Re: sed/${SED} and pax/${PAX}

[Roland Illig <rillig%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
> Following a suggestion in a recent message I have been running "pkglint
> -Wall" on a few packages that I maintain and got some odd output:
>
> NOTE: Makefile:21: You can write "sed" instead of "${SED}".
>
> I also got a similar message for pax.  With all the message I receive
> about not using hardcoded names this struck me as odd.  Can someone
> explain the reasoning behind this seeming dichotomy?

do you know "pkglint --explain"? That says:

NOTE: autocue/Makefile:18: You can write "cp" instead of "${CP}".

        The wrapper framework from pkgsrc takes care that a sufficiently
        capable implementation of that tool will be selected.

        Calling the commands by their plain name instead of the macros
        is only available in the {pre,do,post}-* targets. For all other
        targets, you should still use the macros.

In the case of the less frequently used tools, it may happen sometimes 
that the tool variable is not defined (especially when the tool is not 
added to USE_TOOLS). The plain command even works in that case.

I changed that at 2006-07-22. Looking at the tech-pkg archive, I don't 
find a discussion about this. My reasons for doing that change were:

1. What do we have the tools framework for when we don't use it?
2. I don't like uppercase letters.
3. Writing "cp" instead of "${CP}" is easier.

Roland