Hi all, A friend reported this to me:
> $ ./configure > ... > usage: rm [-f|-i] [-dPRrvW] file ... > Oops! > > Your 'rm' program seems unable to run without file operands specified > on the command line, even when the '-f' option is present. This is contrary > to the behaviour of most rm programs out there, and not conforming with > the upcoming POSIX standard: <http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=542> > > Please tell bug-automake@gnu.org about your system, including the value > of your $PATH and any error possibly output before this message. This > can help us improve future automake versions. > > Aborting the configuration process, to ensure you take notice of the issue. > > You can download and install GNU coreutils to get an 'rm' implementation > that behaves properly: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>. > > If you want to complete the configuration process using your problematic > 'rm' anyway, export the environment variable ACCEPT_INFERIOR_RM_PROGRAM > to "yes", and re-run configure. > > configure: error: Your 'rm' program is bad, sorry. > $ uname -a > NetBSD example.com 4.0_STABLE NetBSD 4.0_STABLE (GENERIC) #4: Wed Mar 14 > 13:59:06 EDT 2012 > r...@example.com:/usr/obj/sparc/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC sparc > $ /bin/rm -f > usage: rm [-f|-i] [-dPRrvW] file ... > $ echo $? > 1 Digging around in various CVS/Subversion repositories, it looks like there are many old (but perhaps not yet museum-worthy) *BSD versions that behave this way: * NetBSD 4.x and older (5.0 released April 2009). see: [1] [2] * FreeBSD 3.1.x and older (3.2 released May 1999). see: [3] [4] * OpenBSD 2.x and older (3.0 released Dec 2001). see [5] Given this, I wonder if POSIX bug #542 [6] should be revisited. Perhaps that bug should change the wording to "unspecified" for Issue 7 TC2, and we can file a new bug report to adopt the wording currently in #542 for Issue 8. Thoughts? Thanks, Richard [1] http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/bin/rm/rm.c#rev1.47 [2] http://gnats.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=38754 [3] https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=44282 [4] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10252 [5] http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/bin/rm/rm.c#rev1.10 [6] http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=542
