Compilation failed in require when using "use" in Perl

Question

I am using Perl in Eclipse.

In the same directory, I have a .pl file and two .pm files (pmFile1.pm, pmFile2.pm).

At the top of the .pl file, I use the command:

use pmFile1;
use pmFile2;

I get an error

Compilation failed in require

I do not believe I had this error earlier. I have researched this error online, and cannot figure out what may have caused it, because I have not found a similar situation to mine that caused the error. I do not know what other information would be pertinent to include, but will add anything if asked...

Thank you.

Solution 1

I suggest you check the module pmFile1.pm for errors in a terminal shell

$ perl -c pmFile1.pm
syntax error at pmFile1.pm line 1, near "."
pmFile1.pm had compilation errors.

When entering a single dot . as a syntax error into pmFile1.pm and running the p.pl file then the errors below are shown in Eclipse, the same as you described. If you run the .pl file in a terminal shell then you get the same compilation failed in require as in eclipse:

$ perl p.pl
syntax error at pmFile1.pm line 1, near "."
Compilation failed in require at p.pl line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at p.pl line 1.

Solution 2

This may not be your problem, but I've been "bitten" by something similar before: check the End of Line chars in the file. It may be that your code is seen by the compiler to be all one line, making an error anywhere in the code appear as being on line 1 when visually (in the editor) the offending line would be later in the code. In notepad++ you resolve this sort of issue by using the Edit > EOL Conversion > Windows Format (or whatever format is correct for you) menu option, though other editors will likely have a similar feature for *NIX <-> Windows EOL conversions. This error would make sense if you can successfully use the module files giving you an error without errors in other script files.

Solution 3

I solved this by changing the required package to some dummy name, then retaining it.