[MPlayer-users] Configure script is not portable

[The Wanderer]

Edd Barrett wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to build mplayer on solaris 10. I have been using mplayer
>  on my OpenBSD desktop for ages.
> 
> There are some serious portability issues with the shell script
> fragments in your configure script.

MPlayer's configure script requires POSIX tools. I believe it's supposed
to work with any such tools; if it doesn't, the developers would
probably welcome specific bug reports.

> a) sh != bash
> On many linux systems they assume bash is sh. It is not and they are
> not totally compatible:

I know that many commits have gone into removing bashisms in configure.
If there are still some there, point them out specifically and they may
well get changed.

> ---8<---
> blade% uname -a
> SunOS blade 5.10 Generic_137137-09 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000
> blade% ./configure
> ./configure: LC_ALL=C: is not an identifier
> ---8<---

This has been specifically mentioned on the development list as being a
result of the shell not being POSIX-compatible.

> b) When you run configure with bash it becomes very apparent that the
> script assumes the system is using the GNU tool-chain. Many systems
> do not use the GNU tools. Whilst solaris does ship with gtar, ggrep
> (in /usr/sfw), they are not the default versions. There is no GNU
> tail command installed by default.

As far as I am aware, the configure script does not assume GNU tools; it
does, however, assume POSIX-compatible tools. There are some
environments - and I think Solaris may be one of them - where the
default toolchain is not POSIX-compatible. The recommended approach in
these cases is to add the path(s) to the POSIX-compatible tools to the
head of your PATH before running configure.

For what it's worth, I see a number of people in the -dev-eng archives
who appear to have built MPlayer successfully on OpenSolaris...

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.