On 2008-03-08 17:53:29 -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote: > The configure scripts generated by Autoconf are written to the > GNU standards, which say: > > The `configure' script and the Makefile rules for building and > installation should not use any utilities directly except these: > > cat cmp cp diff echo egrep expr false grep install-info > ln ls mkdir mv pwd rm rmdir sed sleep sort tar test touch true
Unfortunately, this information isn't given to the user who runs the configure script. And the configure script doesn't test that they exist. > By the way, you assigned this bug a Severity level of > "important". The meaning of "important" is this: "a bug which > has a major effect on the usability of a package, without > rendering it completely unusable to everyone." I cannot conceive > how the inability of Autoconf's configure scripts to run on a > Nokia Internet tablet rises to this level of severity. The problem can potentially occur on any platform (e.g. if a broken diff is installed in the user's path -- I've already seen this kind of things). Though it is fixable, giving the user an obscure error message is never acceptable (I could have spent hours searching for a bug in grep, while the problem was somewhere else); that's the main reason why I regarded this bug as important. > Because this is not a bug in Autoconf, I am closing this bug > (with this email). Well, I think the bad error message is a real bug, and the replacement of diff by cmp is a valid RFE since it really solves a practical problem. I'll see with upstream. -- Vincent Lefèvre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
