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On Fri, 3 Sep 2010 22:31:01 +0200 Al <oss.elmar@××××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> Can anybody explain the Gentoo handling of filefuncs in the gawk package? |
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> |
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> Why isn't a simple patch used like in all other cases? |
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gawk provides dynamic extension modules. This is explained here: |
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http://www.gnu.org/manual/gawk/gawk.html#Dynamic-Extensions |
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The gawk source distribution comes with a number of such extensions in the |
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(doh) extensions/ directory. filefuncs.c is such one extension, which |
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demonstrate how to add stat() and chdir() capabilities to awk. |
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The file is compiled into a .so file, which is then referenced from within |
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gawk to make the extended commands available. |
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A vanilla build of gawk does not have any dynamic extension. |
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Now, the Gentoo devs at some point in the past (very early) took that file |
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(filefuncs.c) and extended it to implement new commands like "symlink", |
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"unlink", "mkdir", "rmdir" and "stat", so those are callable from within |
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awk, effectively extending the language. (you can see the Gentoo copyright |
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in the file, look |
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into /usr/portage/sys-apps/gawk/files/filefuncs/filefuncs.c) |
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There are a number of Gentoo system scripts that use those awk extensions |
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(look into /lib/rcscripts and /lib/rcscripts/awk), which means that |
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compiling the expanded filefuncs.c (not the vanilla one) is mandatory on a |
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Gentoo system, because there are awk scripts that rely on the extended |
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functionaltiy provided by it. Hence Gentoo maintains the filefuncs.c file |
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independently, and the gawk ebuild, besides building gawk itself, also takes |
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care of building filefuncs.c containing the extensions. |
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