Hi Jim, Building coreutils-6.10 on a Linux/x86 machine fails like this for me:
$ ./configure --prefix=/packages/gnu CPPFLAGS=-Wall $ make 2>&1 | tee log1 $ make check 2>&1 | tee log2 ... Making check in misc make[2]: Entering directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc' make check-TESTS make[3]: Entering directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc' make[4]: Entering directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc' /packages/gnu/bin/mkdir: cannot create directory `': No such file or directory make[4]: *** [help-version.log] Error 1 make[4]: Leaving directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc' make[3]: *** [check-TESTS] Error 2 make[3]: Leaving directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc' make[2]: *** [check-am] Error 2 make[2]: Leaving directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc' make[1]: *** [check-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/build/coreutils-6.10/tests' make: *** [check-recursive] Fehler 1 The command that the tests/misc/Makefile tries to execute is (with manually inserted breaks): src='help-version'; \ case $- in *e*) set +e;; esac; \ tst=`echo "$src" | sed 's|^.*/||'`; \ rm -f help-version.log-t; \ /packages/gnu/bin/mkdir -p "$(dirname help-version.log)" || exit; \ if test -f "./$src"; then dir=./; elif test -f "$src"; then dir=; else dir="./"; fi; \ abs_top_builddir='/build/coreutils-6.10' \ abs_top_srcdir='/build/coreutils-6.10' \ built_programs="`(cd ../../src && MAKEFLAGS= make -s built_programs.list)`" \ host_os=linux-gnu host_triplet='i686-pc-linux-gnu' \ srcdir='.' \ top_srcdir='../..' \ CONFIG_HEADER='../../lib/config.h' \ CU_TEST_NAME=`basename '/build/coreutils-6.10/tests/misc'`,$tst \ EGREP='/packages/gnu/bin/grep -E' \ EXEEXT='' \ MAKE=make \ PACKAGE_BUGREPORT='bug-coreutils@gnu.org' \ PACKAGE_VERSION=6.10 \ PERL='perl' \ REPLACE_GETCWD=0 \ PATH='/build/coreutils-6.10/src:'"$PATH" \ /bin/sh "$dir$src" >help-version.log-t 2>&1; \ estatus=$?; \ if test $estatus -eq 177; then : || estatus=1; fi; \ red=; grn=; lgn=; blu=; std=; \ test "X$TERM" != Xdumb && test -t 1 2>/dev/null && tput bold 1 >/dev/null 2>&1 && tput setaf 1 >/dev/null 2>&1 && tput sgr0 >/dev/null 2>&1 && { red=$(tput setaf 1); grn=$(tput setaf 2); lgn=$(tput bold)$(tput setaf 2); blu=$(tput setaf 4); std=$(tput sgr0); }; \ xfailed=PASS; \ for xfail in : ; do \ case $src in $xfail | */$xfail) xfailed=XFAIL; break; esac; \ done; \ case $estatus:$xfailed in \ 0:XFAIL) col=$red; res=XPASS;; \ 0:*) col=$grn; res=PASS ;; \ 77:*) col=$blu; res=SKIP ;; \ 177:*) col=$red; res=FAIL ;; \ *:XFAIL) col=$lgn; res=XFAIL;; \ *:*) col=$red; res=FAIL ;; \ esac; \ echo "${col}$res${std}: help-version.log"; \ echo "$res: help-version.log (exit: $estatus)" | sed 'p;s/./=/g;p;g' >help-version.log; \ cat help-version.log-t >>help-version.log; \ rm help-version.log-t What is the fifth part of this command meant to be? "$(dirname ...)" ?? It comes from build-aux/check.mk. It's certainly not meant as a GNU make expression, since you don't normally assume GNU make. So it's a shell expression. There are two problems: 1) Backquotes should be used instead of bash-specific syntax. 2) 'dirname' refers to the program in PATH. My $PATH starts with ".". "." is the tests/misc directory. tests/misc/dirname is a test which prints nothing to stdout, hence `./dirname help-version.log` is empty. $ make --version GNU Make 3.81 $ /bin/sh --version GNU bash, version 2.05b.0(1)-release (i586-suse-linux) Bruno _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils