Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 18:54:18 +0300
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
Sender: halo1 AT zahav DOT net DOT il
To: "Tim Van Holder" <tim DOT van DOT holder AT pandora DOT be>
Message-Id: <3995-Wed11Apr2001185417+0300-eliz@is.elta.co.il>
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In-reply-to: <CAEGKOHJKAAFPKOCLHDIAEGBCCAA.tim.van.holder@pandora.be>
Subject: Re: New bash 2.04 beta release
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> From: "Tim Van Holder" <tim DOT van DOT holder AT pandora DOT be>
> Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:34:58 +0200
> 
> > The problem is, the path separator issue is not limited to Autoconf
> > and the scripts it generates.  It is also relevant to running shell
> > scripts which have nothing to do with Autoconf.  If PATH_SEPARATOR is
> > not set to :, these scripts will break.
> > 
> > Is it possible to modify Autoconf to use a different variable for this
> > purpose?  It would be nice if we could continue to use PATH_SEPARATOR
> > without risking the conflict with Autoconf.
> I set PATH_SEPARATOR in Autoconf exactly to avoid conflicts with bash.
> If autoconf finds ';' to be the proper pathsep (as it is for DOS), it
> will also use that to walk $PATH.  But if the user has PATH_SEPARATOR
> set to ':', that will break.  So I set PATH_SEPARATOR to the value we
> found.

If Autoconf sets PATH_SEPARATOR to ';' to force Bash to DTRT, that is
okay.  But if Autoconf sets it to ';' for its own needs, then it might
break Bash or scripts run by Bash, and this is precisely the conflict
we should avoid.  That is why I suggested that Autoconf should use a
variable by another name.

> Also, there's an AC_SUBST for PATH_SEPARATOR, so it would get
> set anyway.

I don't think I understand what this means.  Who and why sets
PATH_SEPARATOR via AC_SUBST, and why it cannot be avoided?

> There's no clean way out of this, I guess

I think having two different variables, one for Bash, the other for
Autoconf, is a clean way.  If not, please tell why not.

> So let me know which packages have scripts that break with
> PATH_SEPARATOR=';'; I'll endeavour to adapt those packages to use
> autoconf 2.50 and use @PATH_SEPARATOR@ to configure themselves to work
> correctly on DOS.

I think this isn't practical.  Even if we come up with a list of such
scripts, a new one added tomorrow, or a new ported package will undo
your efforts.

Does Autoconf need to export PATH_SEPARATOR to subordinate Bash that
it runs?  If not, maybe Autoconf needs to use ';' for itself, but
leave the normal setting alone.

> For the record, this is what autoconf does to determine the pathsep:
> 
> echo "#! $SHELL" >conftest.sh
> echo  "exit 0"   >>conftest.sh
> chmod +x conftest.sh
> if PATH=".;."; conftest.sh; then
>   ac_path_separator=';'
> else
>   ac_path_separator=:
> fi
> AC_SUBST([PATH_SEPARATOR], "$ac_path_separator")dnl
> rm -f conftest.sh

This is an okay method to find what the path separator is, but why
does it need to use the same PATH_SEPARATOR variable?  Bash doesn't
need PATH_SEPARATOR at all unless the scripts it run use literal ':'
in walking PATH.