1. $(...) breaks Solaris 10 /bin/sh.
2. Solaris 10 is still supported by the vendor, and people still use it
with GNU tools.
3. There is no technical benefit to $(...) in config.*.
What's the harm in using `...` a few more years in config.*?
Answer, as far as I can see: none. -k
> On Mar 9, 2021, at 5:08 PM, Zack Weinberg wrote:
> N.B. I changed Autoconf's "find us a better shell" logic in 2.70 to
> include checking for $(...) _specifically because of_ the change being
> debated here. Configure scripts themselves still use `...`
> nigh-exclusively.
This seems like
Warren Young writes:
> Since all versions of Solaris postdate this, Sun really should have made
> /bin/sh a POSIX shell from the start, but for whatever reason, did not,
> and now that decision's causing us problems.
My recollection is that there was concern at the time with portability of
On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 2:50 PM Michael Orlitzky
wrote:
>
> the $(...) syntax was standardized no later than 1997
It was first formally standardized as part of the POSIX shell in 1989,
which standardized what used to be called ksh88
On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 5:00 PM Tim Rice wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Mar 2021, Warren Young wrote:
> > On Mar 9, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
> > Solaris 10 dates from early 2005. We gave it 16 years of direct support,
> > and now it’s on a sort of “extended” support if you point Autoconf
> >
On 09/03/2021, Warren Young wrote:
> On Mar 9, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
>>
>>> 1) There is no actual benefit to using $(...) over `...`.
>>
>> I disagree with that statement on technical grounds (not merely cosmetic
>> grounds), as I've run into real problems in using `...` along
On Tue, 9 Mar 2021, Warren Young wrote:
> On Mar 9, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Solaris 10 dates from early 2005. We gave it 16 years of direct support, and
> now it’s on a sort of “extended” support if you point Autoconf configure
> scripts at a reasonable shell.
The thing is, it
On Tue, 2021-03-09 at 14:11 -0700, Warren Young wrote:
>
> Solaris 10 dates from early 2005. We gave it 16 years of direct
> support, and now it’s on a sort of “extended” support if you point
> Autoconf configure scripts at a reasonable shell.
>
I didn't realize it was that "recent." I'm
On Tue, 09 Mar 2021 14:11:36 -0700, Warren Young wrote:
> That’s the real trick, isn’t it? We have to set *some* threshold for droppin
> g support for old platforms. I expect Autoconf isn’t compatible with Ultrix
> any more, for instance.
That's a good reminder that we've been here before. I
On Mar 9, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
>
>> 1) There is no actual benefit to using $(...) over `...`.
>
> I disagree with that statement on technical grounds (not merely cosmetic
> grounds), as I've run into real problems in using `...` along with " and \,
Me too, plus nesting. The
On 3/9/21 12:26 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
On 3/9/21 11:09 AM, Karl Berry wrote:
I fully disagree. (Along with, it seems, everyone else except
you and Ben.)
Ben is the main person to convince here, since he's the maintainer.
Oh, my mistake. Ben has stepped down, so I should have written that
On 3/9/21 11:09 AM, Karl Berry wrote:
I fully disagree. (Along with, it seems, everyone else except
you and Ben.)
Ben is the main person to convince here, since he's the maintainer.
I am a bit disenheartened to see that Ben hasn't sent any email to this
list since he installed the change in
On 3/9/21 5:57 AM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
It seems that config.guess and Autotools packages are picking winners
and losers. It is not clear where the bar has been set.
I prefer to draw the line at systems that are no longer supported by
their own suppliers. For Solaris, that means I worry
At some point, failing to support $(...) is in the same ballpark
FWIW, I fully disagree. (Along with, it seems, everyone else except
you and Ben.)
1) There is no actual benefit to using $(...) over `...`.
It is purely cosmetic. In other scripts, fine. In config.*, no.
2) Using $(...)
On Mon, 8 Mar 2021, Paul Eggert wrote:
Except maybe for Solaris 10, shells that don't grok $(...) are museum pieces
now. And anybody on Solaris 10 (which occasionally includes me, as my
department still uses Solaris 10 on some machines) can easily run a better
shell like /bin/ksh. It's a bit
On 2021-03-08, Tim Rice wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2021, Nick Bowler wrote:
[...]
>> These scripts using $(...) are incorporated into the recently-released
>> Automake 1.16.3, which means they get copied into packages bootstrapped
>> with this version. So now, if I create a package using the latest
On Mon, 8 Mar 2021, Nick Bowler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I noticed that config.sub (and config.guess) scripts were very recently
> changed to use the POSIX $(...) form for command substitutions.
>
> This change is, I fear, ill-advised. The POSIX construction is
> widely understood to be nonportable as
On 3/8/21 3:00 PM, Dmitry V. Levin wrote:
The only rationale provided by the previous maintainer so far is a short
message in config-patches mailing list [1].
The config maintainer Ben Elliston has wanted to get rid of the
old-fashioned accent graves for many years. In November 2017 he
Hi Dmitry,
I tried to reach the author of that change [2], but, unfortunately,
received no response.
Ben's lack of response is no reason not to revert this
unportability. After all, one steps down from maintainership in order
not to spend time thinking about it any more.
Clearly Ben had
Hi,
On Mon, Mar 08, 2021 at 01:21:57PM -0500, Nick Bowler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I noticed that config.sub (and config.guess) scripts were very recently
> changed to use the POSIX $(...) form for command substitutions.
[...]
> What was the motivation for this change? Backquotes work fine and are
>
Hi,
I noticed that config.sub (and config.guess) scripts were very recently
changed to use the POSIX $(...) form for command substitutions.
This change is, I fear, ill-advised. The POSIX construction is
widely understood to be nonportable as it is not supported by
traditional Bourne shells such
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