Re: ksh bug on Tru64 UNIX causes current libtool failure

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Norman, others,

* Norman Gray wrote on Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 11:36:53AM CEST:
> On 2005 Jun 2 , at 10.37, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> 
> >Alternatively, the better option might be to tweak *DETECT_BETTER_SHELL
> >to prefer ksh over bin/sh..
> 
> I don't really want to intervene in this debate, but: <wince>.

In my book that's not called wincing nor intervening if you provide
arguments against one of the suggested choices.  Thanks!

> ksh has at least the unfortunate property that all file descriptors
> other than 0, 1, 2 are closed before an exec, and so aren't inherited
> by process children.  Ksh seems unique in this, though it isn't listed
> as a problem in the autoconf section on shell portability issues.
> It's not a major problem -- and may not be a problem at all for
> libtool -- but it does make some otherwise attractive idioms
> impossible.

Could you be bothered to suggest a patch to the Autoconf folks?

Aside from that, do you use this within any autoconf-generated configure
scripts?  Because the modified search *will* affect any package that
uses AC_PROG_LIBTOOL aka LT_INIT.

> >By the way, since tru64 seems a rather "interesting" target for 
> >libtool:
> 
> Oooh yes; oh yes indeedy.  I've come to the conclusion that if your 
> application builds on Tru64 and OS X, then it'll build just about 
> anywhere.

Hehe.  I believe Libtool has got OS X covered quite well, unlike Tru64
(and maybe IRIX, HPUX).

Regards,
Ralf