Re: Final redirection of texi output (issue 5650064)

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:05:56AM +0000, address@hidden wrote:
>> 
>> scripts/build/run-and-check.sh:2: eval $1 > $2 2>&1
>> 
>> Actually, it is totally basic shell scripting here.
>
> Well, apparently you don't need "basic" shell scripting for 7
> years of full-time linux use and 4 years of macosx use, and
> thousands of hours of open-source work for multiple projects.
> I've called programs, I've used for loops, but anything fancier
> than that is done as a makefile or python.
>
> My rule of thumb is that if I don't understand something easily,
> then at least 50% of future lilypond contributors won't understand
> it either.

eval is ugly and a little-travelled corner, and it might be necessary to
write

eval "$1" > "$2" 2>&1

instead, though the amount of quoting required for working with shell
internals varies and I don't remember in all too fine detail.  The $1
quite likely wants quotes, the $2 will possibly do without.

But the actually "hard" thing is the eval (easy to find in the man page,
though).  And it is only needed when the command to be executed is a
_shell_ command.  So I am really quite doubtful that we reduce
complexity with this shell script which, after all, also needs to gets
called with the correct path.

-- 
David Kastrup