Subject: Re: Solaris sed

From: Collin Funk <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 21:25:56 -0700

Eli Schwartz <[email-masked]> writes:

>>> The second is more tricky. The '-E' option to use EREs was not added to
>>> the specification for 'sed' until POSIX.1-2024 [1]. Maybe the script
>>> could check for the 'gsed' command? All of the (few) Solaris machines I
>>> use will have many GNU programs installed like that.
>> I can't comment on that especially as the build bits support pretty old
>> releases and
>> I have no idea how long Sun / Oracle have been shipping GNU bits like
>> this. I do not
>> believe this has always been a thing.
>
>
> The Solaris box I have a shell on, has gsed installed as a purely
> optional third-party addon from a third-party package feed. As far as I
> know, Solaris never did nor plans to ship "GNU bits like this".

Yes, sorry for not being clear. It is not installed by default. On the
compile farm machines I have access to it is always installed by the
maintainer. Or on VMs I use, I always download it. I figured that is
pretty common.

> Of course, the Git project *could* declare users must first build GNU
> sed, then build Git. Or only build on boxes where the admin is a GNU
> enthusiast. But that option seems unlikely and unattractive...

Perhaps I am too mean to Solaris... Their 'date' command made me give a
similar recommendation before. Anyways, Junio wrote a patch that avoids
us forcing GNU tools on them.

Collin