Re: M4sh tests 77 and 78 vs /bin/sh -> dash

[Zack Weinberg]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 6:47 PM Michael Orlitzky <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 3/12/20 4:53 PM, Zack Weinberg wrote:
> >
> > On further investigation, there is a concrete reason why autoconf 2.69
> > prefers SHELL=/bin/bash to SHELL=/bin/dash, namely that dash doesn't
> > support $LINENO, necessitating a complicated and fragile workaround
>
> The $LINENO support in dash is configurable and enabled by default. You
> have to disable it with ./configure --disable-lineno. Apparently, Debian
> does so [0] to ensure that autoconf scripts with bashisms in them keep
> working. In other words, they break dash just enough that bash will be
> used as a fallback.

Thanks, this is really useful information.  I'm adding an archive
rebuild with $LINENO turned back on in dash, followed by mass bug
filing, to my list of things that might need to happen before a new
autoconf release.

zw