Quoting Paul Eggert: : Raphael Manfredi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: : : > The problem is that "portable scripts" (e.g. Configure-type scripts) : > were written years ago : : Which Configure-type script are you thinking of, exactly? I can send : in a bug report to its maintainer.
None in particular. It's just the kind of script that could be broken when a UNIX V7 command has its syntax obsoleted. I've checked metaconfig and, fortunately, none of its units makes use of "tail +n". I have no idea about autoxxx-generated scripts though since I don't une them. I had several personal scripts making use of this syntax though, and I had to update them to the new syntax. Scripts dating from 1990 and that had never failed me up to now... Now although I'm immune to this "tail +n" bug, I still don't think obsoleting such a widely known syntax is good. Breaking backward compatibility is so bad -- I've been bitten many times by autoconf-generated scripts that many GNU packages use and insist on remaking locally (why?) and that could not work because my local autoconf was newer than the version used by the package author. Anyway, I won't obviously change your mind nor the one of the POSIX folks. So be it. Raphael _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
