Re: Patch to check for required programs when building from source checkout

[Ed Avis]

Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net> writes:

>>% printf 'automake-1.10%s\n' .1 a|sort -V
>>automake-1.10a
>>automake-1.10.1

>IMHO this means automake is muddying the waters by giving
>something-newer-than automake-1.10.1 the version string "1.10a".

Or that sort -V is incorrect.  Note that Perl's Sort::Versions thinks 1.10a is 
newer than 1.10.1.  Eric Blake mentioned that m4_version_compare also thinks 
so.

It's really not good to have different tools disagree about version ordering so 
I suggest reconciling sort -V against Sort::Versions, autoconf and any other 
version-string-comparing tool you can find to see what the consensus is.

>>Wouldn't it be simpler to include a file bootstrap.required_progs

>Ready to write the patch?

I think I pretty much wrote it in the earlier message ;-p.

I don't have a current copyright waiver from my employer so I would need to get 
that sorted out.  It may be easier for you to just note the list of programs I 
mentioned and write the few lines of shell script yourself.  However, I will 
see if I can get the legal side fixed.

-- 
Ed Avis <address@hidden>