From @xenu

If you pass anything starting with a hyphen as a module name, corelist
will think that it was added in perl 5.8.9​:

% corelist -a -- -anything-starting-with-a-hyphen

Data for 2018-12-18
-anything-starting-with-a-hyphen was first released with perl v5.8.9

From @jkeenan

On Sat, 12 Jan 2019 18​:38​:48 GMT, me@​xenu.pl wrote​:

If you pass anything starting with a hyphen as a module name, corelist
will think that it was added in perl 5.8.9​:

% corelist -a -- -anything-starting-with-a-hyphen

Data for 2018-12-18
-anything-starting-with-a-hyphen was first released with perl v5.8.9

When I simply type​:

#####
$ corelist -a --
#####

... I get the Usage statement, just as I would if I had typed 'corelist -h'.

That leads me to believe that 'corelist' is interpreting '-a --' as a mistake and defaulting to the Usage statement.

It probably should quit right there, but it apparently continues to parse command-line arguments. To get the weird behavior reported by xenu, I have to say '-a -- -<module_name>', e.g.,

#####
$ corelist -a -- -List​::Compare

Data for 2018-06-22
-List​::Compare was first released with perl v5.8.9

#####

So my hunch is that 'corelist -a' needs to be modified to be stricter with respect to what additional arguments it accepts.

Thank you very much.
--
James E Keenan (jkeenan@​cpan.org)

The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

This is because first_release() (like all the other Module::CoreList functions) can be called either as a method or a function, and it only shifts off the invocant if the second argument is a valid module name, which - isn't. So Module::CoreList->first_release('-') gets interpreted as Module::CoreList::first_release('Module::CoreList', '-'), and since - sorts before numers, it shows the first release Module::CoreList was in, which was 5.8.9.

The simplest fix would be to make corelist call the Module::CoreList functions as functions, rather than methods.

What do you intend Module::CoreList->first_release('-') to do, since - isn't a valid module name?

It should have the same result as when called with a module that isn't in core (empty list).

@karenetheridge I'm not proposing to change the Module::CoreList API here, just the corelist command.
The API is a confused mess originating in the misguided commit 0dee1c2 and exacerbated by 6d7c3a1.