Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"J. Lewis Muir" <[email protected]> · Tue, 11 Sep 2018 11:55:45 -0500

Hi, all!

I suggest that all EPICS-Base-installed Perl scripts should use an
absolute path to the desired Perl interpreter in their shebang line
rather than using env to invoke the interpreter.

I'm reminded of this because of

  https://epics.anl.gov/core-talk/2018/msg00443.php

in which Martin Konrad wrote:

> Looking at the Perl scripts included in EPICS Base I'm wondering if it
> is really necessary to start some of them (see for example [1]) with the
> rather esoteric
> 
> eval 'exec perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'  # -*- Mode: perl -*-
>     if $running_under_some_shell;
> 
> rather than the usual "#!/usr/bin/perl" or "#!/usr/bin/env perl"

I would much prefer the former over the latter, but it seems the latter
is what has been chosen!  This was discussed on Tech-Talk in

  https://epics.anl.gov/tech-talk/2013/msg00098.php

but I'll just say again, I think the pathname of the Perl interpreter
should be specified as a variable in an appropriate file under configure
and for that to be used in the shebang line of all installed Perl
scripts.  I would like scripts to work without requiring perl to be
on the command search path, and I would like to be able to specify
which perl is used for the scripts when they are installed rather than
whatever perl is first on the command search path.  This way, the
scripts do not rely on the command search path to find perl, and if
multiple versions of Perl are installed, or if the perl that is first
on the command search path changes, I can be sure that the installed
scripts will continue to work.  For more on this opinion, see

  http://julio.meroh.net/2016/09/env-considered-harmful.html

Thanks!

Lewis

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System