Utterly BIZARRE behavior of IO::All vs glob

[usenet]

This is the most bizarre thing I have ever encountered. I was able
(with some difficulty) to figure out what was going on, but I still
don't know why.

Consider this simple example script which looks for files and adds them
to a zip archive:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use IO::All;
use Archive::Zip;
use Digest::MD5 qw/md5_hex/;
use strict;

my $zip = Archive::Zip -> new();
my $dir = '/my/path';
my $item = 'ETN599827';

foreach my $file(sort glob ("$dir/$item*")) {
print "PROCESSING: '$file' - @{[md5_hex $file]}\n";
$zip -> addFile($file , io($file)->filename )
|| warn "Could not add $file\n";
}

THAT WORKS FINE. There is a debugging statement which prints the
filename and the filename's md5sum, which outputs thus:

PROCESSING: '/my/path/ETN599827.txt' - 0d8572577b458ded778efd0d88c6cf05

But I prefer the flexibility IO::All, and lately I've been using that
module exclusively for my IO needs.

So what happens when I replace the glob with an IO::All statement
(one-line change):

foreach my $file (io($dir)-> filter(sub {$_->name =~
/$item.*/})->all_files) {
print "PROCESSING: '$file' - @{[md5_hex $file]}\n";
$zip -> addFile($file , io($file)->filename )
|| warn "Could not add $file\n";
}

Perl outputs thus:

&Digest::MD5::md5_hex function called with reference argument at
test.pl line 29.
PROCESSING: '/my/path/ETN599827.txt' - 0d8572577b458ded778efd0d88c6cf05
stat() on unopened filehandle GEN535 at
..../site_perl/5.8.4/Archive/Zip.pm line 2503.
Could not add /my/path/ETN599827.txt

The Digest::MD5 and Archive::Zip messages are courtesy of "-w" - they
don't print if warnings are not enabled.

The IO::All function SEEMS to be returning a plain, ordinary scalar
value whose MD5SUM is IDENTICAL to the result from the glob. This
debugging statement is returning the identical result:
print "PROCESSING: '$file' - @{[md5_hex $file]}\n";
But Perl seems to think it's some type of reference when it comes
from IO::All.

This is Perl 5.8.4 built on AIX 5.1 using IO::All 0.33

I'm very interested to learn more about what is happening. Does
anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Tassilo v. Parseval]

Also sprach (e-mail address removed):

But I prefer the flexibility IO::All, and lately I've been using that
module exclusively for my IO needs.

So what happens when I replace the glob with an IO::All statement
(one-line change):

foreach my $file (io($dir)-> filter(sub {$_->name =~
/$item.*/})->all_files) {
print "PROCESSING: '$file' - @{[md5_hex $file]}\n";
$zip -> addFile($file , io($file)->filename )
|| warn "Could not add $file\n";
}

Perl outputs thus:

&Digest::MD5::md5_hex function called with reference argument at
test.pl line 29.
PROCESSING: '/my/path/ETN599827.txt' - 0d8572577b458ded778efd0d88c6cf05
stat() on unopened filehandle GEN535 at
.../site_perl/5.8.4/Archive/Zip.pm line 2503.
Could not add /my/path/ETN599827.txt

The Digest::MD5 and Archive::Zip messages are courtesy of "-w" - they
don't print if warnings are not enabled.

The IO::All function SEEMS to be returning a plain, ordinary scalar
value whose MD5SUM is IDENTICAL to the result from the glob. This
debugging statement is returning the identical result:
print "PROCESSING: '$file' - @{[md5_hex $file]}\n";
But Perl seems to think it's some type of reference when it comes
from IO::All.

My suspicion is that IO::All returns objects with overloaded
stringification. Digest::MD5::md5_hex checks whether its argument is an
object and, in case its not an instance of Digest::MD5, barfs.

I am not really surprised that modules such as IO::All which
incorporates every conceivable seemingly smart trickery would sooner or
later exhibit strange interaction with other modules. That's the price
you have to pay if you prefer laziness over robustness.

Tassilo