Re: [RFC PATCH 05/21] t3404: work around platform-specific behaviour on macOS 10.15

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 3, 2024, 23:19 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqcykghj10.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAPig+cSuXojVPeVE_0HFwrQQqYn-SwCvHQ9yG+c8H1dgaH00pA@mail.gmail.com>

Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

>> I suspect that the problem is that we use "\t" which is non-standard
>> rather than a literal tab character in the sed expression.
>
> Ah yes. The `sed` on macOS 10.15 would have been of an older
> BSD-lineage than the more modern macOS versions, so that makes sense.
> It wouldn't be a bad idea for the commit message to mention something
> along those lines.
>
> (I always use literal TAB with `sed` for this precise reason, which
> may explain why my eyes skipped right over the non-standard use of
> "\t" or I just wasn't paying close enough attention, which is equally
> likely.)

I also learned sed with old BSD behaviour to be portable (I somehow thought it is not just "old BSD" but outside POSIX if you used "\t" and friends). Checking with

$ git grep 'sed.*\\t' t/\*.sh

shows that t3305 also has this problem. The ones in t3404 are from 4611884e (sequencer: notify user of --update-refs activity, 2022-07-19), while the other one is from e1c52539 (t3305: check notes fanout more carefully and robustly, 2020-02-03), both are relatively old. If people are not reporting issues, it may be an indication that sed implementations of BSD origin may have died off.