Re: Automake patch to not assume egrep or fgrep

[Ralf Corsepius]

Am Don, 2002-05-30 um 08.21 schrieb Paul Eggert:
> I've been porting GNU tools to a stricter POSIX 1003.1-2001
> environment, and noticed that Automake uses the obsolecent commands
> 'egrep' and 'fgrep'.  These commands need not exist on a modern POSIX
> host; you're supposed to use grep -E and grep -F instead.  I installed
> the following patch on the main Automake branch; I don't know whether
> this sort of thing is suitable for branch-1-6 so I left branch-1-6
> alone.

AFAIS, your patch now hard-codes grep -E and grep -F into several
general automake-files (some annotations interspersed below).

I.e. your patch breaks old platforms which do not support grep -E and
grep -F (eg. SunOS4).

> Index: Makefile.am
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/automake/automake/Makefile.am,v
> retrieving revision 1.191
> diff -p -u -r1.191 Makefile.am
> --- Makefile.am       6 May 2002 19:29:37 -0000       1.191
> +++ Makefile.am       30 May 2002 05:50:37 -0000
> @@ -78,33 +79,32 @@ maintainer-check: automake aclocal
>       perllibdir=$(srcdir)/lib $(PERL) -c -w aclocal
>  ## expect no instances of '${...}'.  However, $${...} is ok, since that
>  ## is a shell construct, not a Makefile construct.
> -## The backslash in `$${' is needed for some versions of bash.
> -     @if fgrep '\$${' $(srcdir)/lib/am/[a-z]*.am | \
> -            fgrep -v '$$$$'; then \
> +     @if grep -F '$${' $(srcdir)/lib/am/[a-z]*.am | \
> +            grep -F -v '$$$$'; then \
Hard-coded grep -F
>         echo "Found too many uses of '\$${' in the lines above." 1>&2; \
>         exit 1;                               \
>       else :; fi
>  ## Make sure `rm' is called with `-f'.
> -     @if egrep '\<rm ([^-]|\-[^f ]*\>)' \
> +     @if grep -E '\<rm ([^-]|\-[^f ]*\>)' \
>                 $(srcdir)/lib/am/[a-z]*.am $(srcdir)/tests/*.test | \
Hard-coded grep -E

> Index: lib/am/distdir.am
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/automake/automake/lib/am/distdir.am,v
> retrieving revision 1.33
> diff -p -u -r1.33 distdir.am
> --- lib/am/distdir.am 17 May 2002 10:49:53 -0000      1.33
> +++ lib/am/distdir.am 30 May 2002 05:50:37 -0000
> @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
>  ## automake - create Makefile.in from Makefile.am
> -## Copyright 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> +## Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>  
>  ## This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
>  ## it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ distdir: $(DISTFILES)
>  ##
>  if %?TOPDIR_P%
>  if  %?CK-NEWS%
> -     @if sed 15q $(srcdir)/NEWS | fgrep -e "$(VERSION)" >/dev/null; \
> +     @if sed 15q $(srcdir)/NEWS | grep -F -e "$(VERSION)" >/dev/null; \
Hard-coded grep -F .

[..]

Why not implementing a general AC_PROG_FGREP and AC_PROG_EGREP into
autoconf and others (including automake) use $(FGREP) or $(EGREP) in
general?

Or alternatively, let automake provide and use such macros, in general?

Ralf