
cc  -shared -O2 -L/usr/local/lib -fstack-protector-strong  Normalize.o  -o ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.so  \
      \
  
chmod 755 ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.so
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize'
./perl -Ilib -I. -f pod/buildtoc -q
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by buildtoc
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by MANIFEST
pod/buildtoc: perl5421delta.pod is known by buildtoc but does not exist
pod/buildtoc: Can't open file 'pod/perl5421delta.pod' for perl5421delta: No such file or directory
ABORTED
make: *** [makefile:424: pod/perltoc.pod] Error 255

@book @thibaultduponchelle can you take a look?

[jkeenan]

I'm encountering a failure in pod/buildtoc at the end of make after I merged #23193 (sync Math-BigInt) into blead following the release of perl-5.42.0.

Writing Makefile for Unicode::Normalize
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize'
Running Mkbootstrap for Normalize ()
"../../miniperl" "-I../../lib" "../../lib/ExtUtils/xsubpp"  -typemap '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize/../../lib/ExtUtils/typemap'  Normalize.xs > Normalize.xsc
chmod 644 "Normalize.bs"
/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize/../../miniperl "-I../../lib" -MExtUtils::Command::MM -e 'cp_nonempty' -- Normalize.bs ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.bs 644
mv Normalize.xsc Normalize.c
cc -c   -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -fstack-protector-strong -I/usr/local/include -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -Wall -Werror=pointer-arith -Werror=vla -Wextra -Wno-long-long -Wno-declaration-after-statement -Wc++-compat -Wwrite-strings -Wno-use-after-free -O2   -DVERSION=\"1.32\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.32\" -fPIC "-I../.."   Normalize.c
rm -f ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.so
cc  -shared -O2 -L/usr/local/lib -fstack-protector-strong  Normalize.o  -o ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.so  \
      \
  
chmod 755 ../../lib/auto/Unicode/Normalize/Normalize.so
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl/dist/Unicode-Normalize'
./perl -Ilib -I. -f pod/buildtoc -q
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by buildtoc
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by MANIFEST
pod/buildtoc: perl5421delta.pod is known by buildtoc but does not exist
pod/buildtoc: Can't open file 'pod/perl5421delta.pod' for perl5421delta: No such file or directory
ABORTED
make: *** [makefile:424: pod/perltoc.pod] Error 255

@book @thibaultduponchelle can you take a look?

I will hold off on further merging of "sync-with-CPAN" pull requests until this is resolved. I will likewise defer further removals of "defer-next-dev" labels until we're all clear.

[book]

Should be fixed by 88a2b5a.

[jkeenan]

Bisection with the following invocation ...

$ perl Porting/bisect.pl --start=v5.42.0 --end=b344f06201 --test-build

points to 4ddd215 as the breaking commit.

make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl2/dist/Unicode-Normalize'
./perl -Ilib -I. -f pod/buildtoc -q
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by buildtoc
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by MANIFEST
pod/buildtoc: perl5421delta.pod is known by buildtoc but does not exist
pod/buildtoc: Can't open file 'pod/perl5421delta.pod' for perl5421delta: No such file or directory
ABORTED
make: *** [Makefile:424: pod/perltoc.pod] Error 255
HEAD is now at 4ddd215baf new perldelta for perl 5.43.0
bad - could not build test_prep
4ddd215baf97e4669011b53ba6256916d4beabed is the first bad commit
commit 4ddd215baf97e4669011b53ba6256916d4beabed
Author: Philippe Bruhat (BooK) <book@cpan.org>
Date:   Thu Jul 3 18:30:50 2025 +0200

    new perldelta for perl 5.43.0

[jkeenan]

The build appears to work correctly as of

$ git describe
v5.42.0-9-g88a2b5a5ab

Now running the harness.

[bulk88]

make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/jkeenan/gitwork/perl2/dist/Unicode-Normalize'
./perl -Ilib -I. -f pod/buildtoc -q
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by buildtoc
pod/buildtoc: perl5430delta.pod exists but is unknown by MANIFEST
pod/buildtoc: perl5421delta.pod is known by buildtoc but does not exist
pod/buildtoc: Can't open file 'pod/perl5421delta.pod' for perl5421delta: No such file or directory
ABORTED
make: *** [Makefile:424: pod/perltoc.pod] Error 255
HEAD is now

I've seen these messages for years. perl5421delta.pod is a fake or built file, that is a copy of perldelta.pod, and last month's blead's build product .pod is never a "tracked" or "ignored" or mkf "cleaned" file THIS month. git clean to the rescue. Visually annoying if Im switching random branches 2 weeks apart and I cross a monthly release boundary/ver bump, but I've never said anything until now.

[book]

The real issue was that Porting/pod_lib.pl, which is a library used by several Porting scripts, reads the current version from the title line of pod/perldelta.pod...