Re: [SIMPLE PATCHES] {maint} Minor improvements to maintainer checks

[Stefano Lattarini]

On Thursday 16 September 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Stefano Lattarini wrote on Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 01:14:46PM CEST:
> > OK for maint?
> 
> The first one is ok with nit below addressed.
> 
> The second one seems too ad-hoc and maintenance-intensive
> (we should strive for code that needs as little maintenance
> as possible), I'd rather beat your patches in shape so they
> don't need extra treatment.  ;-)
But that means we would be forced to add (say) spurious quoting or 
spacing in legitimate code to fix false positives in maintainer-check. 
I strongly oppose this idea, and I'm personally not going to do the 
"beating" myself, sorry.
 
> > [PATCH 1/2] New maintainer check, for typos in $required
> > definition.
> > 
> > * Makefile.am (sc_tests_required_typos): New maintaner check.
> > (syntax_check_rules): Updated.
> > From a report by Peter Rosin.
> > 
> > [PATCH 2/2] Fix some spurious maintainer-check failures (exit vs.
> > Exit).
> > 
> > * Makefile.am (sc_tests_Exit_not_exit): Fixed spurious failures,
> > and other minor improvements.
> > 
> > @@ -358,6 +359,14 @@ sc_tests_plain_perl:
> >       exit 1; \
> >     
> >     fi
> > 
> > +## Look for common typos in the definition of `$required'.
> > +sc_tests_required_typos:
> > +   @if grep -v '^#' $(srcdir)/tests/*.test | grep -E
> > '\brequires?='; then \
> 
> \b is not defined in Posix (SuSv3) ERE;
I know, but it's already used by other maintainer checks too:
 - sc_tests_plain_egrep_fgrep
 - sc_tests_plain_sleep
Other checks uses the (equally unportable I guess) "\<" or "\>":
 - sc_rm_minus_f
Unportable grep options (-E -F -e -w, at least) are used several 
times, too.

In defense of the maintainer checks, I can say that there is a
comment about them early in the Makefile which reads:
 "These are only really guaranteed to work on my machine."
(Who is "me" in this comment, you'll ask? :-)

All in all, do you still want me to do the amending?  If yes, I
will without further objections.

> see the respective
> autoconf.texi text for egrep.  You can use (^|[^a-zA-Z0-9_])
> instead.

Regards,
  Stefano