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

[Jason Catena <jason.catena@gmail.com>]

Dimitry wrote:
> I have two suggestions for ape minor additions arising from my recent
> attempts to run configure scripts on Plan9
>
> These things are needed by autoconf.
>
> Looks like these
> things are hardwired in the autoconf macro library.

Since autoconf should deal with "any" unixy environment in which it
finds itself (that's supposed to be what it does for a living),
shouldn't it be patched to deal with a lack of POSIX grep's -E and
POSIX ls' -i?  In general, as a porting tool, it should not make
demands on the host system for the presence of egrep, or options are
defined by GNU tools (or even POSIX).  Making such demands places
arbitrary limits on how portable the gnu tools are, or any tools using
autoconf.  (Given the FSF's philosophy, this may be intentional.)

POSIX-ls has 23 options to Plan9-ls' 12.  I can't imagine that we'd
add in all the remaining options of ls just because some program or
another uses them.

egrep has 42 options to POSIX-grep's 11 options to Plan9-grep's
different 11.  I can't imagine that we'd change around the meaning of
the 11 options to suit POSIX, let alone add in the extra ones of
egrep.

Take all this with a grain of salt, because I don't speak for any
distribution. :)

> Dimitry Golubovsky

Jason Catena