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Re: using ${var:-value} substitutions in config.sub


From: Earnie
Subject: Re: using ${var:-value} substitutions in config.sub
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 12:10:52 -0400
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.9.1



On 8/14/2018 5:28 AM, Ben Elliston wrote:
Hi John

The Autoconf shell portability guide [1] says this about ${var:-value}
substitutions (which, I should point out, *are* in the POSIX shell):

   ${var:-value}
     Old BSD shells, including the Ultrix sh, don't accept the colon
     for any shell substitution, and complain and die. Similarly for
     ${var:=value}, ${var:?value}, etc.

[1] 
https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.64/html_node/Shell-Substitutions.html#Shell-Substitutions

So, the question is, should we use these in config.sub? My instinct is
that we should allow anything that is in POSIX sh.  I'm sure someone
out there is still running Ultrix, but they shouldn't be. ;-)

@eggert, what do you think?


I'm not eggert but IMO there is always the ability to install a POSIX compliant shell in the local environment so we just force the requirement to have one for autotools. The quoted document was written when open source environments weren't prevalent and businesses needed hand held to be accepting. Now businesses readily accept open source as a viable solution and the hand holding is no longer a requirement.

--
Earnie



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