Use Carp::Always to fix circular dependencies

Circular dependencies happen when your library requires a library which requires your library. Here’s an example. Lets say you have 2 packages:

AlienPlanet.pm

package AlienPlanet;
use Moose;
use Dinosaurs;          # <--- Circular dependency
sub has_dinosaurs {1}
1;

Dinosaurs.pm

package Dinosaurs;
use Moose;
use AlienPlanet;        # <--- Circular dependency
sub has_rabies {1}
1;

If you try to compile this, you get the following warning:

⚡ perl -c lib/AlienPlanet.pm 
Subroutine has_dinosaurs redefined at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 5.
lib/AlienPlanet.pm syntax OK

In this case its obvious where the problem is.

But if the package you included, included 25 other libraries, which included other libraries, which included your original library – then its harder to figure out where the circle is.

Happily I discovered a good solution. First, modify AlienPlanet.pm to look like this:

package AlienPlanet;
sub has_dinosaurs {1}   <-- swap
use Dinosaurs;          <-- swap
1;

Next, try compiling your code again but this time with Carp::Always:

⚡ perl -MCarp::Always -c lib/AlienPlanet.pm                                                                                                            
Subroutine has_dinosaurs redefined at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 4.
        require AlienPlanet.pm called at lib/Dinosaurs.pm line 4
        Dinosaurs::BEGIN() called at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 4
        eval {...} called at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 4
        require Dinosaurs.pm called at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 5
        AlienPlanet::BEGIN() called at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 4
        eval {...} called at lib/AlienPlanet.pm line 4
lib/AlienPlanet.pm syntax OK

Now you’ve got a stack trace and its easy to see where your problem is. All thats left is figuring out how to solve it. (Fast solution: use Class::Load in the Dinosaurs package.)