Test::Unit 0.30 fails on Error.pm catch syntax and example path normalization

[fglock]

Summary

The CPAN compatibility run 20260918-141920-96054 reports Test::Unit 0.30 as a failure, although the same upstream distribution passes completely under system Perl.

Reproduction

Run the normal Test::Unit 0.30 test suite with PerlOnJava. The failure affects both the JVM backend and the interpreter backend.

Expected result

System Perl passes all 3 test programs and 89 tests:

• t/all_tests.t — pass
• t/assert.t — pass
• t/try_examples.t — pass

Actual result

PerlOnJava reports 3 failed test programs and 1 failed subtest out of 4:

1. t/all_tests.t and t/assert.t fail while loading t/tlib/ExceptionChecker.pm:

   Bareword found where operator expected (Do you need to predeclare "with"?) at t/tlib/ExceptionChecker.pm line 37, near "with"

   The affected Error.pm syntax is the dynamic exception selector form:

   catch $exception_class with { ... }

2. t/try_examples.t runs, but its golden-output comparison fails because PerlOnJava reports:

   1) ./examples/fail_example.pm:19 - test_fail(fail_example)

   while the expected upstream output is:

   1) examples/fail_example.pm:19 - test_fail(fail_example)

Impact

This is a pure-Perl compatibility failure, not an XS/native dependency or environmental prerequisite. The parser failure prevents most of the suite from compiling, and the path discrepancy breaks the remaining example-output assertion.

Acceptance criteria

• catch $exception_class with { ... } parses and executes equivalently to system Perl on both backends.
• Test::Unit 0.30 passes all upstream tests on both backends.
• The example failure path is normalized consistently with Perl behavior, without changing the upstream tests.
• Add focused project-owned regression coverage for both the dynamic catch ... with syntax and the ./ path discrepancy.

Evidence

• CPAN run: 20260918-141920-96054
• Distribution: Test-Unit-0.30
• System Perl result: PASS, 3 files / 89 tests
• PerlOnJava result: FAIL, 3 files / 4 observed subtests
• Both JVM and interpreter backends reproduce the parser failure.

The GitHub duplicate search was attempted during classification but the GitHub API was unavailable; please check for related parser or path-normalization issues before merging this report.