Re: proposal: add getlimits to the list of installed programs

[Eric Blake]

Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net> writes:

>   $ ./getlimits --help
>   Usage: ./getlimits
>   Output platform dependent limits in a format useful for shell scripts.
> 
>   $ ./getlimits
>   OFF_T_MAX=9223372036854775807
>   OFF_T_OFLOW=9223372036854775808
>   OFF_T_MIN=-9223372036854775808
>   OFF_T_UFLOW=-9223372036854775809

I just thought of a counter-argument against including it in a distro - the 
value of OFF_T_MAX is dependent on compile-time options (particularly on a 32-
bit machine, depending on whether you enabled large file support).  When used 
_entirely_ within coreutils, there is no issue - the same compile options that 
you used to build the programs under test were also used to build getlimits.  
But if coreutils starts exporting it, then the answer given by getlimits will 
be wrong when used for a program compiled under the opposite choice of off_t 
size.

So, I'm now leaning towards never installing it.  But it may make sense to add 
a gnulib module that has an autoconf macro that you can call which will 
AC_SUBST the particular limits you need in parted.

-- 
Eric Blake