Subject: Re: Extra checks for PERL_PATH and SHELL_PATH?

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:36:26 -0700

Matt Kraai <[email-masked]> writes:

> The top-level Makefile currently contains
>
>> ifndef SHELL_PATH
>> 	SHELL_PATH = /bin/sh
>> endif
>> ifndef PERL_PATH
>> 	PERL_PATH = /usr/bin/perl
>> endif
>
> The checks are only necessary if these variables need to be overridden
> by environment variables, not just via the make command line.  Is this
> the case?

It may not have been the original intention, but the above would mean that
some people may have learned to run "SHELL_PATH=/bin/ksh make" and
changing it would break things for them, no?

I do not think changing them is bad per-se, but we would need to add extra
warnings in the release note to explain this change, that's all.  This
would only affect people who build from the source (including distro
people) so it is not really a big deal.