What are common pitfalls or gotchas with semantic versioning quirks in Perl?

When working with semantic versioning in Perl, developers may encounter several pitfalls or quirks that can lead to confusion. Understanding these can help maintain efficiency and clarity in version control. Here are a few common issues to watch out for:

  • Ignoring version restrictions: Not specifying the exact version or range can lead to unexpected behavior when dependencies change.
  • Using pre-release versions: Properly managing pre-release versions can be tricky, especially when integrating with other modules.
  • Assuming backward compatibility: Just because a new version is released, it doesn’t mean it maintains backward compatibility.
  • Inconsistent versioning approaches: Mixing different versioning schemes can cause conflicts and confusion within the project.

Here’s an example of how to specify version requirements properly in a Perl module:

use strict; use warnings; # Specify the required version for a dependency use Some::Module '1.0.0'; # or if allowing minor updates use Some::Module '>= 1.0, < 2.0';