Re: [9fans] Two suggestions for ape (was: egrep for Plan9)

[Dmitry Golubovsky <golubovsky@gmail.com>]

Charles,

On Oct 23, 10:40 am, fors...@terzarima.net (Charles Forsyth) wrote:
> it's /rc/bin/ape/ls that would change, not Plan 9's ls-proper.

Of course ape's one. As well as I am proposing to add egrep to ape's
tree not Plan9's native tree.

> what does autoconf do with the `inode number'?

In fact, nothing is done with inode number.

Autoconf generates code to obtain the current directory which involves
ls -di.

Here is the macro in /usr/share/autoconf/autoconf/general.m4 that
causes the problem:

# _AC_INIT_DIRCHECK
# -----------------
# Set ac_pwd, and sanity-check it and the source and installation
directories.
#
# (This macro is AC_REQUIREd by _AC_INIT_SRCDIR, so it has to be
AC_DEFUNed.)
#
AC_DEFUN([_AC_INIT_DIRCHECK],
[m4_divert_push([PARSE_ARGS])dnl

ac_pwd=`pwd` && test -n "$ac_pwd" &&
ac_ls_di=`ls -di .` &&
ac_pwd_ls_di=`cd "$ac_pwd" && ls -di .` ||
  AC_MSG_ERROR([Working directory cannot be determined])
test "X$ac_ls_di" = "X$ac_pwd_ls_di" ||
  AC_MSG_ERROR([pwd does not report name of working directory])

m4_divert_pop([PARSE_ARGS])dnl
])# _AC_INIT_DIRCHECK

I have redefined the macro locally to use only ls -d, it works.

the problem is, as can be seen: ls -di is hardcoded in assumption that
every ls understands it.

I use autoconf 2.63. This macro might be different in older versions.
I am currently looking at configure in the same project archive
created with 2.59 (in 2007), I cannot see traces of this macro there,
although configure.ac was likely the same.

This test (as well as egrep test) is something autoconf uses for
internal purposes.

Jason: I understand your reasoning. However if two small fixes would
unblock execution of many projects' configure on Plan9 IMHO they are
worth making; they won't break anything.

Thanks.

Dmitry