Re: [PATCH v2] instaweb: make it compatible with Mac OS X 10.5's apache installation.

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: May 13, 2008, 12:30 UTC
Message-ID: <m37idy5qvz.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <21CA1226-223D-4347-A119-1D5A2CEA003E@gmail.com>

nathan spindel <nathans@gmail.com> writes:

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> On May 12, 2008, at 11:42 AM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
>> Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org> writes:
>>
>>> Maybe you can use a function like this not tested one:
>>>
>>> check_cmd() {
>>> 	cmd="$1"
>>>
>>> 	if type "$cmd"> /dev/null 2>&1; then
>>> 		if "$cmd" -v | grep Apache> /dev/null 2>&1; then
>>> 			httpd=$(echo "$cmd" | sed "s/apache2/httpd/")
>>> 		fi
>>> 	fi
>>> }
>>
>> One worry I have with that approach is if any and all random
>> implementations of "httpd" that live somewhere in path do not do
>> any harm when started with "-v" option.  Namely, they should exit
>> without becoming a daemon and/or start the service.
>>
>> I am not convinced that would be the case.

By the way, it is a bit strange that Apache doesn't understand long equivalent of -v, namely --version.

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> I agree with that worry. Solving that in the general case is pretty
> difficult, so I think we could instead look for other clues in the
> system. Some ideas:
> 
> - Use $HTTPD as defined in apachectl. (How portable is that?)

You mean what apachectl returns in Usage: (first line)?

  1014:jnareb@roke:~> /usr/sbin/apachectl          
  Usage: /usr/sbin/httpd [-D name] [-d directory] [-f file]

> - Inspect the text of 'man httpd' to determine if it's Apache or not.

Manpages might be not installed. I think 'httpd -v' is less error prone...

> - Only fallback on the httpd command on Mac OS X 10.5? That's pretty
> safe.

Not only MacOS X has Apache installed as httpd binary. Some Linux distributions do that too.

P.S. I wonder if it would be possible, as absolutely last resort fallback, to make git-instaweb to create/use very simple web server in Perl, using HTTP::Daemon module (if it is installed), which comes from libwww-perl.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git