in reply to test for non perl command dependency
Not really an answer to your question, but...
I've found that in most cases checking for a minimum version isn't as useful as it seems, for one or more of the reasons below:
- Distributions apply their own patches which can cause versions below your specified minimum to work fine with your programs.
- Or they may take away features because they think they're not mature enough yet or cause problems.
- Or they may use a from-scratch reimplementation with different version numbers
In most cases if an external tool doesn't support a feature it'll probably exit with an error when you call it, and you can just print an error at that point.
If it's really important to know in advance, do a test for the actual feature, not just a version number.
And, even though people might not read it, clearly add the dependencies to the documentation.
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