Re: [RFC] Could autoconf-generated configure scripts start requiring a POSIX shell?

[Eric Blake]

On 03/03/2012 07:46 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 03/03/2012 11:01 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>> would you think about the possibility of making autoconf-generated
>> configure scripts *require* a POSIX shell in order to run
> 
> Doesn't it already do that?  'configure' scripts already look for
> a better shell, one that presumably conforms to POSIX better.
> 
> I don't think 'configure' needs to check for strict conformance
> to POSIX (hardly any shell does that), only stuff that's useful
> and practical -- which is what it does now, no?  So perhaps I am
> not understanding your proposal.

I think the idea is to find a shell that supports $(), ${foo#bar}, and
other POSIX constructs that Solaris /bin/sh lacks, but which can be
found on other shells installed on Solaris.  To some extent, Jim
Meyering has already insisted on finding a POSIX shell to run the
coreutils testsuite, borrowing ideas from autoconf for finding a better
shell, but insisting that the shell that is found has more than the bare
minimum required by current autoconf.  I'm actually in favor of the
idea, post-2.69, because we haven't had any complaints about the
inability to run the coreutils testsuite, and therefore we can assume
that most systems these days have a shell with a bare minimum of $().
It may be worth injecting a probe even into 2.69 (remember, for several
releases, we probed whether shell functions were available, before
requiring them).

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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