Re: Busted generic build script?

[Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Harold L Hunt II wrote:

> I have been having trouble with unmodified copies of the most recent
> generic build script.
>
> Symptoms
> ========
> The build script just doesn't work, it does *nothing* it always produces
> an error... it basically doesn't parse right due to the install_docs
> variable.  Removing all entries from install_docs that the shell
> complains about results in a script that runs, but it silently fails to
> install any of the listed document names during the install step.
>
> Attached is an example that reproduces the problem.
>
> Steps to reproduce
> ==================
> 1) Save files to a directory
> 2) tar xjf foo-1.0.tar.bz2
> 3) ./foo-1.0-1.sh mkdirs
> 4) Observe the following output:
> export: BUG-REPORTS: bad variable name
>
> I think the following analysis is telling:
> 1) Run these commands in a bash shell:
> export install_docs="ABOUT-NLS"
> export install_docs=`for i in ${install_docs}; do echo $i; done | sort -u`
> set | grep install_docs
>
> 2) Observe the output:
> install_docs=ABOUT-NLS
>
> 3) Run these commands in a bash shell:
> export install_docs="ABOUT-NLS FOO"
> export install_docs=`for i in ${install_docs}; do echo $i; done | sort -u`
> set | grep install_docs
>
> 4) Observe the output:
> install_docs=$'ABOUT-NLS\nFOO'
>
> Possible Solution
> =================
> It seems to me that the sorting of the install_docs list is pretty
> useless since this is a static list that might be updated once or twice
> during the development of a package.  Removing the sorting step removes
> both symptoms described above.  Of course, any other solution that also
> fixes the problem is acceptable to me.
>
> Harold

Oops.  Mea culpa.  I've verified that it worked in bash, and ran the
script through "sh -n" (which turns out to not be enough).

Harold, could you please try the attached patch and see if it fixes things
for you?  If yes, I'll commit it to CVS.
	Igor
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Attachment: gbs-sort.patch
Description: Text document