Re: AC_PROG_SED selecting correct sed for config.status

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

on a second thought, I see an alternate approach:

> > Have you encountered any problem on a particular platform?
> 
> Yes. When building kdevelop from kde-3.3.2 on Solaris 2.6, 7,
> substitions in Makefile.in's with long lines gets truncated resulting
> in a dead build.

Well, to encounter this problem you need a system which:
1) has a broken sed
2) is powerful enough to be used for complex packages, loke KDE, which
   produce long substitutions

It is perfectly possible that this juxtaposition appears only on Solaris.

So we can as well go along the following:

if we are on Solaris and the default awk or sed is not POSIX compatible
        if  /usr/xpg4/bin/sed is available
                AC_MSG_WARN([Sane people have /usr/xpg4/bin in the
                        begining of their path])
                PATH="/usr/xpg4/bin:$PATH"
        else
                AC_MSG_WARN([Solaris without /usr/xpg4/bin is like
                        Linux without GNU.])
        fi
fi

The resulting ./configure script will complain on misconfigured Solaris
systems.  You may call it ``educating people'' or ``bothering people'',
acording to your mood.

This would also bring a sane awk to the configure script, so if a macro
uses awk, it has a better chance to work.

I'd like to hear opinions on which approach is better.

And now for something completely different:

> Yep. I cannot AC_REQUIRE([AC_PROG_SED]) in a m4_define'd macro.

If your approach wins, I'd suggest

AC_DEFUN([_AC_OUTPUT_CONFIG_STATUS],
[AC_REQUIRE([AC_PROG_SED])dnl
AC_MSG_NOTICE([creating $CONFIG_STATUS])...

Have a nice day,
        Stepan