Drop old package separator

[rlaboiss]

After upgrading Perl from version 5.36 0 to version 5.38.2, loads of warnings are emitted, like these:

$ mailagent -d 2>&1 >/dev/null
Old package separator "'" deprecated at /usr/bin/mailagent line 248.
Old package separator used in string at /usr/bin/mailagent line 258.
        (Did you mean "$cf\'home" instead?)
[…]
Old package separator "'" deprecated at (eval 80) line 1, <DATA> chunk 565.
Old package separator "'" deprecated at (eval 81) line 1.
Old package separator "'" deprecated at (eval 81) line 1.

Above is only a small fraction of the > 2000 messages that I got.

Is there any chance to have this fixed, before the old, deprecated package separator stops working in a future version of Perl?

[rmanfredi]

A chance? yes...
Quickly? no... this is a lot of work.
And being at 5.36 for now, difficult for me to test that I do not forget anything.
When I have enough free time ahead, I will tackle this. Meanwhile, can you tell me whether there is a pragma to use in Perl 5.38 to stop this class of warnings? That, I could quickly add... :-)

[rlaboiss]

According to perldoc perldiag:

    Old package separator "'" deprecated
        (W deprecated::apostrophe_as_package_separator, syntax) You used the
        old package separator "'" in a variable, subroutine or package name.
        Support for the old package separator will be removed in Perl 5.42.