Re: automake/490: make check XFAIL shell code may fail on Solarisdue to extraneous tabs

[Diab Jerius <dj at head dot cfa dot harvard dot edu>]

The following reply was made to PR automake/490; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Diab Jerius <dj@head.cfa.harvard.edu>
To: Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de>
Cc: automake-gnats@sources.redhat.com, automake-patches@gnu.org
Subject: Re: automake/490: make check XFAIL shell code may fail on Solaris
	due to extraneous tabs
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:05:22 -0400

 On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 12:27 +0200, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
 > Hi Diab,
 > 
 > Thanks for the bug report!
 > 
 > * Diab Jerius <djerius@cfa.harvard.edu> wrote on Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 12:35:52AM CEST:
 > > >Synopsis:       make check XFAIL shell code may fail on Solaris due to extraneous tabs
 > 
 > > Solaris 5.8, /usr/ccs/bin/make
 > > >Description:
 > > If the list of tests expected to fail (XFAIL) contains elements with
 > > tabs immediately preceding or trailing them, Solaris make sometimes
 > > does not remove the tabs when it passes the list to the shell, causing
 > > the logic for the check-TESTS target to fail.  I've attached a tarball
 > > containing the input Makefile.am and generated Makefile.in and
 > > Makefile files, as well as the output of "make -n check" exhibiting
 > > the retained tabs.  The check-TESTS code assumes that the test name
 > > will be preceded and followed by spaces (*" $$tst "*); the presence of
 > > the tab causes the test to fail.
 > 
 > This happens with GNU make as well, by design: `make' should not
 > interpret or change any white space in a macro, except that any leading
 > white space immedidately after the `=' is removed.
 > 
 
 Interesting.  I didn't see a failure with GNU make, which implies that
 it did remove the tabs.  I'll have to check this out further, alas.
 
 > Suggested patch below.  OK to apply?  The variable assignment is to work
 > around this bug (info Autoconf "Limitations of Builtins"):
 > 
 
 I'll give it a try and get back to you.
 
 Thanks,
 Diab
 
 
 
 -- 
 Diab Jerius <djerius@cfa.harvard.edu>
 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory