Re: testing of CVS Autoconf

[Paul Eggert]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> writes:

> FWIW, this is how current CVS (during the last few weeks) plus Paul's
> pending gnulib additions fares on these systems:

Wow, thanks for all the testing.  I was hoping to get an Autoconf beta
out soon, and this is a good spur for that.

My gnulib additions ran into a problem when I actually tried to use
them on GNU tar.  The problem is that, even with the changes, GNU tar
still assumes that 1 << (sizeof (int) * CHAR_BIT - 1) is valid.  But
this isn't correct in general: you need to know how many value bits
(i.e., non-padding bits) are in the int.  (A counterexample is the
Unisys 2200 series, which as I understand it is still produced and
maintained, and which supports POSIX.)  The gnulib additions calculate
the number of value bits but don't make them available to 'tar'.  So I
would like to add that.