Re: CVS automake testsuite failures on NetBSD i386 2.0F

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Nicolas" == Nicolas Joly <address@hidden> writes:

 Nicolas> Hi,

 Nicolas> I just tested CVS automake on my i386 workstation
 Nicolas> running NetBSD 2.0F (-current),

Thank you for doing this.

 Nicolas> and noticed 2 failures :

 Nicolas> FAIL: tar.test
 Nicolas> FAIL: tar2.test

 Nicolas> According to the attached traces, it seems that tar archives program
 Nicolas> detection does not work very well, leading in an empty `am__tar'
 Nicolas> variable :

[...]
 Nicolas> checking how to create a ustar tar archive... gnutar plaintar pax 
cpio none
[...]

I can see this on NetBSD 1.6.1 too:

$ for i in a b c; do echo $i; done
a
b
c
$ for i in ${x-a b c}; do echo $i; done
a b c
$ x='x y'
$ for i in ${x-a b c}; do echo $i; done
x
y

This looks like a bug in NetBSD's sh to me.  POSIX says field
splitting should occur after parameter expansion, and replacing
${x-a b c} by "x y" or "a b c" is part of parameter expansion.
So where the value comes from should not make any difference.

May I let you report this to the NetBSD people?  I'm not a
NetBSD user myself, while it looks like you're running bleeding
edge.

I'm installing this following patch for Automake.

2004-06-06  Alexandre Duret-Lutz  <address@hidden>

        * m4/tar.m4 (_AM_PROG_TAR): Introduce $_am_tools to work around a
        bug in NetBSD /bin/sh.
        Report from Nicolas Joly.

Index: m4/tar.m4
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/automake/automake/m4/tar.m4,v
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -r1.2 tar.m4
--- m4/tar.m4   23 May 2004 16:19:43 -0000      1.2
+++ m4/tar.m4   6 Jun 2004 20:27:18 -0000
@@ -42,7 +42,10 @@
               [m4_fatal([Unknown tar format])])
 AC_MSG_CHECKING([how to create a $1 tar archive])
 # Loop over all known methods to create a tar archive until one works.
-for _am_tool in ${am_cv_prog_tar_$1-gnutar m4_if([$1], [ustar], [plaintar]) 
pax cpio none}
+_am_tools=${am_cv_prog_tar_$1-gnutar m4_if([$1], [ustar], [plaintar]) pax cpio 
none}
+# Do not replace $_am_tools by its definition on the `for' line, NetBSD 2.0F
+# /bin/sh will not perform IFS splitting on the right side of `-'.
+for _am_tool in $_am_tools
 do
   case $_am_tool in
   gnutar)

-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz