RFC: coreutils uses program-prefix=g by default

[Markus Weissmann]

On Dec 22, 2007, at 2:30 PM, js wrote:

> On Dec 22, 2007 10:13 PM, Rainer Müller <raimue at macports.org> wrote:
>> js wrote:
>>> On Dec 22, 2007 9:41 PM, Rainer Müller <raimue at macports.org> wrote:
>>>> js wrote:
>>>>> So let me ask this, "Do you like to have gls, guniq in your /opt/ 
>>>>> local/bin?
>>>>> Is there any case that removing "g" prefix causes any problems?
>>>> I think they are by default off because you expect ls from BSD  
>>>> and not
>>>> from GNU on Mac OS X by default. It might break other shell  
>>>> scripts.
>>>
>>> I doubt it.
>>> I think almost all scripts starts with "#!/bin/bla" or "#!/usr/bin/ 
>>> bla"
>>> so installing  GNUs in /opt/local/bin will not break anything,
>>> if you don't run a script like "sh somescript.sh" or "awk -f  
>>> somescript.awk"
>>
>> Imagine a bash script using ls, but it is expecting BSD ls, not GNU  
>> ls.
>> It may fail because the options of these programs are different  
>> (except
>> the POSIX subset of arguments).
>
> That makes sense, but in that case,
> shell scripter should specify exact bin path
> like
>
>    LS=/bin/ls # BSD ls
>    $LS -bsdoption something" instead.
>
> And you can easily force scripts to which ls to use like below.
>
>    $ PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin somescript.sh
>
> In default case (g prefix), there's no easy way to fix this
> other than renaming bins in script or re-installing
> coreutils with "with_default_names" just as you suggested me.

Well, in a perfect world everything "should be" like it isn't in the  
real world. In a perfect world your shell script would have been  
prepared for 'seq' to not exist, too. ;)

There are quite a few things that start to break if you use e.g.  
coreutils without the "g" prefix. Search the bug tracker if you are  
interested in what exactly breaks; I had tickets where the "install"  
program of coreutils behaved different and lead to errors in my ports  
-- very nasty to track down.
If you want or have to GNU-ify your system, I'd recommend to either  
add aliases for the gnu tools (alias install='ginstall') or to symlink  
the gnutools to a new "bin" directory with the names you want them to  
have.

Perhaps we could add this as a feature to the ports: Have a directory  
$prefix/gnu/[s]bin where the GNU tools would appear with their  
original name. Then the GNU fans could add those two directories to  
their path (before the standard macport directories).


Regards,

-Markus

--
Dipl. Inf. (FH) Markus W. Weissmann
http://www.macports.org/
http://www.mweissmann.de/