I was thinking along similar lines, but got stuck wondering: "Why is Configure.pl looking for bc in the first place? It doesn't do anything with the result."That's true. I am working on 'Parrot bc', based on ANTLR and Python.
For the tests I want to doublecheck whether there are any discrepancies between the system bc and Parrot bc.
The problem is complicated because there are significant differences among bc(1) commands. For example, Solaris has a traditional bc(1) command. It does not accept the '-v' option, and Configure.pl currently sets has_bc='no'. The GNU version of bc(1) has many extensions beyond traditional bc(1). It does accept a '-v' option, and Configure.pl currently sets has_bc='yes'.'Parrot bc' is planned to support only the POSIX standard. GNU bc has a
'-s', standard, option. So it is a good target for verifying 'Parrot bc'.
For now it might be the easiest thing to check only for 'has_gnu_bc'.
Ultimatively the bc test should end up in 'languages/bc', but AFAIK, there is no language specific config yet.
CU, Bernhard
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