RE: [Axiom-developer] Testing build-improvements

[Page, Bill]

On Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:07 PM Gaby wrote:
> Bill Page wrote:
> | But I noticed that you have many incorrectly quoted or unquoted
> | parameters in the document script.
> 
> Please define more precisely what you mean by incorrectly quoted
> and unquoted.

I am referring to any parameter that is passed to an external
program.

> My guide on portable shell scripts usually is the notes in
> Autoconf.

I guess that's good enough for this purpose. :-)

> 
>   is more readable when written as:
> 
>        case $given_srcdir in
>        .)  top_srcdir=`echo "$dots" | sed 's,/$,,'`
>        *)  top_srcdir=$dots$given_srcdir ;;
>        esac
> 
>   and in fact it is even _more_ portable: in the first case 
>   of the first attempt, ...

I agree. I did not suggest any changes of this kind.

> 
> | This sort of awkward and obscure
> | construction is not necessary:
> | 
> |            chunk=`echo -n $arg`
> | 

As I said and as is consistent with your quote, the above is not
necessary. See the case *) above.

> ... 
> I believe you're testing a different document script from the
> one we are discussing.

Damn. I just can't keep up the pace. :-(

But I kind of suspected this because I was looking for the new:

    document --tag=boot --mode=translate bootsys foo.boot

option and didn't find it.

> | 
> |   $tangle "-R$chunk"
> | 
> | The substitution must be made inside the quoted parameter.
> |

I still think the above way of writing the -R parameter is imporant.
 
> | Also the notation
> | 
> |   if test x$do_tangle = xyes; then
> | 
> | is old and silly. This looks better and works the same.
> | 
> |   if test "$do_tangle" = "yes"; then
> 
> However silly it appears to you (and me) I disagree with your
> removal of x.  The above has been coded on purpose to be
> resilient to funky shells and inputs.
> 
> ... 
>      If there are risks, use `test "xSTRING" = x' or `test 
>      "xSTRING" != x' instead.
> 

There is absolutely no risk in the above test. We control the
value of $do_tangle. Anyway this is just a silly style issue.
(Who actually reads this stuff anyway. ;)

On to more important things...

Regards,
Bill Page.