Re: another CONFIG_SHELL doc instance missed

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello Ralf,
   first, please let me apologize that I haven't got to this earlier.

On Sat, Jan 14, 2006 at 02:56:32PM +0100, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > Let's find a good specification first; [...]
> Stepan, people would like to see new versions [...]

you are absolutely right.  Please forget about my "grand" proposals.

But let's adjust the details of `CONFIG_SHELL' documentation:

It took big effort (and still takes) to teach people to put variables
to the argument list.

With current version of Autoconf, the command

        /bin/bash ./configure CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/bash

doesn't work as expected, because value of the environment variable
CONFIG_SHELL is used before the arguments are parsed.  This is a bug,
and I believe that it'll be eventually fixed.[*]  But you are right,
Ralf, that it is better to put the fix off, after 2.60.

There is a workaround for the bug, to set CONFIG_SHELL also in the
environment.  Though it's enough to set it only in the environment,
I'd prefer to tell people to set it twice

CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/bash /bin/bash ./configure CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/bash

because it shows the nature of the workaround.

I think that it's better to use the term `workaround for a bug', not
`exception from the rule'.

Attached please find a suggested patch.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan

[*] A footnote:
The fix for the bug will be relatively simple:
  for as_option
  do
    case $as_option in
    CONFIG_SHELL=* ) 
      CONFIG_SHELL=`expr "$as_option" : '[^=]*=\(.*\)'`
      export CONFIG_SHELL ;;
    esac
  done
(Yes, it breaks for lines like
  ./configure --enable-variables 'CONFIG_SHELL=none FOO=bar'
but the preffered syntax
  ./configure --enable-variables='CONFIG_SHELL=none FOO=bar'
works perfectly, so this is not a big problem.)

autoconf-20060201-config_shell.patch
Description: Text document