[bug-gcal] [bug-texinfo] texinfo-4.13 and gcal-3.6: texi2dvi script problem

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

During the installation of gcal-3.6 this week on our systems, I
discovered a problem with texi2dvi in the texinfo-4.13 package.  That
package is installed on most of our systems, and passed its tests.
However, the texi2dvi script has a problem that breaks the gcal build:

        % texi2dvi --version
        /usr/local/bin/texi2dvi: local: not found
        texi2dvi (GNU Texinfo 4.13) 1.135

The result is that the gcal Makefile gets this macro assignment and
bogus line in its several Makefiles:

        TEXI2DVI_VERSION = : not found
        4.13

make then reports

        Makefile:959: *** missing separator.  Stop.

I looked inside the texi2dvi script and noticed that it plays games
with the local() function.  On a hunch, I replaced the leading line

        #! /bin/sh

by

        #! /usr/local/bin/bash

and that fixed the problem.  I had to do that to
/usr/local/bin/texi2dvi on all of our Solaris 10 and 11 (SPARC, IA-32,
and AMD64) systems, and once I did so, texi2dvi correctly responds to
the --version option, and fresh gcal-3.6 builds succeed.

I also tried /bin/ksh instead of /usr/local/bin/bash, but that did NOT
fix the problem with the --version option.

It looks to me like more work is needed in the local() function in
texi2dvi to improve its portability.


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- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: address@hidden  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       address@hidden  address@hidden -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
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