Cameron, Steve writes:
>
> Would:
>
> if test "X`$path/tr --version </dev/null `" != "X--version" ; then
>
> be better?
Something along those lines would definitely be better, but that's not
it -- a non-GNU version of tr will almost certainly not produce
``--version'' as the output from ``tr --version'', so the test doesn't
even come close to testing what it's supposed to be testing.
The current development version has a shell function that's supposed to
try to find the GNU version of a tool -- what's a good generic test for
a GNU tool? The best I can think of is:
``$tool --version </dev/null'' has a return code of 0 (that
should weed out any non-GNU versions that object to --version);
produces output either to stdout or stderr (that eliminates
non-GNU versions that don't object to --version and act as
filters [e.g. awk]); and the output isn't ``--version'' (that
eliminates non-GNU versions that end up echoing their arguments
[e.g. expr]).
-Larry Jones
Life's a lot more fun when you're not responsible for your actions. -- Calvin
