Re: Automake patch to not assume egrep or fgrep

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Alexandre Duret-Lutz <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:57:44 +0200

>  >> - @if sed 15q $(srcdir)/NEWS | fgrep -e "$(VERSION)" >/dev/null; \
>  >> + @if sed 15q $(srcdir)/NEWS | grep -F -e "$(VERSION)" >/dev/null; \
>  Ralf> Hard-coded grep -F .
> 
> I think only this one really matters.  (The two others are in
> `maintainer-check' where portability is not important.)

I thought that this "distdir" action is only used by package
maintainers as well, as it uses other syntax like "cp -pR" and "chmod
a+r" that is not portable to arbitrarily ancient hosts.  Hmm, but I
suppose those actions do work on Solaris 8, whereas "grep -E" doesn't,
so maybe this is worth fixing.

> What about escaping $(VERSION) using sed before passing it to grep?

Why not use shell pattern matching?  It's simpler.  Something like
this, perhaps?

*** lib/am/distdir.am   Wed May 29 22:20:33 2002
--- /tmp/distdir.am     Thu May 30 01:14:24 2002
***************
*** 42,52 ****
  ##
  if %?TOPDIR_P%
  if  %?CK-NEWS%
!       @if sed 15q $(srcdir)/NEWS | grep -F -e "$(VERSION)" >/dev/null; \
!       then :; else \
          echo "NEWS not updated; not releasing" 1>&2; \
!         exit 1; \
!       fi
  endif  %?CK-NEWS%
  endif %?TOPDIR_P%
  ##
--- 42,53 ----
  ##
  if %?TOPDIR_P%
  if  %?CK-NEWS%
!       @case `sed 15q $(srcdir)/NEWS` in \
!       *"$(VERSION)"*) : ;; \
!       *) \
          echo "NEWS not updated; not releasing" 1>&2; \
!         exit 1;; \
!       esac
  endif  %?CK-NEWS%
  endif %?TOPDIR_P%
  ##