[MIR] libmatch-simple-perl (libio-prompter-perl dependency)

[Lukas Märdian]

TBD by Foundations

It looks like we actually need the new dependency + MIR as the smartmatch operator is going to be deprecated in Perl 5.38+.

libmatch-simple-perl implements a compatible "match::smart" operator, besides its "match::simple".

We should consider if we can drop the libmatch-simple-xs-perl Recommends, keeping only the libio-prompter-perl -> libmatch-simple-perl -> libsub-infix-perl dependency chain. libmatch-simple-xs-perl seems to support the "match::simple" operator only, which seems unneeded here.

[Danilo Egea Gondolfo (danilogondolfo)]

I haven't tried to drop libmatch-simple-xs-perl yet, but according to [1], not using it would cause a huge performance impact.

By not dropping it we'll need to MIR more packages:

libmatch-simple-perl
 - libsub-infix-perl
 - libmatch-simple-xs-perl (recommends)
     - liblist-moreutils-perl
       - liblist-moreutils-xs-perl

[1] - https://metacpan.org/pod/match::simple

[Danilo Egea Gondolfo (danilogondolfo)]

Currently, the only package in main depending on libio-prompter-perl (which is the reason why we are considering this MIR) is libgitlab-api-v4-perl.

libgitlab-api-v4-perl was moved to main during the Focal cycle and I can't find any LP bug explaining why. There is no other package depending on libgitlab-api-v4-perl. While it *sounds like* a package that should be in main, if we move it back to universe, libio-prompter-perl could also be moved to universe and none of these MIRs would be necessary. Not saying we should do that, just raising the question...

[Lukas Märdian (slyon)]

devscripts is what's pulling in that libgitlab-api-v4-perl perl dependency (Recommends). Which can also be seen from the seeds: https://ubuntu-archive-team.ubuntu.com/germinate-output/ubuntu.noble/all+extra

Indeed, we could consider downgrading that devscripts Recommends to a Suggests (if that's sensible), to cut the tree even further and get a few packages demoted on the way.

$ reverse-depends src:libgitlab-api-v4-perl -c main
Reverse-Recommends
==================
* devscripts (for libgitlab-api-v4-perl)

[Danilo Egea Gondolfo (danilogondolfo)]

urgh... I was using "apt-rdepends -r" and it doesn't show recommended packages I suppose...

[Lukas Märdian (slyon)]

This is being handled via: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/devscripts/-/merge_requests/375

[Danilo Egea Gondolfo (danilogondolfo)]

libio-prompter-perl was demoted to universe so this MIR is not needed anymore.