checking for Linux LFS... ./configure: test: =: unary operator expected (was "Re: argus-2.0.5.beta.1")

[Dave Plonka]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 09:48:28AM -0500, Carter Bullard wrote:
> Gentle people,
>    I've just uploaded argus-2.0.5.beta.1 to the dev directory.
> This will be our testing distribution for the next release.

Carter,

I noticed a problem with the "configure" in argus-2.0.5.beta.1 under
Linux.  Specifically, on a Debian GNU/Linux machine:

   $ ./configure       
   creating cache ./config.cache
   checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
   ...
   checking for Linux LFS... ./configure: test: =: unary operator expected
   ./configure: test: -lt: unary operator expected
   ./configure: test: -lt: unary operator expected

I poked around in "configure.in" and see the problem is here:

   AC_CACHE_VAL(ac_cv_linux_vers,
            ac_cv_linux_vers=`uname -r 2>&1 | \
            sed -n -e '$s/.* //' -e '$s/\-.*//p'`)

Apparently that's not a portable way (amongst Linux versions) to
determine the version numbers because "uname -r" doesn't always contain
a "-".  E.g. on my machine:

   $ uname -r
   2.2.18pre21
   $

(Linux 2.2.18pre21 is the Linux kernel used in the current stable
Debian 2.2 release.)

I see in the latest version of autoconf that there is this (new?) macro:

   AC_SYS_LARGEFILE

Perhaps that could be used instead, and avoid argus from having to try
to determine the Linux version numbers?  Sorry, I don't have a patch
though... I played with it for couple minutes but had other problems
with getting "autoconf-2.52" to work.

If you do end up hand-crafting the test, the AC_SYS_LARGEFILE macro
might be useful for comparison.  It is defined in
"autoconf-2.52/acspecific.m4".

Dave

-- 
plonka at doit.wisc.edu  http://net.doit.wisc.edu/~plonka  ARS:N9HZF  Madison, WI