Re: [sr #110796] libtool-2.4.7/build-aux/git-version-gen uses kind of a hack

[Nick Bowler]

On 2022-12-07, anonymous <INVALID.NOREPLY@gnu.org> wrote:
[...]
> On an elderly Mac with PPC Mac OS X 10.4.11, Tiger, this was reported:
>
> expr: brackets ([ ]) not balanced
>
> It comes from this line
>
>    76   year=`expr "$scriptversion" : '\([^-]*\)'`
>
> On two more up-to-date intel Macs expr worked correctly. I can make another
> test on PPC Mac OS X 10.5.8, Leopard.

FWIW this specific problem with Mac OS expr, as well as a possible
workaround, is discussed in the portable shell programming section
of the Autoconf manual[1]:

    On Mac OS X 10.4, expr mishandles the pattern ‘[^-]’ in some cases.
    For example, the command

    expr Xpowerpc-apple-darwin8.1.0 : 'X[^-]*-[^-]*-\(.*\)'

    outputs ‘apple-darwin8.1.0’ rather than the correct ‘darwin8.1.0’.
    This particular case can be worked around by substituting ‘[^--]’
    for ‘[^-]’.

[1] 
https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.71/autoconf.html#index-expr-1

Cheers,
  Nick