Re: autoconf and OS/2

[Tim Van Holder]

On 19 Jun 2001 05:20:09 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Jun 18, 2001, Akim Demaille <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> >   # Make a symlink if possible; otherwise try a hard link.
> >   ln -s $ac_rel_source $ac_dest 2>/dev/null ||
> >     ln $srcdir/$ac_source $ac_dest ||
> >     AC_MSG_ERROR([cannot link $ac_dest to $srcdir/$ac_source])
> 
> > Now, the question is why we never used `cp -p' here.
> 
> I think the answer is that we had never ported autoconf to a platform
> in which neither ln -s nor ln would work.  Cygwin, for example,
> implements ln as cp.  I don't see a reason to not add `cp -p',
> though, except a little bit of concern about portability of -p.

Well, cp -p is already used by the check for as_ln_s, so I'm not sure
that's much of a concern.
I would like to point out that it is probably a good idea to use
$as_ln_s here in order not to run into more subtle failures.  For
example, on DJGPP, ln -s will create an executable stub (ln -s foo bar
creates bar.exe, which, when run, will try to run "foo").  This breaks
the current command, but is tested (and avoided) when deducing as_ln_s.

So using

  if $as_ln_s = "ln -s"; then
    ln -s <ln -s style options> || error
  else
    $as_ln_s <ln/cp style options> || error
  fi

would be better IMHO.  Any portability concerns for ln/cp could then
be moved to the as_ln_s check instead of having to worry about
propagating them to places where a bare ln -s is used.

-- 
Tim Van Holder - Anubex N.V.
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