Follow-up Comment #2, sr #110657 (project autoconf): >> For example, grep does not support -e , but egrep does. > AC_PROG_GREP looks for a grep that does support -e, so a configure script that uses that should have a $GREP that works, assuming you have one somewhere in your $PATH. (If not, you'll need to get one.)
Unfortunately, my configure script does not use AC_PROG_GREP directly. Instead, this is brought in via AC_REQUIRE by AC_PROG_EGREP, which itself is required by AC_EGREP_CPP which is required by lots of tests for header files etc. However, as said in my initial report, grep is actually not used further down in the script (AC_PROG_CPP only needs egrep, not grep). And strangely enough, egrep *does* support the -e flag on UnixPC. >> This lack of support of -e makes the configure script fail, although there is a usable egrep. > Autoconf's 'configure' script doesn't use 'grep -e' anywhere that I can see. And that is exactly my point. Absence of a feature which is not being used anywhere shouldn't be a fatal error. > Are you debugging some other 'configure' script that uses 'grep -e'? No, I've only been debugging the mtools configure script (generated by autoconf) as well as another configure script generated by autoconf from a mostly empty configure.in > If so,it should use AC_PROG_GREP I'm not really sure how adding an explicit AC_PROG_GREP would solve the problem brough by the implicit usage (due to AC_REQUIRE, see above) > and "$GREP -e" and you should have a grep in your $PATH that works. Unfortunately, this museum piece :-) doesn't have a grep where -e works, but it *does* haven an egrep that supports -e. The issue I have is that the configure script *doesn't* actually *need* a grep that supports -e (apart from this test itself), and only needs egrep with -e. Neither does my own compilation need grep -e. (I just hope you didn't get confused by the existence of an -E (capital E) option that makes grep behave like egrep (i.e. uses extended regexp syntax). The -e that I am talking about here is lower case -e that makes allows to use regular expressions that start with a dash (-), or to use multiple regular expressions) _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?110657> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/