[Bashdb-devel] Re: ugly code in install-data-hook

[R. B. <ro...@pa...>]

Eric Blake writes:
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 > According to Eric Blake on 2/16/2006 10:29 PM:
 > > The following code in Makefile.am's install-data-hook has a severe bug,
 > > and I'm not sure how to work around it.  

Maybe a start is to describe what the bug is and what's severe about
it. While we are being severe, I'd say the fact that bash has a
hardcoded (and usually wrong) location of where the debugger init file
is pretty lame. ;-) 

It doesn't take much imagination to say change --debugger to add an
optional argument for where the init script is. The idea was that
perhaps there could be more than this debugger (or different versions
of this debugger) around. It would also allow users to install bashdb
without (generally) needing system-level access or installing their
own bash. If someone want's to make a suggestion using bashbug please
do. I've had my fill of bashbug reporting.

 > > Furthermore, the code is tied to
 > > GNU make, and is not portable to other make programs:

You are correct, it is a deficiency. But given the situtation there
aren't that many choices. I suppose one could write some sort of
standalone script that does the install hook thing. I suppose that would
be better in that it would be Makefile independent.

 > But, as long as we are requiring GNU make, the attached hack seemed to do
 > the trick (it depends on the -ef operator in GNU coreutils' test, and I
 > don't know of any other easy way to prove that /foo and /foo/ are (not)
 > the same directory in makefile syntax).  

Actually "test -ef" is probably more reliable than whatever could be
done in some sort of Makefile mechanism which as you say probably
wouldn't translate to make's other than this or that one.

 > Please don't install this hack as
 > an official patch; rather, use it as a starting point for what needs to be
 > improved in this hook to overcome its current bug.

If you don't want this installed, it won't be installed. That's your
call.  As for improving, do we have any volunteers out there?