[kde-solaris] GNU Makefiles should only use Bourne Shell Syntax - Not Bash. (was: Re: Unhelpful error building dcop in kdelibs)

[Stefan Teleman]

On Monday 31 January 2005 12:34, Rolf Sponsel wrote:
> This is why it's perfectly legal to link '/bin/sh' to bash.

the question is: is it a really good idea to make system wide changes 
just to become compatible with a limited set of shell scripts which 
are only run when building autoconf based software ?

> But this is also the reason for why, ususally Linux people,
> *don't* understand why it's so important for portability to
> stay away of non-sh-syntax available in bash.

> I'm sorry to have to disappoint you here (although I fully can
> understand your logic). The documentation explicitly states:
> "Write the Makefile commands (and any shell scripts,
>   such as configure) to run in sh, not in csh. Don't
>   use any special features of ksh or bash."

this sounds more like a noble ideal, rather than a state of fact. we 
can all complain about how ./configure or libtool are not really 
written in a backwards-compatible manner with the Solaris /bin/sh 
till no end. i estimate the probability of the autoconf maintainers 
changing the tools to become 100% compatible with the Solaris /bin/sh 
at 0.0 (zero). and i am willing to bet beer on this. :-)

the problem at hand is to be able to run ./configure, create Makefiles 
and then gmake (gmake and not XPG4 make), to run libtool from these 
Makefiles in an efficient and correct manner, which would generate 
libraries and executables, on Solaris, with a minimal system wide 
impact. that will not happen as long as one tries to use the Solaris 
/bin/sh with the GNU autoconf bundle.

--Stefan

-- 
Stefan Teleman          'Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition'
steleman at nyc.rr.com                          -Monty Python