bug#8609: $GZIP doesn't mean what you think it means.

[Jim Meyering]

Alan Curry wrote:
> Let me show you what happens if I try to clone coreutils from git and compile
> in the most straightforward way possible:
>
> % git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/coreutils
> Cloning into coreutils...
> remote: Counting objects: 151287, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (37539/37539), done.
> remote: Total 151287 (delta 113807), reused 150796 (delta 113449)
> Receiving objects: 100% (151287/151287), 26.95 MiB | 767 KiB/s, done.
> Resolving deltas: 100% (113807/113807), done.
> Script started on Tue May  3 00:40:20 2011
> % cd coreutils
> % ./bootstrap
> ./bootstrap: Error: '-9' not found
>
> ./bootstrap: See README-prereq for how to get the prerequisite programs
> %

Thanks for the report.
Here's the fix I'm using in coreutils.
(soon to be in gnulib's bootstrap, too)

>From 71cc2504dc05423f10a7a4928cadbbf619cb3780 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <address@hidden>
Date: Tue, 3 May 2011 10:09:20 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] build: avoid bootstrap failure when $GZIP is set

Running "GZIP=-9 ./bootstrap" would fail right away, because the
tool-version-checking code would treat the upper-cased program name
as an environment variable name and if that has a value use the
result as the application name.  That works fine for automake,
autoconf, etc. but not for gzip.
* bootstrap (check_versions): Do not treat $GZIP as a program name.
If defined at all, it is supposed to list gzip options.
Reported by Alan Curry in http://debbugs.gnu.org/8609
---
 bootstrap |    7 +++++--
 1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/bootstrap b/bootstrap
index f004ad3..c45ae48 100755
--- a/bootstrap
+++ b/bootstrap
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #! /bin/sh
 # Print a version string.
-scriptversion=2011-03-03.12; # UTC
+scriptversion=2011-05-03.08; # UTC

 # Bootstrap this package from checked-out sources.

@@ -405,7 +405,10 @@ check_versions() {
     # Honor $APP variables ($TAR, $AUTOCONF, etc.)
     appvar=`echo $app | tr '[a-z]-' '[A-Z]_'`
     test "$appvar" = TAR && appvar=AMTAR
-    eval "app=\${$appvar-$app}"
+    case $appvar in
+        GZIP) ;; # Do not use $GZIP:  it contains gzip options.
+        *) eval "app=\${$appvar-$app}" ;;
+    esac
     inst_ver=$(get_version $app)
     if [ ! "$inst_ver" ]; then
       echo "$me: Error: '$app' not found" >&2
--
1.7.5.141.g791a