[Wrapper-user] Troubles with use of "tail -1" in "sh.script.in" with GNU coreutils v5.2.1

[Andy B. <aba...@ca...>]

I have encountered troubles using the 
"{WRAPPER_HOME}/src/bin/sh.script.in" file because of the getpid() and 
testpid() functions use of "tail -1".

On my SUSE Linux system, the command "tail -1" returns the following:

> tail: `-1' option is obsolete; use `-n 1'
> Try `tail --help' for more information.

And that output causes the "sh.script.in" file to get confused and not 
find the PID of the running wrapper process.

What that message means is that my SUSE Linux system is preferring the 
command "tail -n 1".  Unfortunately, this doesn't work on my Solaris 
system because is doesn't understand the "-n" argument.

On both my SUSE Linux and Solaris systems the "tail" command is part of 
the GNU coreutils package [1], but I've got version 5.2.1 installed on 
the SUSE Linux system and 5.0 installed on the Solaris system.

So anyone upgrading their *nix system's GNU coreutils package might 
encounter this issue.

In comparison, my Mac OS X system happily accepts both "tail -1" and 
"tail -n 1" as its "tail" command is part of the GNU textutils package, 
v2.1 (installed via Fink [2])

I don't know that this counts as a bug in the script but I wanted to 
get it out there so others were aware of it.

My recommendation is that the "sh.script.in" file be updated to use 
"tail -n 1" and further recommend anyone running the wrapper under a 
*nix system to be sure and install/upgrade to GNU's coreutils package, 
v5.2.1 or later.

Cheers,
~Andy

[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
[2] http://fink.sourceforge.net/