RelNotes: add details on Perl module changes

Document changes to core and non-core Perl module handling in 2.17.

Signed-off-by: Todd Zullinger <tmz@pobox.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt
index c828d37345224550540a1665aaed2566d5bcb40e..085bf1dba17dccd064558fccf06c6337a7d4ba07 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.17.0.txt
@@ -75,6 +75,20 @@ Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
  * The build procedure for perl/ part has been greatly simplified by
    weaning ourselves off of MakeMaker.
 
+ * Perl 5.8 or greater has been required since Git 1.7.4 released in
+   2010, but we continued to assume some core modules may not exist and
+   used a conditional "eval { require <<module>> }"; we no longer do
+   this.  Some platforms (Fedora/RedHat/CentOS, for example) ship Perl
+   without all core modules by default (e.g. Digest::MD5, File::Temp,
+   File::Spec, Net::Domain, Net::SMTP).  Users on such platforms may
+   need to install these additional modules.
+
+ * As a convenience, we install copies of Perl modules we require which
+   are not part of the core Perl distribution (e.g. Error and
+   Mail::Address).  Users and packagers whose operating system provides
+   these modules can set NO_PERL_CPAN_FALLBACKS to avoid installing the
+   bundled modules.
+
  * In preparation for implementing narrow/partial clone, the machinery
    for checking object connectivity used by gc and fsck has been
    taught that a missing object is OK when it is referenced by a

diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 60e515eaf7432e77d8db8837b7bb95e105ca2126..c39006e8e7e5c5be2114b79d50135dc08e3d1aaa 100644 (file)
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -126,7 +126,8 @@ Issues of note:
          Redhat/Fedora are reported to ship Perl binary package with some
          core modules stripped away (see http://lwn.net/Articles/477234/),
          so you might need to install additional packages other than Perl
-         itself, e.g. Time::HiRes.
+         itself, e.g. Digest::MD5, File::Spec, File::Temp, Net::Domain,
+         Net::SMTP, and Time::HiRes.
 
        - git-imap-send needs the OpenSSL library to talk IMAP over SSL if
          you are using libcurl older than 7.34.0.  Otherwise you can use