m4 (was Re: Why is sendmail is part of the system and not a package?)

[Lowell Gilbert]

Lars Eighner <luvbeastie at larseighner.com> writes:

> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:24:38 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner <luvbeastie at larseighner.com> wrote:
>>> Evidently by making it necessary to learn yet another scripting
>>> language to configure it.  Other than personal profit I cannot see why
>>> people are clinging like grim death to something this fubar.  Really,
>>> let's go past this one more time:
>>>
>>> "Sure, sendmail.cf is hard to work with so the solution is you learn m4!"
>>>
>>> Did you look at the link he offered?  How helpful is that?
>>>
>>> Beside which, m4 is a PORT.  So if sendmail is not configurable
>>> without a port, why isn't it a port?
>>
>> Can we go back to our regular hacking, please?  m4 is not a port:
>>
>>  $ which m4
>>  /usr/bin/m4
>
> Evidently my package database is corrupt in some way, because it shows m4 as
> an installed port.  I wonder how that happened, how to fix it, and if it
> will bite if I leave it alone.

The port one is the Gnu version.  The base system one is the traditional
one that goes back to the AT&T days, although it has been updated to
meet POSIX.

-- 
Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area
		http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/