Re: Need help building Gash

[Timothy Sample]

Hi Greg,

Greg Davidson <greg.davidson@gmail.com> writes:

> I am excited to see the Gash project.  I would very much like to have the
> syntax of a Posix Shell on top of Guile.  I would ditch Bash in a heartbeat
> and recommend Gash to everyone.  And I realize it's early days.

Thanks for your interest!  There’s also Guile-bash, by the way:
<https://git.sr.ht/~kaction/guile-bash>.  It is even dustier than Gash,
but it’s another option for mixing a shell with Guile, and maybe a less
painful one at the moment (you don’t have to lose the features,
performance, and stability of Bash).  I’ve never used it, but it looks
cool.

> I cloned the repository on my Gnu/Linux system.  I ran into two problems
> building it.  One easily fixed (although you might update the INSTALL
> document): One needs to run ./bootstrap before running ./configure

Good point.  I usually mention that in README files that I write, but I
guess Gash slipped through the cracks.

> The other problem might be more of a problem:
>
> $ ./configure
> ...
> checking whether make supports nested variables... (cached) yes
> ./configure: line 2385: syntax e5yyrror near unexpected token `2.2'
> ./configure: line 2385: `GUILE_PKG(2.2 2.0)'
>
> Poking around, I wonder if I may have too recent a copy of Guile?

I should probably cut a new release of Gash.  It should work on Guile 3
if you just add “3.0” to the beginning of that list of versions (which
is what the Guix package does).  I haven’t tested it carefully on Guile
3 yet.

> [...]
>
> My guile was installed with Guix (on top of Gnu/Linux Mint).  I'm wondering
> if perhaps Gash might be available through Guix soon?

You’re in luck!  It is and it has been for years: ‘guix package
--show=gash’.  :)


-- Tim