Re: texinfo-6.7.90 pretest on AIX

[Bruno Haible]

> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-6.7.90.tar.xz

On AIX 7.1, during "make check", one test fails:

Making check in texindex
        make  check-TESTS
FAIL: tests/ti-helpversion.sh

Let's look at the log file of this test:

$ cat tests/ti-helpversion.sh.log
+ SHELL=/bin/sh
+ export SHELL
+ CDPATH=
+ unset CDPATH
+ test -z ../../texindex
+ texindex=./texindex
+ TEXINDEX_SCRIPT=../../texindex/texindex.awk
+ export TEXINDEX_SCRIPT
+ + ./texindex --version
 awk: 0602-512 The string Email bug  cannot contain a newline character. The 
source line is 175. The function is usage.
 The error context is
                 >>>  <<< general questions and discussion to 
help-texinfo@gnu.org.\n\
 Syntax Error The source line is 176. The function is usage.
 awk: 0602-502 The statement cannot be correctly parsed. The source line is 
176. The function is usage.
out=
+ test 2 -ne 0
+ echo ../../texindex/tests/ti-helpversion.sh: ./texindex --version failed.
+ 1>& 2
../../texindex/tests/ti-helpversion.sh: ./texindex --version failed.
+ exit 1
FAIL tests/ti-helpversion.sh (exit status: 1)

So, apparently the chosen awk implementation does not support multi-line
strings.

Which awk implementations are available on this machine?

$ type awk
awk is /usr/bin/awk
$ type mawk
-bash: type: mawk: not found
$ type nawk
nawk is /usr/bin/nawk
$ type gawk
gawk is /usr/bin/gawk
$ gawk --version
GNU Awk 5.0.1, API: 2.0 (GNU MPFR 3.1.2, GNU MP 6.1.2)
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991-2019 Free Software Foundation.
...

So, awk, mawk, and gawk are available. When I change the generated texindex
script to invoke 'gawk' instead of 'awk', "make check" succeeds.

Therefore I think it will be better to prefer 'gawk' to 'awk' in the configure
test. That is, change
  AC_CHECK_PROGS([TI_AWK], [awk mawk gawk], [])
to
  AC_CHECK_PROGS([TI_AWK], [gawk awk mawk], [])

Note: The Autoconf macro AC_PROG_AWK also prefers 'gawk' to all other awk
implementations.

Bruno