Within BackupPC::Storage::Text, there is some code like

if ( exists($newConf->{$var}) ) {
                    my $d = Data::Dumper->new([$newConf->{$var}], [*va
+lue]);
                    $d->Indent(1);
                    $d->Terse(1);
                    $d->Sortkeys(1);
                    my $value = $d->Dump;
                    $value =~ s/(.*)\n/$1;\n/s;
                    $contents .= "\$Conf{$var} = " . $value;
                    $done->{$var} = 1;
                }
[download]

This works fine for older versions of Data::Dumper, but fails for newer ones.

Replacing the line referring Data::Dumper with

my $d = Data::Dumper->new([$newConf->{$var}], \[*value]);
[download]

solves the issue, but I'm not sure I understand why exactly.

In particular, I would like to understand if it's BackupPC doing something that it shouldn't when using [*value], or if it is Data::Dumper that broke the rules by doing things differently now.

(Later edit) Looks like the correct question is like

should [*value] be a list or an arrayref?