What are common pitfalls or gotchas with cross-platform issues (Windows, macOS, Linux)?

When developing cross-platform applications in Perl, there are several common pitfalls or gotchas to be aware of. Each operating system has its own quirks that can lead to unexpected behavior or errors.

Common Pitfalls

• File Paths: Different operating systems have different file path formats. For example, Windows uses backslashes (\) while Linux and macOS use forward slashes (/).
• Line Endings: Windows uses carriage return and line feed (CRLF) for line endings, whereas Linux and macOS use just line feed (LF). This can lead to issues with file reading and writing.
• Executable Permissions: On Linux and macOS, files need execute permissions to be run as scripts, while on Windows, this is not a requirement.
• Environment Variables: The method for accessing environment variables differs, with Windows using a different syntax for setting and retrieving them compared to Unix-like systems.

Example Code

# Example of handling file paths across different OS
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Spec;

my $file_name = "data.txt";

# Create a cross-platform path
my $file_path = File::Spec->catfile('path', 'to', $file_name);
print "File path: $file_path\n";

# Checking for line endings
open my $fh, '<:crlf', $file_path or die "Could not open file: $!";
while (my $line = <$fh>) {
    print $line;
}
close $fh;