Hi Karl, On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 04:40:07PM -0700, Karl Berry wrote: > Hi Dmitry, > > It's time to join the 1990s and replace the backtick substitutions in > config.guess and config.sub with the $(..) command substitution > > I admit I don't understand the reason behind this last change that Ben did. > What's wrong with `...`? > > No question $(...) is nicer in principle, but the $(...) requirement > breaks Solaris 10 (per the last autoconf pre-release > announcement, > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autotools-announce/2020-12/msg00000.html).
Does it really break Solaris 10? The announcement says that "Configure scripts will automatically locate a shell that supports this feature and re-execute themselves with it, if necessary, so the new requirement should be transparent to most users." I suppose the change is not expected to cause any problems for users because they are highly likely to have some POSIX shell installed. > If there is an actual technical advantage to using $(...), that's one > thing, but if it's merely to use a prettier feature, then I don't see > why that's a good enough reason to break longstanding compatibility. There is a BashFAQ entry why $(...) is preferred over `...`: https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/082 -- ldv
