Re: [PATCH 08/11] build: manually update bootstrap from gnulib, and adapt

[Jim Meyering]

Akim Demaille wrote:

> Le 18 janv. 2012 à 11:30, Jim Meyering a écrit :
>
>> From: Jim Meyering <address@hidden>
>>
>> Updating to the latest bootstrap from gnulib involves more of a
>> change than usual, and updating to the latest gnulib would involve
>> its own set of challenges with the upcoming quoting changes, so
>> we update bootstrap manually and separately.
>> * bootstrap: Update from gnulib.
>> * Makefile.am: Initialize more variables to empty, so that gnulib.mk
>> can append to them with "+=".
>> * bootstrap.conf (gnulib_mk_hook): Remove.  No longer honored.
>> (bootstrap_epilogue): Instead, run the same command,
>> etc/prefix-gnulib-mk lib/$gnulib_mk, from here.
>> Temporarily disable "bootstrap_sync=true".
>> * etc/prefix-gnulib-mk: Don't prepend "lib/" to tokens like -I$(...
>> or "\".

Hi Akim,

> Looks like hard (and painful) work!

Fulfilling, at least ;-)

> What's the coding style for bootstrap etc.?  I see some
> uses of `command`, and some of $(command) (on $AUTOCONF).
> I definitely prefer the latter, and I also prefer (pattern)
> in case's cases.

We vacillate on this one.
I tend to use $(...) all the time now, because most of my shell
script work is in tests and gnulib's tests/init.sh is careful to
re-exec a shell that accepts that syntax (and satisfies other
basic constraints).  Thus, sometimes $(...) sneaks into a context
where it's not 100% portable, like here.

> Also, I see terribly complex see programs that could be
> nicer in say Perl.  What's the guideline?

Very good point.  We're running autoconf, which obviously requires perl,
so why not write bootstrap in a scripting language that is more
portable/usable/etc. than /bin/sh.

One can make the same argument with gnulib-tool, and we've debated
it at length on the bug-gnulib list.  I think everyone agrees that
it should be rewritten, but it's Bruno's baby and he does not like
Perl enough to rewrite it in that language.

If you're in need of a little project, I would be happy to switch
to your bootstrap-rewrite-in-Perl, once it's done ;-)