Re: [PATCH] Updates to shell portability documentation

[Eric Blake]

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According to Paolo Bonzini on 10/15/2008 5:33 AM:
> This updates the documentation according to the fact that M4sh will
> be able to find a SVR2-or-better shell.  I also found a few more places
> where the docs were out-of-date and referred to workarounds that
> Autoconf does not apply anymore.
> 
> Ok?

Awesome!  Some nits before you can apply:

> +On the other hand, if you're using M4sh you can assume that the shell
> +has the features that were added in SVR2, including shell functions,
> address@hidden, @command{unset}, and I/O redirection for builtins.  For
> +more information, refer to @uref{http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/bourne/}.

Use @/ within the URL to give texinfo a way to split it and avoid
under/overfull hboxes (see other @uref for an example).

> address@hidden
> +(there is actually some more complication due to bugs in @command{unset},

That was awkward to me on a first reading.  How about:

(actually, there is some complication due to bugs...

> +unless both options and escape sequences are omitted.  Don't expect any
> +option.  

Trailing whitespace.  Git has hooks that you can enable to prevent this.

> +New applications which are not aiming at portability should use
> address@hidden instead of @samp{echo}.  M4sh provides the @code{AS_ECHO}
> +and @code{AS_ECHO_N} macros (corresponding to @samp{echo -n} which use
> address@hidden if it is available, or otherwise resort to various creative
> +tricks in order to work around the above problems.

Not a bug in this patch, but gnulib-tool has a fallback that uses
'print -r' on ksh on platforms where printf is not a builtin, in order to
avoid extra processes.  Maybe we should enhance our _AS_ECHO_PREPARE to
learn from gnulib-tool.

> -alphanumeric.  However, @command{eval} is tricky to use on arbitrary
> -arguments, even when it is implemented correctly.
> +alphanumeric. 

More trailing whitespace.

> address@hidden
> +Or, especially if the @dfn{else} branch is short, you can use @code{||}.
> +In M4sh, the @code{AS_IF} macro provides an easy way to write this kind
> +of conditionals as;

s/this kind/these kinds/

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

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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