Re: portability of 'printf' command

[Jim Meyering]

Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Apr 2010, Karl Berry wrote:
>>
>> In any event, I suspect that anyone using such an ancient system *and*
>> installing a brand-new version of package foo that uses printf in its
>> autoconfery would also have installed coreutils (or at least sh-utils),
>> and therefore will have printf after all.
>
> Is it possible that coreutils/sh-utils configure scripts would then
> depend on a working 'printf' capability so that it is not possible to
> install them?  The only workaround would be to try to bootstrap using
> an older version which still does not require 'printf'.

I think that's an adequate work-around.