/ 
SimpleFlow-0.16

Changes for version 0.16 - 2026-08-28

  • Fixed
    • **`die => 0` never reported a failure.** The `will.do => "FAILED"` assignment sat inside the `if ($r{die})` branch, so it could only run on the path that immediately died. Under `die => 0` — the mode in which the caller is meant to read `will.do` — a command that exited non-zero was reported as `"done"`, and nothing warned. `will.do` is now `"FAILED"` for a non-zero exit, a timeout, or a missing output file regardless of `die`, and `die => 0` emits a warning naming the exit code.
    • **The log lost the record of the task that killed the run.** The log filehandle was never autoflushed. Measured with a `SIGKILL` part-way through a pipeline (the shape of an OOM kill or a scheduler eviction), a log holding 862 bytes on a clean exit held 139 bytes after the kill: everything written after the last command started — its exit code, duration and captured output — was still in stdio's buffer. `task` and `say2` now switch the handle to autoflush.
    • **An undefined filename still crashed.** 0.14 added a `defined` guard to the 0-length check, but the `-f -r` filetest ran first, so an `undef` element of an `input.files` array died as `Use of uninitialized value $_ in -r` under `warnings FATAL => 'all'`. Names are now validated before anything is filetested.
    • **The 0-length `input.files` check was unreachable.** `''` fails `-f`, so an empty input filename was reported as `"missing or unreadable"` and the 0-length check below it could never fire. Both undefined and 0-length names are now reported as what they are, and the message names the offending index.
    • **`cmd` was not type-checked.** Only definedness was checked, so any reference was stringified straight into the shell: `task(cmd => ['echo','hi'])` ran the literal command `ARRAY(0x5ed9d076e618)`. `cmd` must now be a non-empty string or a non-empty array ref of defined values.
    • **Skip detection and the post-run check disagreed.** Skipping tested a bare `-f` while the post-run check tested `-f -r`, so an output file that existed but could not be read counted as already done. Both use `-f -r` now.
    • **The result record changed shape between paths.** `exit`, `signal`, `stdout` and `stderr` were absent after a skip or a dry run, so a caller running under the `warnings FATAL => 'all'` this module recommends died just by reading `$t->{'exit'}`. They are now always present, holding their empty values.
    • **`string_max` was uncapped**, so a chatty command had its whole capture echoed to the terminal and written to the log — a measured 3 MB stdout wrote 3,002,832 bytes to each. It is now capped at 4096 characters; Data::Printer marks what it drops. The full capture is still on the result hash.
    • **Loading SimpleFlow polluted `main::`.** `use DDP` and `use Cwd 'getcwd'` sat above the `package` statement, so `p`, `np` and `getcwd` were imported into every program that loaded the module. The `package` statement now comes first, and the duplicated `use` lines are gone.
    • **Unbalanced parenthesis** in the 0-length `output.files` error message.
  • Added
    • **`stale`**: also re-run when an input file is newer than an output file, the rule `make` and `snakemake` use. Off by default, so existing pipelines are unaffected. The result carries `out.of.date`.
    • **`timeout`**: a wall-clock budget in whole seconds. The command runs in its own process group and the whole group is killed if the budget is exceeded, so a wedged pipeline does not leave orphans behind. The result carries `timed.out`. POSIX only.
    • **An array-ref `cmd`** runs the command without a shell, so arguments coming from data need no quoting.
    • **`quiet`**: suppress the record printed to the terminal without silencing the log or `STDERR`.
    • **`input.file`**, the single-file convenience form of `input.files`, matching `output.file`.
  • Changed
    • `$VERSION` is now a quoted string. As a bare number it was stringified through `%g`, so a future `0.20` would have become `"0.2"` and compared as older than `"0.15"` on CPAN.
    • **Incompatible:** `input.files` on the result is now always an array ref, as `output.files` always was. A scalar argument used to be stored raw.
    • `POSIX` (core) is now a dependency, for `_exit` in the timeout child.

Documentation

README.md
SimpleFlow
easy, simple workflow manager (and logger); for keeping track of and debugging large and complex shell command workflows

Modules

SimpleFlow
easy, simple workflow manager (and logger); for keeping track of and debugging large and complex shell command workflows

Other files