Re: CVS commit: pkgsrc/devel/libffi

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

David Sainty <david.sainty%gmail.com@localhost> writes:

> It's actually libffi/patches/patch-configure that seems to cause the
> problem.  This is what happens without using bash (if you are using
> ksh):
>
> ===> Building for libffi-3.3nb2
> /bin/ksh: : cannot execute [Is a directory]
> <hangs>
>
> If patch-configure is removed from distinfo then it also builds ok
> without resorting to bash.  And with the shell being bash it also
> builds ok.
>
> So what do you do?  It seems better without patching in the first
> place, but presumably Irix has its own problems with the unpatched
> script.  The easier solution without potentially breaking Irix is to
> just use the same shell everywhere and then everything is consistent.
>
> We could instead drop the stated Irix compatibility and remove (most
> of) the patch.  It's quite hard to know exactly what was being solved
> for Irix too - or indeed why it can be at all possible that the patch
> is necessary if the shell is switched to bash on Irix anyway.
>
> I'd probably prefer that approach... but I don't use Irix.

First, I remember IRIX -- from the mid 90s.

In this case, it seems better to drop Irix than to 1) carry a
not-well-explained and not-well-motivated patch and 2) impose a bash
dependency

The huge question is when anyone last built anything from pkgsrc on
IRIX, and how many systems are still running.

And then, whether that person is inclined to maintain pkgsrc from an
IRIX point of view.

It seems also that just demanding bash (and using it for ocnfigure) on
IRIX would be perhaps better solution for IRIX.

I don't like to desupport things, but if there are zero actual people
using pkgsrc on IRIX, there's no actual loss.  Do we know?   I will ask
on pkgsrc-users.


> Remove libffi/patches/patch-configure and we end up with perfectly
> readable and reasonable script in the Makefiles, which is fine under
> all shells (except on Irix?):
>
> $ BUILD=` grep "^#### $$HOST " Makefile | sed -e 's/.*|//' `

That looks legit to me.

> But leave patch-configure in, and we get this ugly looking quote
> nesting...
>
> $ BUILD="` grep "^#### $HOST " Makefile | sed -e 's/.*|//' `"

I am not super expert in sh, but nested "" does not seem ok, and this is
confsing about make " vs sh ".