Hi Eric, * Eric Blake wrote on Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 06:34:10PM CET: > > I'm not sure if grep -a is portable (POSIX doesn't require it),
AIX grep has no -a. > so is the following patch appropriate (and should we also mention > this in the autoconf manual)? FWIW, as a general (hand-waving) rule, I would rather use POSIX as base from which to document deviations, than BSD or GNU features. That way the Autoconf manual doesn't end up documenting all extensions as such. > and if I were to install expect, I assume the entire test would pass. Yes, I expect that, too (sorry for the pun). > Eric Blake <ebb9 <at> byu.net> writes: > > > > +# Check that grep can parse nonprinting characters > > +# BSD grep can do so from a pipe, but not a file. > > Maybe we should also add a line: > +# BSD 'grep -a' does just fine from files, but 'grep -a' is not portable. Why not, and yes, please apply the patch with this. Thanks for the report and analysis; confirmed, BTW. > > - grep ": pass" stdout | $FGREP "$grn" > > + cat stdout | grep ": pass" | $FGREP "$grn" > > Wow - I wrote something that superficially looks like a useless use of > cat, but which actually changes the test outcome. If you want to add a note about that, too, feel free to. Cheers, Ralf