biber of biblatex-biber fails

[JeffFessler (Jeff Fessler)]

I recently did a selfupdate and after the update the biber command of biblatex-biber package no longer works. It worked fine for years before this. I have the current macports version:

biblatex-biber @2.5_2+perl5_24 (active)

(There is a newer version of biber at sourceforge but macports is behind it seems.)

And the current biblatex version (from tex.log file) is:

Package: biblatex 2016/05/14 v3.4

Here is the error message when running biber:

Undefined subroutine &Encode::define_alias called at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Encode.pm line 102.
Compilation failed in require at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Encode/Alias.pm line 7.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Encode/Alias.pm line 7.
Compilation failed in require at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/Biber/Constants.pm line 6.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/Biber/Constants.pm line 6.
Compilation failed in require at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/Biber/Internals.pm line 7.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/Biber/Internals.pm line 7.
Compilation failed in require at /opt/local/lib/perl5/5.24/parent.pm line 16.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/Biber.pm line 5.
Compilation failed in require at /opt/local/bin/biber line 17.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/bin/biber line 17.

Any ideas? Or could someone update biber and biblatex to current versions in macports which might just resolve the issue?

[gnw3]

I have texlive-bibtex-extra @44385_0+doc and biblatex-biber @2.7_0+perl5_24. In the log I get:

(/opt/local/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/biblatex/bbx/standard.bbx
File: standard.bbx 2016/12/05 v3.7 biblatex bibliography style (PK/JW/AB)

This is the same version as MacTeX-2017. MacTeX uses a compiled biber and works properly, but using macport's biber I get the same perl Undefined subroutine &Encode::define_alias error.

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

Appears to be a bug in p5.24-encode triggered by use Encode::Alias. It is not present with perl5.26.

$ perl5.24 -e 'use Encode::Alias;'
Undefined subroutine &Encode::define_alias called at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Encode.pm line 102.
Compilation failed in require at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Encode/Alias.pm line 7.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Encode/Alias.pm line 7.
Compilation failed in require at -e line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at -e line 1.
$ perl5.26 -e 'use Encode::Alias;'
$

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

That was a bit misleading and I only noticed when trying with a +perl5_26 variant. I can of course reproduce the problem with perl5.26 after installing p5.26-encode.

What is actually required is to first load Encode.pm with use Encode; use Encode::Alias;.

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

In f3aaf5a6d60eadef034215bbee3d8f126024b371/macports-ports:

biblatex-biber: Fix loading Perl's Encode::Alias

Closes: #54351

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

Submitted the patch to upstream: ​https://github.com/plk/biber/pull/173

[drkp (Dan Ports)]

Thanks!

[JeffFessler (Jeff Fessler)]

Thanks! I just did another port selfupdate and now I get biber 2.7 and biblatex v3.7 and everything works great. Such fast response - truly amazing!

Note to self: the file that was changed was: /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.24/Biber/Constants.pm