Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 09:43:49 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender: eliz AT is
To: "Mark E." <snowball3 AT usa DOT net>
cc: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: shell utils 1.16 question
In-Reply-To: <199901101828.SAA47446@out1.ibm.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.990111094326.3893C-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com


On Sun, 10 Jan 1999, Mark E. wrote:

> I think the reason it violated the 'spirit of autoconf' was because the 
> COMSPEC variable is an OS-specific feature and that's why it was 
> rejected.

The configure scripts already do a lot of system-dependent tests,
precisely so they could find out about system-dependent bugs.

> If there's an autoconf list archive then you can look there. But 
> I'll ask again if want to know more.

Sorry, I never meant to ask you to be an intermediary.  What I want is
to have a discussion between the Autoconf maintainer(s) and DJGPP
developers.  Reading an archive doesn't allow any real discussion.

> > AC_DEFUN(AC_TEST_X,
> > [
> > AC_CACHE_CHECK([whether test -x works], ac_test_x,
> > [
> > ac_test_x = "no"
> > test -x configure && ! (test -x configure.in) && ac_test_x = "yes"
> > ])
> > ])

I have no problem with this, if the Autoconf maintainer accepts it.
Note, however, that this suggestion has a much broader effect, since
most modern shells nowadays support -x, so this change will switch all
of those systems, not only DJGPP, to using -x.

In contrast, testing $COMSPEC only affects DJGPP and therefore runs
lower risk of breaking other platforms.

But this is for the Autoconf maintainer to consider.