[GRASS-dev] Re: [GRASS-user] Build Grass62!

[Glynn Clements]

Hamish wrote:

> > > > > "mkdir -p" isn't quoting the path
> > > Glynn:
> > > > That looks like a bug in the Makefile(s); can you say which
> > > > one(s)?
> > 
> > [snip]
> > 
> > In retrospect, I don't see any point changing this. The issue isn't
> > just applicable to mkdir, but to all commands; the mkdir command which
> > is failing just happens to be the first command for the first target
> > (builddemolocation).
> > 
> > Unless we quote every single pathname variable in every Makefile
> > (which I don't consider to be feasible), trying to build from a
> > directory whose pathname contains shell metacharacters simply won't
> > work.
> 
> The same applies for path names with spaces, correct?

Correct.

> I'm not too
> concerned about supporting [&,|,',`,!] in pathnames, but spaces in
> pathnames are pretty common for Mac and (native) Windows.

That isn't really an issue so long as people are building under Cygwin
or MSys/MinGW, as the build directory will probably be within the Unix
pseudo-filesystem.

> If it does apply to spaces, it may take a while to complete the job, but
> we can start and slowly move towards that goal... at minimum we can
> establish a best practice for future work.

Personally, I consider "best practice" to be not cluttering up the
Makefiles with lots of quotes. Just take the same approach as every
other Unix project in existence, and require the build directory to
have a "sane" pathname.

Supporting spaces or other metacharacters in the pathname to the final
installation directory would be reasonable, and probably not much work
as it's only really relevant to the "install" target in the top-level
Makefile.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>