From: Raja R Harinath <harinath@hurrynot.org>
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2010 06:21:35 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] Makefile: work around ksh's failure to handle missing list argument to for loop
Message-ID: <87d3v56q6o.fsf@hariville.hurrynot.org>
In-Reply-To: <8YdP-GcDDflOVZnykNVIGceOm01bqeg9PDvdgIfgqUnh29RKC-6Qi8_KBVoqLIt5iyt7g1TX5l96M5KyLrfOqg@cipher.nrlssc.navy.mil>

Hi,

Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil> writes:

> ksh does not like it when the list argument is missing in a for loop.  This
> can happen when NO_CURL is set which causes REMOTE_CURL_ALIASES to be unset.
> In this case, the for loop in the Makefile expands to look like this:
>
>    for p in ; do
>
> and ksh complains like this:
>
>    /bin/ksh: syntax error at line 15 : `;' unexpected
[snip]
> -	{ test x"$(REMOTE_CURL_ALIASES)" = x || \
> -		for p in $(REMOTE_CURL_ALIASES); do \
> +	remote_curl_aliases="$(REMOTE_CURL_ALIASES)" && \
> +	for p in $$remote_curl_aliases; do \

I believe the idiom

  test x'$(foo)' = x || for p in ''$(foo); do

works equally well in this case, and is less invasive.

- Hari