[adding bug-standards] On 05/24/2011 11:41 AM, Josh Triplett wrote: > In trying to bootstrap a minimal environment, I ended up trying to run a > configure script using just busybox (specifically, Debian's > busybox-static). This almost worked, except that the configure script > used diff several times. configure just uses diff for its exit code, to > check for identical files. The version of busybox-static in Debian > doesn't provide diff, but does provide cmp.
That's in conflict with the current GNU Coding Standards, which states that a program can blindly assume the existence of diff on $PATH. Either we need to tighten GCS to forbid unqualified use of diff, or improve the busybox setup to start providing diff as expected by GCS, or both. http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Utilities-in-Makefiles > Rather than unconditionally using diff, please consider detecting and > using an appropriate $ac_files_identical program; either diff or cmp > would work. For that matter, such detection would also provide a good > opportunity to check for a working diff -q or cmp -s, which run faster > since they can stop at the first difference and don't have to generate > output. > > Does this seem like a reasonable addition to autoconf? (If it falls > under "OK, if someone provides a patch", I can do so.) Certainly okay if someone provides a patch. It's not my highest priority, but I like the idea if it improves portability of a configure script. -- Eric Blake [email protected] +1-801-349-2682 Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
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