This is the mail archive of the cygwin mailing list for the Cygwin project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: Making /bin/sh == bash. Has the time come?


On Sun, Jun 12, 2005 at 09:15:58PM -0500, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:
>- "transfigure" is a dead-simple shell script that just calls ./configure
>with a slew of config options.
>- Everything's faster today (real anyway), probably due to the following:
>  - I'm probably using a different snapshot.
>  - I cvs updated my wxWidgets source just before running the tests.
>  - In the previous tests I wasn't particularly careful to leave the machine
>alone (did some web browsing, email etc).  This time I made sure to do
>nothing during the tests.
>- Percentage differences between configuring with bash vs. ash:
>  real:   ~+17%
>  user:   ~+1%
>  system: ~+25%
>- Apparently the only way to get ash used at all is by explicitly "export
>CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/sh"ing.  In particular note the third ash test, where
>/bin/sh is ash, and yet the configure times appear to indicate that bash is
>in fact being used.
>
>Ergo:
>- Yes, sh is still faster than bash.
>- It's not a large enough difference that I would care about it.  Others'
>mileage may perhaps vary.
>- It's unclear to me that it matters in any case, since apparently
>configures have been using bash anyway.
>- It's unclear to me then where the "sh is ash not bash" issues are actually
>coming from, if not from run-of-the-mill configures.

Now I'm confused, too.  I thought the complaints were coming from people
who used configure.  Maybe they were coming from old configure scripts
or possibly from makefiles.

>- If it isn't configures, does anybody actually care about the semi-minor
>slowdown since it would eliminate "ash != bash" issues?
>
>Hence:
>- I still say /bin/sh == bash is the way to go.

I agree.  I hope that Eric Blake will also agree and eventually release
a new version of bash where /bin/sh.exe is a hardlink (?) or copy
(sigh).

The only thing I'm not entirely sure about is whether we should just nuke
ash from the distribution or not.  It seems like if we didn't we would need
a new release of ash with /bin/sh.exe replaced with /bin/ash.exe.

cgf

--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]