Re: [Groff] CVS Build Problem

[Keith MARSHALL]

Larry Jones wrote:
> ... I have one last problem -- contrib/pdfmark/pdfroff.sh makes 
extensive
> use ofthe "type" command, which is *NOT* a standard shell command.  I 
was
> able to work around it by changing the first line from #!/bin/sh to
> #!/bin/bash, but it should probably be rewritten portably.

Really?  I didn't know that, sorry.  I used `type' to check that all of 
the
necessary prerequisite programs are installed, because I understood that 
it
*was* standard in Bourne shell; I've never come across one that didn't 
have
it, but my experience has been exclusively with System V, (since SVR2), 
and
more recently with GNU/Linux.  I followed the portability guidelines in 
the
Autoconf documentation, which does not list `type' as a non-portable 
Bourne
shell builtin, (in the `info' for 2.59) :-(

I agree that portability is desirable.  Clearly, `type' is not supported 
by
the BSD Bourne shell, but what alternative would you suggest? Substituting
`/bin/bash' for `/bin/sh' certainly *isn't* an option, since that would be
even less portable.  Some possibilities, which occur to me, are:

1) Simply assume that all prerequisites are satisfied by programs which 
are
   already in the PATH; breaks in an unpredictable fashion when anything 
is
   missing, and can't (easily) handle the case where GhostScript might be
   installed as `gsw32c.exe' rather than `gs'.

2) Allow `configure' to make the choices, and patch the appropriate 
program
   paths into `pdfroff' at `make' time; breaks if the runtime host is not
   congruent, wrt program locations, with the build host.

3) For each test currently implemented using `type', reproduce the program
   file location strategy used by Autoconf; this is likely to result in 
the
   most portable solution, but is rather long winded.

4) Implement `type' as a shell function, based on the Autoconf strategy,
   within `pdfroff.sh'; this would appear to be the most attractive 
option,
   *but* the Autoconf documentation says not to use shell functions.

Any other suggestions?

Regards,
Keith.