[bug #30714] List of shell commands is outdated/Fallback to shell

[Krzysztof Malinowski]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?30714>

                 Summary: List of shell commands is outdated/Fallback to
shell
                 Project: make
            Submitted by: raspy
            Submitted on: Mon 09 Aug 2010 12:53:19 PM GMT
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Bug
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
       Component Version: 3.81
        Operating System: MS Windows
           Fixed Release: None
           Triage Status: None

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Details:

List of known shell commands is hardcoded in GNU make's source code. This
leads to problems when trying to run a command which is not on the list.
Consider the following Makefile:

foo: bar
        move /y $< $@

bar:
        copy nul $@

When running such Makefile it fails:

$> make

copy nul bar
        1 file(s) copied.
move /y bar foo
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, move /y bar foo, ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
make: *** [foo] Error 2

'copy' command is recognized and is being run through shell, while 'move'
command is not on the list and is being passed to Windows with hope that
system will somehow know how to run it. Unfortunately this is a built-in
command and it cannot be run outside of shell.

There is a short-term and a long-term resolution for that. In the short-term
the list of known commands should be updated (http://ss64.com/nt/ has a quite
good list of what's built-in). But in order to work really reliably, the
algorithm should be changed: when an unknown command is met, run the shell and
pass the command through shell instead of operating system. 

Current implementation is limited when it comes to shell support: suppose
that somebody changes shell by setting SHELL to something different, i.e.
PowerShell. There can be completely different commands, so hardcoded list of
commands will not be suitable; all commands are routed to Windows, totally
bypassing $(SHELL) which in turn appears to be useless.

The issue is also reproducible on 3.82.




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