Re: Procmail rejects zsh as being "broken"

[srb@xxxxxxx (Stephen R. van den Berg)]

borsenkow.msk@xxxxxx <borsenkow.msk@xxxxxx> wrote:
>I recently installed procmail-3.11pre4 under zsh-3.0pre4. When running
>'make init' procmail gave me warning, that `/opt/local/bin/zsh is broken'.
>I checked initmake script and here is relevant part:

>case "$SHELL" in
> ...
>       *zsh*) $RM src/_autotst
>            $SHELL <<HERE
>            O="echo test >src/_autotst"
>            exec 2>$DEVNULL
>            \$O
>HERE                                                                            
>           if test ! -f src/_autotst 
>           then
>              echo "Warning: your $SHELL is broken, avoiding it"; SHELL=""
>           fi ;;

>The test seems to imply, that in
>% foo="echo test > test"
>% $foo

>the line is to be rescanned for I/O redirections *after* foo is expanded. 
>I am not aware of any shell to behave this way. 

You're right.  Sorry, my mistake.  The test is a bit too rigorous, it
now fails on every shell (which just had the effect that it never used
the zsh, which is why I never noticed the problem, of course).  The intent
was to check for something else.

>Do I  miss something? What is the sense of this test? And why it is done
>only for zsh ;)?

The test should have read (fixed in the next release :-):

        *zsh*) $RM src/_autotst
            $SHELL <<HERE
            O="echo test"
            exec 2>$DEVNULL 1>&2
            \$O && echo test >src/_autotst
HERE

As to why it is just being tested on zsh, well, that's the only shell
that (ever) exhibited this (broken) behaviour.
-- 
Sincerely,                                                          srb@xxxxxxx
           Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).
Auto repair rates: basic labor $40/hour; if you wait, $60; if you watch, $80;
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