Re: bison-1.29c 'configure' problems on Solaris 8.

[akim]

On Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 11:25:58AM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
> The 'configure' script distributed with bison-1.29c has problems with
> the Solaris 8 /bin/sh.  Here are two examples.
> 
> First, '.' is not in my PATH.  Hence the code in "configure" that
> attempts to decipher the working directory of "configure" does not
> work if I run the command "sh configure", as "sh configure" does not
> consult PATH to find "configure".

Err, you see me confused, as, as far I know, configure had the same
dependency wrt to PATH before.  Typically, that's the code triggered
by AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR:

# Find the source files, if location was not specified.
if test -z "$srcdir"; then
  ac_srcdir_defaulted=yes
  # Try the directory containing this script, then its parent.
  ac_prog=$0
  ac_confdir=`echo "$ac_prog" | sed 's%[\\/][^\\/][^\\/]*$%%'`
  test "x$ac_confdir" = "x$ac_prog" && ac_confdir=.
  srcdir=$ac_confdir
  if test ! -r $srcdir/$ac_unique_file; then
    srcdir=..
  fi
else
  ac_srcdir_defaulted=no
fi

But you are right, we lost something in that move.  What would you suggest?

> Second, the new line-numbering code generated by Autoconf is not
> portable to other shells.  The "source" keyword is not supported by
> all shells, and support for "source" is not required by POSIX.

Aha!  Science is making a huge step forward again!  :)

Paul, your knowledge (and mainly the number of machines you have access to) is
bigger than mine.  Would care fixing CVS Autoconf, and especially its
`.' and `source' documentation?  Or just gimme some hints...

> $ sh configure
> configure: test: argument expected
> $ sh ./configure
> awk: syntax error near line 3
> awk: illegal statement near line 3

This, I must say, escapes my understanding.  AFAICS, I wrote portable
AWK.  What's the problem?

> ./configure: source: not found

iOh, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, include this in the autoconf.texi update you
might perform, it's been a long since I last laughed that much (at
least a few hours ago).

> $ sh -x configure

You bad boy...

Just FMI, you *really* write things like this?  Or you read the code
and tried to have it fail?  (I'm referring to sh configure, not -x).

> + test -z 
> /net/knick/home/eggert/bin:/opt/reb/bin:/opt/reb/sbin:/usr/krb5/bin:/usr/krb5/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/perl5/5.00503/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/dt/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/opt/sfw/sbin:/usr/apache/bin:/opt/informix/bin:/opt/frame/bin:/opt/SUNWspro/bin:/opt/SUNWut/bin:/opt/SUNWut/sbin:/usr/proc/bin:/sbin
>  

I've always felt dumping all the envvar was too indiscreet.  Some people
have told me they wanted `env` in config.log or/and testsuite.log, what
is your own opinion?  And what is knick? ;)

Thanks _a lot_ Paul.