Re: Autoconf-2.53 make check fails on OpenServer 5.0.6a

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Akim Demaille <address@hidden>
> Date: 14 Mar 2002 12:44:57 +0100
> 
> 
> >>>>> "Boyd" == Boyd Lynn Gerber <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> Boyd> It definitly is ksh.  I edited the Makefile and changed
> Boyd> SHELL=/bin/ksh to SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash and it works.
> 
> But it is important for us to know what it doesn't like.
> 
> Paul, have you followed this thread?  It is a about a ksh portability
> problem.  We re-exec ourselves with ksh sometimes.

Yes, I keep waiting for someone to actually debug the problem.
We can't reproduce it ourselves, so someobody who _can_ reproduce it
has to figure out what the problem with their shell is.

For example, here's a bug in Autoconf 2.53 that I uncovered while
trying to reproduce the problem on Solaris 8:

        $ cd tests
        $ CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/dt/bin/dtksh dtksh ./testsuite
        ## ----------------------------- ##
        ## GNU Autoconf 2.53 test suite. ##
        ## ----------------------------- ##

        Executables (autoheader, autoupdate...).

          1: tools.at:47       ./testsuite: line 1040: times: not found
        FAILED near `tools.at:81'
          2: tools.at:92       ./testsuite: line 1180: times: not found
        FAILED near `tools.at:107'
        ...

To debug the problem, I looked at the testsuite line in question:

   $at_times >$at_times_file

and I tried to do the same thing myself, in a shell window running
dtksh:

        $ at_times=times
        $ at_times_file=/tmp/foo
        $ $at_times >$at_times_file
        dtksh: times: not found
        $ times
        user    0m0.03s
        sys     0m0.06s
        $ $at_times
        dtksh: times: not found

OK, so that Korn shell has a bug: it won't execute the 'times'
command via a variable.  (I'll send a patch via separate email.)

This is the sort of debugging that we need for the other problem.
What minor change is needed to the testsuite shell script to get it to
work with the buggy Korn shell in question?  You don't need to patch
Autoconf to investigate this: just modify 'testsuite' by hand, or
run the offending code in a shell window, or something like that.