GNU bug report logs - #17774
AIX and lbracket ([) program - will not install on AIX using installp

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Message #14 received at 17774 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Michael Felt <mamfelt <at> gmail.com>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: 17774 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#17774: AIX and lbracket ([) program - will not install on AIX
 using installp
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:08:36 +0200

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I believe IBMis usually quite commited to being inline with published and
accepted standards. However, this is a standard with 2008 in it's name, and
AIX 5.3 is from 2004, and the TL/SP level I am compiling on, for backwards
compatibility is dated 2007 - so hard to complain that it is not up to a
2008 standard - although I expect the program you sent will compile and
execute.

It is the installp installer that has issues because it uses the []
characters for special purposes.

Maybe I can find a way/modification to the mkinstallp program so that
installp will accept the input.

And yes, deleting/not including it is probably the simplest solution.


On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> Michael Felt wrote:
>
>> But to have a name like that, I must be too old fashioned -
>> where is the win?
>>
>
> It's so that execlp ("FOO") acts like the shell command FOO, or, more
> precisely, so that the attached C program works like '[ -d / ]' at the
> shell level.  POSIX requires that all standard utilities (except for a very
> short list) must work the same way from a C program as from the shell.  See
> the last sentence of:
>
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/
> utilities/V3_chap01.html#tag_17_06
>
> '[' is not on the list of exceptions, so coreutils arranges for it to be
> an executable, as POSIX requires.
>
>
>  AIX does not
>> permit files in an installp package are refused when they include certain
>> special characters
>>
>
> It may be simpler to just omit '[' from your installp package (I assume
> that's some downstream thing).  I doubt whether anybody but POSIX nerds
> will care.  AIX itself doesn't seem to be POSIX-conforming here, as the
> attached C program fails on AIX.  (If *you* are a POSIX nerd please feel
> free to file a bug report with IBM....)
>

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