Re: deplibs_check_method=test_compile

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Gary V. Vaughan wrote on Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 02:06:54PM CET:
> Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> >
> > I have come to prefer more minimal quoting in examples, in order to make
> > above difference a bit more explicit: it took me a long time to grasp
> > this peculiarity of shell syntax.
> 
> You have grasped it?!  I still have to resort to typing at the prompt
> to figure out what I need in some cases.

It's the bonus of stuff like
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.libtool.patches/4614 ;-)
I do trial and error, of course, but when I think I have the right thing
I try to verify that it really does what I mean.

> One other thing that comes to mind (and the main reason for this reply),
> is that there is a good argument that the following is never entirely
> safe:
> 
>     test "$w00t" -ne 0
> 
> because it doesn't allow for dangerous expansions of "$w00t" to, say,
> `-x'.

Well, in fear of contradicting myself, but: if you definitely _know_
that $w00t expands to a number, then you can be sure that this is safe.
If not, then you have a point; although shells misparsing above are
getting few and far between.

> So we really ought to using:
> 
>     test x"$w00t" != "x0"
> 
> and so perhaps we should add a TODO item to perform that fix throughout
> libtool's shell code, and fixup HACKING to note this idio{m,sycracy}?

Not really, IMVHO.  The few instances that use `-ne' seem pretty safe to
me.  For the rest there are tests in sh.test, which will guide you to use
     test "X$w00t" != "X0"

instead.  ;-)

Cheers,
Ralf