On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 10:34:50AM +0100, Peter Dyballa wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Testing M4 on this ancient OS produces some trouble, probably because of too
> old shell interpreters:
Thank you for the report. I lack access to a MacOS system, so I
cannot reproduce the symptoms. But the particular test failure you
are seeing comes from the gnulib testsuite, so I'm adding that list in
cc, in case it rings a bell with anyone else.
>
> • pete 847 /\ /bin/sh --version
> GNU bash, version 3.2.48(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin10.0)
> Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> • pete 848 /\ /bin/ksh --version
> version sh (AT&T Research) 1993-12-28 s+
> • pete 853 /\ /bin/csh --version
> tcsh 6.15.00 (Astron) 2007-03-03 (x86_64-apple-darwin) options
> wide,nls,dl,al,kan,sm,rh,color,filec
> • pete 855 /\ /bin/zsh --version
> zsh 4.3.9 (i386-apple-darwin10.0)
>
> /bin/sh is /bin/bash and /bin/csh is /bin/tcsh. When the test procedure
> starts to execute tests with ksh it gets stuck (from pstree):
>
> ...
> \-+- 43236 macports
> /bin/sh ../build-aux/test-driver --test-name test-funclib-quote.sh --log-file
> test-funclib-quote.sh.log --trs-file test-funclib-quote.sh.trs --color-tests
> no --collect-skipped-logs no --enable-hard-errors yes --expect-failure no --
> ./test-funclib-quote.sh
> \-+- 43237 macports
> /bin/sh ./test-funclib-quote.sh
> \--- 43412 macports
> /bin/ksh ./test-funclib-quote.sh
>
> root 849 /\ lsof | ggrep test-funclib-quote.sh.log
> sh 43237 macports 1w REG 14,2
> 1737 9519486
> /opt/local/var/macports/build/m4-258498fb/work/m4-1.4.21/tests/test-funclib-quote.sh.log
> sh 43237 macports 2w REG 14,2
> 1737 9519486
> /opt/local/var/macports/build/m4-258498fb/work/m4-1.4.21/tests/test-funclib-quote.sh.log
> ksh 43412 macports 1w REG 14,2
> 1737 9519486
> /opt/local/var/macports/build/m4-258498fb/work/m4-1.4.21/tests/test-funclib-quote.sh.log
> ksh 43412 macports 11w REG 14,2
> 1737 9519486
> /opt/local/var/macports/build/m4-258498fb/work/m4-1.4.21/tests/test-funclib-quote.sh.log
>
> I had to 'kill -1 43412' and another time when ksh was involved, in
> test-option-parser.sh. Here is an excerpt from test-suite.log (already sent
> by eMail):
>
> ~> func_quote expand: non-existent-2: "$empty" "${empty}"
> ~> func_quote expand: `command`: `$aaa $empty${bbb}`
> == running in '/bin/ksh' ==
>
> /opt/local/var/macports/build/m4-258498fb/work/m4-1.4.21/tests/test-all-shells.sh:
> line 76: 43412 Hangup __GL_ALL_SHELLS_SHELL="$_G_abs_shell"
> "$_G_abs_shell" "$all_shells_script" ${1+"$@"}
> error: can't run in /bin/ksh
> == running in '/bin/zsh' ==
> ~> func_quote eval: basic: a b c
> ~> func_quote eval: spaces: space space tab tab
> ~> func_quote eval: empty_arg:
> ~> func_quote eval: globs: * .* [a-zA-Z0-9_] ? ~
> ~> func_quote eval: variables: $aaa ${bbb} "${ccc} $ddd"
> ~> func_quote eval: exclamation-mark: $! !$ !
> …
> ~> func_quote expand: double-quotes: " " " "$bbb"
> ~> func_quote expand: spaces: ${ccc}
> ~> func_quote expand: non-existent: $empty ${empty}
> ~> func_quote expand: non-existent-2: "$empty" "${empty}"
> ~> func_quote expand: `command`: `$aaa $empty${bbb}`
> FAIL test-funclib-quote.sh (exit status: 1)
>
> Here are snapshots from the directory:
>
> drwxr-xr-x 11 macports wheel 60622 19 Feb 22:35 .
> -rw-r--r-- 1 macports wheel 1877 19 Feb 22:35
> test-option-parser.sh.log
> *kill -1*
> -rw-r--r-- 1 macports wheel 5858 19 Feb 23:03
> test-option-parser.sh.log
>
> You can see that I had some perseverance while testing… Build and tests were
> done from the MacPorts package manager.
>
>
> --
>
> Greetings
>
> Pete
>
> I am concerned for you to enjoy yourselves within the limits of British
> decency.
> – Ivor Cutler
>
>
--
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.
Virtualization: qemu.org | libguestfs.org
