diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 3dbe2ebd..376960d1 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ To compile Irssi you need:
 - meson-0.49 build system with ninja-1.5 or greater
 - glib-2.32 or greater
 - openssl (for ssl support)
-- perl-5.6 or greater (for Perl support)
+- perl-5.8 or greater (for building, and optionally Perl scripts)
 - terminfo or ncurses (for text frontend)
 
 For most people, this should work just fine:
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 1a8c23f3..064376c4 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -394,7 +394,7 @@ int main()
   else
     xsubpp_file_c = meson.get_cross_property('perl_xsubpp', UNSET)
     if xsubpp_file_c == UNSET
-      xsubpp_file_c = run_command(build_perl, '-MExtUtils::ParseXS', '-Eprint $INC{"ExtUtils/ParseXS.pm"} =~ s{ParseXS\\.pm$}{xsubpp}r').stdout()
+      xsubpp_file_c = run_command(build_perl, '-MExtUtils::ParseXS', '-e($r = $INC{"ExtUtils/ParseXS.pm"}) =~ s{ParseXS\\.pm$}{xsubpp}; print $r').stdout()
     endif
     xsubpp = generator(build_perl,
       output : '@BASENAME@.c',