Re: Automake 1.8.3 doesn't build?

[Eric Sunshine]

On Sun, 18 Apr 2004 16:45:00 -0500 (CDT), Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Apr 2004, Eric Sunshine wrote:
> > I can submit a patch to autoconf-patches to make Autoconf's shell
> > selection more backward-compatible with earlier versions of Autoconf,
> > however this raises another issue. My interpretation of this thread is
> > that Autoconf's new shell selection behavior is exposing a latent problem
> > with Automake; specifically, Automake-generated makefiles do not deal
> > with zsh in a robust fashion. Even after patching Autoconf, it will still
> > be possible for zsh to be the chosen shell (it just won't be as likely),
> > so this same problem can continue to affect Automake. Furthermore, it
> > does not really seem like Autoconf's responsibility to work around a
> > shortcoming in Automake. After all, Autoconf has long considered zsh an
> > acceptable shell (otherwise, those zsh work-arounds would not be present
> > in Autoconf), so one might expect Automake to also consider zsh a usable
> > shell (by employing the same zsh goop, for instance).
> I agree with your conclusions.  Automake Makefiles should be more
> robust.

I submitted the following patch to autoconf-patches:

2004-04-19  Eric Sunshine  <address@hidden>

        * lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4 (_AS_DETECT_BETTER_SHELL): Consult $SHELL as a
        possible candidate only after all others fail, rather than consulting
        it first.  This improves backward compatibility by better reflecting
        the way shell selection occurred in previous versions of Autoconf, and
        should help to avoid triggering latent problems in other packages, such
        as the one in Automake where zsh is not handled robustly:
            http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2004-04/msg00095.html
        Although it is not Autoconf's responsibility to work around problems in
        Automake, it nevertheless makes sense to avoid introducing unnecessary
        incompatibilites.


--- m4sh.m4-orig        Mon Apr 19 02:48:42 2004
+++ m4sh.m4     Mon Apr 19 02:49:05 2004
@@ -215,7 +215,7 @@
   AS_IF([test $as_have_required = yes && dnl
         _AS_RUN([_AS_DETECT_SUGGESTED_BODY]) 2> /dev/null],
     [],
-    [as_candidate_shells="$SHELL"
+    [as_candidate_shells=''
     _AS_PATH_WALK([/bin$PATH_SEPARATOR/usr/bin$PATH_SEPARATOR$PATH],
       [case $as_dir in
         /*)
@@ -223,6 +223,7 @@
             as_candidate_shells="$as_candidate_shells $as_dir/$as_base"
           done
        esac])
+      as_candidate_shells="$as_candidate_shells $SHELL"

       for as_shell in $as_candidate_shells; do
         AS_IF([_AS_RUN([_AS_DETECT_REQUIRED_BODY], [$as_shell 2> /dev/null])],