I think it's OK to add any extra logging in the verbose mode though (when -verbose is passed) if you find it helpful as a developer. The verbose mode is for developers and for when users have problems, so any extra useful info is a goodness.
yeah, that's a good idea.
nevertheless, it might be useful if you swapped the logic around, adding additional $why only if the error isn't the standard "Can't locate Bar.pm in @INC..."
Yes, I don't quite understand what's the added value of your patch, as you add the extra output when it can't find the file. Where is your supporting email, talks about the opposite case. You probably wanted something like:
$why .= "$@" unless $@ =~ /^Can't locate/;
ken and I talked about this over irc. the issues he had seemed to stem from the fact that the error thrown from use() isn't always intuitive to non-perl folks. specifically, the error message from have_module is 'couldn't find module' which is a bit misleading - in many cases perl can "find" the module just fine, but it can't be used due to missing dependencies (ken's current problem).
so, I'd suggest making the the have_module message a bit clearer, maybe something like 'module $module not available' or somesuch.
also, ken pointed out that $@ will contain "Can't locate Bar.pm in @INC" if you use() Foo.pm and Foo.pm use()s Bar.pm and Bar.pm is missing. so
$@ =~ /^Can't locate/;
should probably be something like
$@ =~ /^Can't locate $module/;
or somesuch, so that a missing Foo.pm is not reported verbosely, but a missing Bar.pm is.
Understood.
then again, if the current behavior can be maintained and $@ printed only in -verbose mode you don't really need a regex at all.
All, but the case when it can't find a file. In which case $@ is too big to print, usually it can go up to 10 lines listing tons of dirs in @INC.
There should be a clear distinction between the module is not there -- we don't want any errors printed out at all (that's why we use have_module() and not just require) and the module is there but something goes wrong, in which case an explanation is due.
I didn't participate in the discussion, but may be Ken should use require instead of have_module(), at least while developing. Dunno if that's what he is after.
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