"make check" failing on macOS (was: macOS Terminal man page URL format)

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi John,

At 2023-02-11T10:19:08+1100, John Gardner wrote:
> Yes, it builds successfully now (macOS 12.6.3). I ran `make install`
> and the installed Groff seems to be working perfectly.

Excellent!

> However, when I ran `make check` in my checkout directory, 7 of the
> tests failed (full details in the attached log file):
[...]
> Are these normal?

Certainly not.

> I'm attaching my build logs just in case.

Thank you--this is helpful.  Some or all of these problems I think we
have seen on macOS before; they involve the portability of shell syntax
and of a few (incompletely) standardized tools.  xooglers "just want to
serve 5 terabytes".  I just want to compare 2 byte streams in a shell
script without using temporary files.  Astoundingly, this is way harder
and system-dependent than it should be.  I attribute that to the early
mentality that the PDP-11 was the only machine that mattered, and the
belief of the succeeding generation, despite obvious contrary evidence,
that the VAX was the only machine that mattered.

Nowadays, we laugh at the blinkered folly of our ancestors and
confidently understand that x86-64 is all that matters.

> FAIL: src/roff/groff/tests/some_escapes_accept_newline_delimiters.sh

"od -t c".  If I remember correctly, macOS od produces output unlike
both Unix Version 7 od and GNU od.  Certainly macOS and GNU od don't
agree with each other.

> FAIL: tmac/tests/an_TS-adds-no-vertical-space.sh

sed.  I'll have to look up what hoop is required for macOS sed, which I
think comes from one of the BSDs but, as I recall, proudly refuses to
admit any means of identifying itself by version number in execution.
(That's for disgusting things like GNU programs.)

> FAIL: tmac/tests/an_use-input-traps-correctly.sh

This looks like a shell difference in how sequences of backslashes are
interpreted in double-quoted strings.  I see no variable interpolations
in the cases in question, so I may be able to fix this by just making
the strings single-quoted.

> FAIL: tmac/tests/doc_heading-font-remapping-works.sh

sed again.  It seems to think I am using GNU extensions, but I'm not
using any marked as such in GNU sed's man page.  Maybe it's a BRE vs.
ERE thing.  POSIX prescribes a -E option for this.  I'm sure the sed on
Solaris 10 doesn't support it.  :-|

> FAIL: tmac/tests/latin2_works.sh
> FAIL: tmac/tests/latin5_works.sh
> FAIL: tmac/tests/latin9_works.sh

"od -t c" again.

This is useful information, even if it fuels my frustration with
vendors of fundamental Unix utilities.  I'll see what I can do.

Regards,
Branden

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