doc/bugs/sparkline_fails_to_generate_graphs_in_debian_bullseye.mdwn

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+I have tried to use the sparkline plugin today and it failed with:
+
+    remote: PHP Fatal error:  Cannot use 'Object' as class name as it is reserved in /usr/share/php/sparkline/Object.php on line 71        
+
+... at built time. I have tried to follow the instructions in [[plugins/sparkline]] but those *also* failed with because php5 is long gone from Debian, of course. The `libdigest-sha1-perl` package also seems gone, so I have tried this:
+
+    apt install libsparkline-php php-gd php-cli
+
+... but that is how I ended up with the above failures. I suspect the embedded PHP code in ikiwiki needs to be ported to PHP 7 (or 8 now?)...
+
+But really, maybe, the sparkline Perl library should be examined again. Surely it's not *that* bad that we need PHP around here, do we? It looks like [SVG::Sparkline](https://metacpan.org/pod/SVG::Sparkline) could be a good candidate although there's also [Text::Sparkline](https://metacpan.org/pod/Text::Sparkline).
+
+Or maybe sparklines are dead... <http://sparkline.org> doesn't even resolve... Time flies, doesn't it? -- [[anarcat]]