Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Johnson, Andrew N. via Core-talk" <[email protected]> · Mon, 5 Nov 2018 23:59:12 +0000

The points from Michael and Benjamin should explain why I don't think
we're likely to change what we ship (especially now that we have almost
everything using "#!/usr/bin/env perl").

I would rather we make life easy for new users than for packagers. If
Debian maintainers have to patch every Perl script to adjust the shebang
line, I think that's just a cost of doing the packaging under Debian's
guidelines. If someone uses perlbrew to install a newer Perl version
than comes with their OS, I'd much prefer that we automatically pick up
their new version immediately.

- Andrew

On 11/05/2018 09:48 AM, J. Lewis Muir wrote:
> On 09/11, J. Lewis Muir wrote:
>> 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
> 
> Hello!
> 
> Would any core developers be willing to weigh in on this?
> 
> Here's the archive of the thread in case you no longer have it:
> 
>   https://epics.anl.gov/core-talk/2018/msg00448.php
> 
> The only core developer who replied to this thread was Michael
> Davidsaver, but that was not about this, it was about a thread hijack on
> bashisms.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Lewis
> 

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Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System