Re: maint.mk v. gzip 1.2.4

[Jim Meyering]

Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:
> Micah Cowan <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>>> Sadly, old versions of gzip send the help/usage report to stderr, not
>>>> stdout, so ">/dev/null" alone does not discard it.  (And grep wouldn't
>>>> see an "rsyncable", even if it were there.)  Folding stderr into stdout
>>>> looks harmless to me (not quite a proof of correctness, I realize), and
>>>> seems to solve the spewage problem:
>>>>
>>>>       gzip_rsyncable := \
>>>>         $(shell gzip --help 2>&1 |grep rsyncable >/dev/null && echo 
>>>> --rsyncable)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    For the record, that's on Tru64 V5.1B-4 (Patch Kit 6), but I'd expect
>>>> that anyone with a sufficiently obsolete gzip would see it, too.
>>>
>>> Fixed in gnulib's maint.mk, thanks!
>>
>> Thanks. Did you opt for the 2>/dev/null version because it is known that
>> no version of gzip old enough to emit --help's output to stderr supports

That's why I did it.
No one will use an older gzip with the recent rsyncable patch.

>> rsyncable? Otherwise, I'd agree with Steven that the 2>&1 version would
>> be a bit better.