Re: generated configure script doesn't work when "diff" isn't available

[Eric Blake]

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According to Ralf Wildenhues on 3/20/2008 6:41 PM:
|
| Because there is no fix.  cmp is working on binary files and diff
| is working on text files, as designed.
|
| FWIW, to make this discussion constructive, here's a quick and
| incomplete patch to cope without diff in Autoconf (missing a NEWS
| entry, documentation, and maybe a wrapper macro around $as_diff).
| Vincent, it'd be nice if you could run the git Autoconf testsuite
| on Maemo with this, to see if it stands a chance of working.

| Also, I guess, instead of diffing the huge configure (or testsuite)
| script ...
|
|> +m4_defun([_AS_DIFF_PREPARE],
|> +[if (diff $as_myself $as_myself) >/dev/null 2>&1; then
|
| ... this should probably generate an empty file and diff that to itself
| (and clean up afterwards).

I think the patch was a nice proof of concept, but at this point, I'm
reluctant to include it in autoconf 2.62.  Maybe after the release we can
revisit this...

|
| The larger question is whether these systems are general enough to
| warrant that Autoconf works on them.  AIUI since the Zaurus doesn't
| have awk, the current git Autoconf won't work on it anyway.

but I think this paragraph was the biggest argument for not making the
change now.  I would have more incentive to include it if we first
modified the GNU Coding Standards to require support for such a
minimalistic system.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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