$ emerge -p --debug perl
These are the packages that I would merge, in reverse order:

Calculating dependencies  
Parent:    None
Depstring: dev-lang/perl
Candidates: ['dev-lang/perl']
ebuild: dev-lang/perl-5.8.7
binpkg: None

Parent:    ebuild / dev-lang/perl-5.8.7 merge
Depstring: !elibc_uclibc? ( sys-apps/groff ) berkdb? ( sys-libs/db ) gdbm? ( >=sys-libs/gdbm-1.8.3 ) >=sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7 !<perl-core/ExtUtils-MakeMaker-6.17 !<perl-core/File-Spec-0.87 !<perl-core/Test-Simple-0.47-r1 !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) >=sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7 berkdb? ( sys-libs/db ) gdbm? ( >=sys-libs/gdbm-1.8.3 )
Candidates: ['>=sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7', '!<perl-core/Test-Simple-0.47-r1', '!<perl-core/ExtUtils-MakeMaker-6.17', '!<perl-core/File-Spec-0.87']
ebuild: sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7
binpkg: None

Parent:    ebuild / sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7 merge
Depstring: !features_noman? ( sys-apps/groff ) berkdb? ( sys-libs/db ) gdbm? ( >=sys-libs/gdbm-1.8.0 ) !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) berkdb? ( sys-libs/db ) gdbm? ( >=sys-libs/gdbm-1.8.0 )
Candidates: ['sys-apps/groff']
ebuild: sys-apps/groff-1.19.1-r2
binpkg: None

Parent:    ebuild / sys-apps/groff-1.19.1-r2 merge
Depstring: >=sys-apps/texinfo-4.7-r1 !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) >=sys-apps/texinfo-4.7-r1

Parent:    None
Depstring: >=sys-apps/man-1.5k-r1
Candidates: ['>=sys-apps/man-1.5k-r1']
ebuild: sys-apps/man-1.6-r1
binpkg: None

Parent:    ebuild / sys-apps/man-1.6-r1 merge
Depstring: !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) sys-process/cronbase >=sys-apps/groff-1.18 nls? ( sys-devel/gettext )
Candidates: ['sys-process/cronbase']
ebuild: sys-process/cronbase-0.3.2
binpkg: None

Parent:    ebuild / sys-process/cronbase-0.3.2 merge
Depstring: !bootstrap? ( sys-devel/patch ) 
Exiting... ebuild / sys-apps/man-1.6-r1 merge
Exiting... None
Exiting... ebuild / sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7 merge

--
Depstring: app-shells/bash dev-lang/perl
Exiting... None
Exiting... None                                                                                                                                                     ...done!
[empty/missing/bad digest]: sys-process/cronbase-0.3.2
[ebuild  N    ] app-admin/perl-cleaner-1.01  0 kB 
[ebuild  N    ] sys-apps/man-1.6-r1  (-nls) 0 kB 
[ebuild  N    ]  sys-process/cronbase-0.3.2  0 kB 
[ebuild  N    ] dev-lang/perl-5.8.7  -berkdb -build -debug -doc -gdbm -ithreads -minimal -perlsuid 0 kB
[ebuild  N    ]  sys-devel/libperl-5.8.7  -berkdb -debug -gdbm -ithreads 0 kB
[ebuild  N    ]   sys-apps/groff-1.19.1-r2  -X 0 kB 

Total size of downloads: 0 kB

$ emerge --info
Portage 2.0.51.22-r2 (uclibc/x86/hardened, gcc-3.4.4, uclibc-0.9.27-r0, 2.6.12-gentoo-r7 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.12-gentoo-r7 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1300MHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre3
dev-lang/python:     2.3.4-r1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.11
sys-devel/autoconf:  [Not Present]
sys-devel/automake:  [Not Present]
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1
sys-devel/libtool:   [Not Present]
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i586-gentoo-linux-uclibc"
CFLAGS="-march=i586 -Os -pipe"
CHOST="i586-gentoo-linux-uclibc"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=i586 -Os -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig buildpkg distlocks nodoc noinfo noman sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.devnull.de"
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
PKGDIR="/home/embedded_uclibc"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 hardened ncurses pic python readline uclibc zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_uclibc"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS