GNU bug report logs - #62896
[Configure] Bug with check for PERL when path has spaces (i.e. Windows)

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Message #8 received at 62896 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bogdan <bogdro_rep <at> gmx.us>
To: 62896 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, danoli3 <at> gmail.com
Cc: karl <at> freefriends.org
Subject: [bug#62896] [Configure] Bug with check for PERL when path has spaces
 (i.e. Windows)
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2023 19:47:31 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello.

 Thank you for the bug report. The problem is a bit more complicated, 
unfortunately. At least from my point of view.
 I did a bit of an analysis. The problem can be replicated on current 
master on a Linux - just do

	ln -s /usr/bin 'User bins'
	export PATH='User bins':$PATH

and reconfigure.

 I can surround $PERL and $(PERL) with parentheses (patch attached), but:

1) this doesn't fix the "shebang" lines, like #!/bin/bash, leaving 
e.g. bin/aclocal with

	#!User bins/perl

  and that not only will not work, it still stops the build with

	help2man: can't get `--help' info from bin/aclocal

  because of

	$ bin/aclocal --help
   bash: bin/aclocal: User: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

2) this won't work if the correct perl command has options, like when 
we need to, for some reason, have e.g. PERL=perl -W

3) I noticed problem 2) because my fake "User bins" appears also in 
$(INSTALL) and in $(MKDIR_P) in the generated Makefile. Those cannot 
be quoted, because "/whatever/mkdir -p" is not a correct program name. 
It's "/whatever/mkdir" and "-p" is a parameter.

Sorry to say this, but until someone provides a better solution, I 
recommend installing Perl (and other GNU tools - MinGW, coreutils, 
etc.) in paths without spaces, like c:\perl or 
c:\users\your_username\perl (assuming "your_username" doesn't have 
spaces, of course). This may also save you headaches with all those 
scripts which have "#!/bin/bash" or just "bash".

-- 
Regards - Bogdan ('bogdro') D.                 (GNU/Linux & FreeDOS)
X86 assembly (DOS, GNU/Linux):    http://bogdro.evai.pl/index-en.php
Soft(EN): http://bogdro.evai.pl/soft  http://bogdro.evai.pl/soft4asm
www.Xiph.org  www.TorProject.org  www.LibreOffice.org  www.GnuPG.org

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