Re: Request: add new package to hydra (GNU datamash)

[Assaf Gordon]

Hello Ludo’,


On 07/24/2014 07:47 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Assaf Gordon <address@hidden> skribis:
>
> > I previously used "/usr/bin/perl", then "/usr/bin/env perl" - and both failed, so I 
> > changed it to just "perl" (assuming it will be in the $PATH) - but to no avail.
>
> Yes, in Nix and Guix, packages are stored in directories of their own,
> so there’s no /usr/bin, /lib, etc.  The real file name for Perl here is
> something like /nix/store/...-perl-5.10/bin/perl.
>
> The right thing for the package is to use
>
>    AC_PATH_PROG([PERL], [perl])
>    AC_SUBST([PERL])
>
> and then turn the Perl programs into .in template files that use @PERL@
> in their shebang.
>
> (That’s a good idea in general, anyway.)

Thanks, I'll update the project accordingly.
and I've seen someone changed the datamash recipe to include "patchshebang" - 
which I guess also works-around the problem - thank you for that.

Though I have a question:
AC_PATH_PROG will search for the executable "perl" on the path.

My code used just "perl" - which supposed to work if perl is on the path as 
well.
So what's the difference? how would that work in NixOS ?

Example (of old failure, now fixed):
 http://hydra.nixos.org/build/12569094/nixlog/1/tail-reload

The error is:
 /nix/store/ihmkc7z2wqk3bbipfnlh0yjrlfkkgnv6-bash-4.2-p45/bin/bash: perl: 
command not found
 make[2]: *** [datamash.1] Error 127

So if "perl" is not found on the PATH, how would AC_PATH_PROG find it ?

Thanks!
 - Assaf