Re: non portable sed scripts

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 06:16:07PM +0200, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Stepan Kasal wrote on Mon, May 22, 2006 at 02:30:44PM CEST:
> > 1) AC_PROG_SED patch (autoconf-20060522-prog-sed.patch)
...
> > Anyway, I agree it is better to change the macro now, before it is
> > first published.
> 
> Yep.

OK, I installed that patch.  The other two remain open.

> > Moreover, Solaris @command{/usr/xpg4/bin/sed} dumps core with long
> > scripts.''
> 
> Maybe we should remove that altogether: [...]

Sounds fair, let's remove that sentence.

> [...] you removed mention of bugs of specific grep implementations:
> 
> | -On AIX the default @code{grep} silently truncates long lines on the
> | -input before matching.  On Solaris, @code{/usr/bin/grep} does not
> | -understand the @option{-e} option.  On NeXT, @code{grep} understands only a
> | -single @option{-e} option.
> 
> These aren't listed elsewhere, and this information is very valuable,
> if only to know which systems to test for any change of those macros.
> (But it should probably move to the shell portability section.)

(I meant to comment on this change but then forgot.)
Actually, the portability section contains some of that:

| Some traditional @command{grep} implementations do not work on long
| input lines.  Also, many implementations do not support multiple regexps
| with @option{-e}: they either reject @option{-e} entirely (e.g., Solaris)
| or honor only the last pattern (e.g., @acronym{IRIX} 6.5).

- it doesn't mention AIX as the representation of the old tradition;
  but we don't know any version number, shall we add "(e.g., AIX)"?
- it mentiones that Solaris doesn't understand -e
- it mentiones that sometimes only one -e option is handled, but it doesn't
  mention NeXT; is NeXT still in use?

That's why the result of merging in the information you quoted
actually resulted in no change.  Feel free to do it differently...

> FWIW, I'm fine with the rest of the doc changes.

... and commit. :-)

> > 3) autoconf-20060522-sed-safe.patch
...
> > - we could have ac_max_sed_lines=38, as in Autoconf 2.59
> > - [...] lowering _AC_SED_CMD_LIMIT, too.  To make the fragments' size
> >   simiar to what we had with 2.59, we could set it to say 45.
...
> I'm undecided about this.  Paul has more experience and
> will have to deal with bug reports against coreutils,  ;-)
> so I'd appreciate input on this.

OK, let's wait for him.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan