The Libtool issue described here may need cooperation from Autoconf. In libtool.m4's _LT_PROG_ECHO_BACKSLASH, we search for a good combination of an `echo' program (that does not interpret backslashes) and a $SHELL that also qualifies for _AS_DETECT_BETTER_SHELL. This detection has one, or rather two, long-known bugs, but I am not sure about the proper fix: Description of the bug: If `./config.status --recheck' is triggered, for example by automatic rebuilding rules, config.status executes $SHELL configure [OPTIONS] --no-create --no-recursion This means, `configure' may be executed by something other than /bin/sh. Thus, our macro, which tests plain `echo' first, may find that it is decent to use, and thus, may find that /bin/sh is a good-enough shell for all our purposes. This frequently happens on Solaris: The first configure run selects SHELL=/path/to/bash and the second likes plain `echo', because it tests the bash builtin, and /bin/sh, because CONFIG_SHELL is not set and thus we believe we are run by /bin/sh. `make' eventually executes `libtool' which barfs then. With the first `configure' that is executed by the user, Autoconf recommends bash ./configure CONFIG_SHELL=bash but this does not help our code: the command line gets parsed only until after we do the testing (this is the second issue, technically). $CONFIG_SHELL thus isn't set then. OTOH, CONFIG_SHELL=bash bash ./configure would work, but doesn't fit the option passing policy. How should we fix this? One possibility would be to restart once with /bin/sh, or, if part of the environment, with CONFIG_SHELL, or, after parsing the command line, with CONFIG_SHELL, if that is given there. All of this is very slow (read: dog-slow), and I'd really like to avoid another restart if at all possible. Another possibility would be to test for an external echo program first, this has a measureable speed impact on libtool execution time, though. Thanks, Ralf _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
