Hi Jim,
> - dnl Work around a bug of AC_EGREP_CPP in autoconf-2.57.
> - AC_REQUIRE([AC_PROG_CPP])
> - AC_REQUIRE([AC_PROG_EGREP])
> -
> AC_CACHE_CHECK([whether <inttypes.h> defines strtoimax as a macro],
> gl_cv_func_strtoimax_macro,
> [AC_EGREP_CPP([inttypes_h_defines_strtoimax], [#include <inttypes.h>
I don't see the sense of this patch.
- If it eliminates the expansion of AC_PROG_EGREP from the configure script,
the AC_EGREP_CPP expansion will contain an invalid command (namely
$EGREP something, and $EGREP expands to empty).
- If it does not eliminate the expansion of AC_PROG_EGREP from the configure
script, the error "checking for grep that handles long lines and -e...
configure: error: noa cceptable grep could be found" will still occur.
In my test, with autoconf-2.68 and a testdir of the module list
"alloca dirfd strtoimax strtoumax", the expansion of AC_PROG_EGREP was still
present in the configure script - because autoconf nowadays contains a
dependency from AC_EGREP_CPP to AC_PROG_EGREP.
> Unfortunately, some check for grep *is* required,
> since it's used here, to set EGREP
>
> ac_cv_path_EGREP="$GREP -E"
> EGREP="$ac_cv_path_EGREP"
>
> and $EGREP is used for each expansion of AC_EGREP_CPP, e.g.,
>
> $ grep '\$EGREP' configure
> if test -z "$EGREP"; then
> ac_cv_path_EGREP=$EGREP
> $EGREP "memchr" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
> $EGREP "free" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
> $EGREP "webecray" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
> $EGREP "choke me" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
> $EGREP "booboo" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
> $EGREP "yes" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
> $EGREP "yes" >/dev/null 2>&1; then :
>
> However, each and every one of those uses is trivial
Indeed, and this leads to a solution that actually works. You don't need
to get rid of the expansions of AC_PROG_GREP and AC_PROG_EGREP. It is
sufficient to note that the one of AC_PROG_GREP starts with
if test -z "$GREP"; then
and the one of AC_PROG_EGREP starts with
if test -z "$EGREP"; then
Hence, it is possible to disable the body of these two expansions by
assigning values to GREP and EGREP inside the configure script.
Here's how it works:
1) Store in build-aux/dummygrep the following file:
============================= build-aux/dummygrep =============================
#!/bin/sh
# This file is a dummy replacement for the 'grep' command, solely for the
# use by GNU grep's configure command.
# It does not handle regular expressions with anchors or grouping, nor
# does it handle long lines in the input. But that is OK, since the only
# regular expressions that are passed by GNU grep's configure script are
# "choke me", "booboo", "yes", and similar.
if test "X$1" = "X-e"; then
shift
fi
exec grep "$@"
===============================================================================
2) In configure.ac, in the section "Checks for programs", add this:
===============================================================================
# These overrides of GREP and EGREP make it possible to build GNU grep on
# a Solaris machine that has only /usr/bin/grep and no /usr/xpg4/bin/grep.
#
# Assign a default for the grep command, so that AC_PROG_GREP cannot fail
# while searching for an optimally working 'grep' program.
if test -z "$GREP"; then
GREP="/bin/sh $ac_aux_dir/dummygrep"
fi
# Assign a default for the egrep command, so that AC_PROG_EGREP cannot fail
# while searching for an optimally working 'egrep' program.
if test -z "$EGREP"; then
EGREP="/bin/sh $ac_aux_dir/dummygrep"
fi
===============================================================================
3) Make sure build-aux/dummygrep gets distributed, through EXTRA_DIST.
With this, the error
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... configure: error: no
acceptable grep could be found in /usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin
is avoided, the build runs fine, and only 3 tests fail:
FAIL: test-exclude2.sh
FAIL: test-exclude5.sh
FAIL: test-update-copyright.sh
$ ./test-exclude2.sh
*** excltmp.11245 Sun Nov 14 14:46:05 2010
--- - Sun Nov 14 14:46:05 2010
***************
*** 2,6 ****
foo*: 1
bar: 1
foobar: 0
! baz: 1
bar/qux: 0
--- 2,6 ----
foo*: 1
bar: 1
foobar: 0
! baz: 0
bar/qux: 0
$ ./test-exclude5.sh
*** excltmp.11253 Sun Nov 14 14:46:42 2010
--- - Sun Nov 14 14:46:42 2010
***************
*** 1,4 ****
bar: 1
! bar/qux: 1
barz: 0
foo/bar: 1
--- 1,4 ----
bar: 1
! bar/qux: 0
barz: 0
foo/bar: 1
You probably already know about the last one:
<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=history;f=tests/test-update-copyright.sh;h=ea700c902b8be30f9de761f32db81316db5b6143;hb=HEAD>
Bruno
