nth eval of same code creates errors

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi Everyone
Here is a head scratcher. I am using log4perl which contains a few eval statements and sometimes see strange activity - the script (which runs as a POE process) exits after a while (clarification, runs perfectly for a while and then exits) with the error:

Global symbol xxxx requires explicit package name at (eval 226185663) line yyyy.

(xxx being an internal log4perl variable but not always the same one)

Thing is that _many_ iterations of evaluating the code have gone by (like 226185663 above) and then the error is thrown. I can only conclude that log4perl is fine and something else is affecting this.

My questions:
1) I know that the number 226185663 is the eval number (i.e. incremented each time an eval is run), but I can't see how it gets so high - that amount of iterations would take months - is there any way to print this number on the console to see if something else increments it
2) Any idea on the problem at hand? I have lots of scripts using log4perl and only this particular one fails (but only after a long running time)

Thanks

Warren

[dave_the_m]

If you have the ability to attach a debugger like gdb to the process, then you can look at the value of the PL_evalseq variable (or on a threaded Perl, the value of my_perl->Ievalseq). For example in the following, perl588 and perl588t are unthreaded and threaded versions of perl:

$ perl588 -e 'eval "1;" for 1..10; sleep 9999' &
[1] 8491
$ gdb `which perl588` 8491
...
(gdb) p PL_evalseq
$1 = 0xa
(gdb) quit




$ perl588t -e 'eval "1;" for 1..10; sleep 9999' &
[1] 8525
$ gdb `which perl588t` 8525
...
(gdb) bt
#0  0x00110402 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
#1  0x003f2e20 in __nanosleep_nocancel () from /lib/libc.so.6
#2  0x003f2c6f in sleep () from /lib/libc.so.6
#3  0x08133397 in Perl_pp_sleep (my_perl=0x8837008) at pp_sys.c:4589
...
(gdb) frame 3
(gdb) p my_perl->Ievalseq
$1 = 0xa
(gdb)

Dave.

[warrenvw]

Thanks Dave. I don't have gdb, but that gave me an idea - I'll report my findings back soon.

Warren

[warrenvw]

Doh! Anoymous Monk would be me not logged in...