Re: toolchain/57519: awk syntax error in crypto/external/bsd/openssl/lib/libcrypto/gen when building on Solaris 11.4 host system

[Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR toolchain/57519; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: toolchain/57519: awk syntax error in
 crypto/external/bsd/openssl/lib/libcrypto/gen when building on Solaris 11.4
 host system
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2023 14:51:41 +0300

 It would be helpul to have the actual error message and the version of
 awk used just for the record.
 
 Posix says:
 
   *+?{
 
       The <asterisk>, <plus-sign>, <question-mark>, and <left-brace>
       shall be special except when used in a bracket expression (see
       RE Bracket Expression). Any of the following uses produce
       undefined results:
 
           If these characters appear first in an ERE, or immediately
           following an unescaped <vertical-line>, <circumflex>,
           <dollar-sign>, or <left-parenthesis>
 
           If a <left-brace> is not part of a valid interval expression
           (see EREs Matching Multiple Characters)
 
 So escaping the opening curly is the right fix.
 
 On the other hand:
 
   The interpretation of an ordinary character preceded by an unescaped
   <backslash> ( '\\' ) is undefined
 
 Gawk manual says:
 
      If you place a backslash in a string constant before something
   that is not one of the characters previously listed, POSIX 'awk'
   purposely leaves what happens as undefined.  There are two choices:
 
   Strip the backslash out [...]
   Leave the backslash alone [...]
 
 so escaping the closing curly might be a bit too adventurous (though
 in practice a chance of encountering an implementation of awk that
 would treat suck backslash as literal is vanishingly small).
 
 -uwe