Re: Sed failure in contrib/sboxes on MacOS

[James K. Lowden]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:17:49 +1100
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> [1] The system groff is 1.19.2.  For someone who's been living on
> groff Git HEAD for four years, it's a severely disorienting
> experience.

Nearly every machine I use required me to build groff from source,
because I like gropdf.  

If you look for a Windows binary groff package, well, good luck.
Chocolatey (https://community.chocolatey.org/packages) has no groff
package at all.  The gnuwin32 project has 1.20
(http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/groff.htm).  Apple refuses to
include updates even as it continuously modifies the OS.  It's not
uncommon to run across Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, still within its supported
lifetime, and still running 1.19.2.  

> It's probably something to do with different quoting/escaping rules in
> the Mac OS X make, sed, or their combination, if you want to
> experiment along these lines before I can respond again.

I might have a useful platform to try. I am running autoconf 2.69 on a
NetBSD machine that I hardly ever change. Its sed and make are derived
from the same sources as the one you're using. I would be surprised if
the difference you're seeing is the product of shell quoting, since the
Mac uses bash.  

BTW, is this episode yet another nail in the sed coffin? Is it another
reason not to rely on sed for whatever it is that it's doing?  I have
no dog in the fight, just asking.  

--jkl