Re: gzip 1.3.9 on IRIX 5.3 feedback

[Matthew Woehlke]

Georg Schwarz wrote:
> Now here are the details:
> [snip]
>
> doing a ./configure in the freshly untared gzip-1.3.9 sources yields:
>
> ...
> checking for a POSIX-compliant shell... no
> configure: WARNING: using /bin/sh, even though it does not conform to POSIX
> checking for grep that handles long lines and -e...
> configure: error: no acceptable grep could be found in
> :/usr/sbin:/usr/bsd:/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/xpg4/bin
>
> so it does search the directories in question.

Ok, whew. :-)

> maybe IRIX 5.3's grep is found but fails the tests? Can I check that 
> manually?

Yes, that looks like the problem.

Here is what I get on IRIX 6.5:

$ echo foo | /sbin/grep -e 'fo\?'
$ echo foo | grep -e 'fo\?'
foo
$ grep --version
grep (GNU grep) 2.5.1

...so /sbin/grep (on my /newer/ IRIX) does not handle extended regular 
expressions the same way GNU grep does. If my newer one doesn't, chances 
are your older one doesn't either, which is probably why configure 
doesn't like it ("checking for a grep that handles ... *-e*").

> Anyway, setting GREP=/sbin/grep works fine (probably the tests are skipped)

Yes, you are probably telling it (incorrectly) that /sbin/grep is OK. 
Don't do that. :-)

(Honestly, if you are then able to build gzip I guess you are OK, but 
you should probably get or build GNU grep.)

--
Matthew
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