Fails to build in path containing spaces when no system TCL is available

[lurch]

Disclaimer: I'm not a TCL programmer, and I've never used TCL directly, but it's causing occasional build-problems for https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-setup (where it's a dependency of openocd).

If there's a space in the filepath containing the jimtcl folder, when you try to build you get an error like:

	MKLDEXT	_load-static-exts.c
/bin/sh: 1: /tmp/some: not found
Makefile:103: recipe for target '_load-static-exts.c' failed
make: *** [_load-static-exts.c] Error 1

because the full-path isn't being properly quoted in the Makefile.

When I tried reproducing this on my main Ubuntu laptop, I was surprised to discover that it built fine even when I had spaces in my filepath! But then when I looked at the Makefile I noticed that it was then using my system-installed tclsh (which is in a path without any spaces), and that probably explains why this bug has been undiscovered for so long! Only after I'd uninstalled all my "system tcl" programs, was I able to reproduce the problem on my Ubuntu laptop.

So for now, the easiest way to reproduce is using something like Docker.
Fire up a Debian docker image using sudo docker run -it debian and then within that docker image run the following sequence of commands:

apt update
apt install -y build-essential git
mkdir /tmp/some_path
cd /tmp/some_path
git clone https://github.com/msteveb/jimtcl.git
cd jimtcl
./configure
make

This shows that jimtcl is able to successfully build inside this Docker image in a path without spaces.

But if you then do:

mkdir '/tmp/some other path'
cd '/tmp/some other path'
git clone https://github.com/msteveb/jimtcl.git
cd jimtcl
./configure
make

it instantly fails with

	MKLDEXT	_load-static-exts.c
/bin/sh: 1: /tmp/some: not found
make: *** [Makefile:104: _load-static-exts.c] Error 1

I did have a quick go at fixing this myself (so that I could submit a PR), but I didn't have any idea what all the autosetup stuff was doing, which is why I'm submitting an issue instead 😉

[msteveb]

Thanks for the report. This could be fixed with the following change:

diff --git a/auto.def b/auto.def
index 3f2f5a0c..347951ff 100644
--- a/auto.def
+++ b/auto.def
@@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ switch -glob -- $host_os {

 # Find some tools
 cc-check-tools ar ranlib strip
-define tclsh [info nameofexecutable]
+define tclsh [quote-if-needed [info nameofexecutable]]

 # We only support silent-rules for GNU Make
 define NO_SILENT_RULES

However trying to build in a directory with spaces in the name is just asking for trouble. It will likely break all manner of things.

[lurch]

This could be fixed with the following change:

Thanks Steve! That fixes the build-problem, and I'd never have figured out how to do that myself 😄
However when I look in the Makefile that gets generated, I see that it still has

$(DEF_LD_PATH) $(MAKE) -C tests jimsh=/tmp/some other path/jimtcl/jimsh

and

CC='cc' /tmp/some other path/jimtcl/configure

which presumably also need to be quoted?

However trying to build in a directory with spaces in the name is just asking for trouble.

Normally I'd agree with you, however you can never predict what a user might try... raspberrypi/pico-setup#17

It will likely break all manner of things.

According to the extensive testing done by @michaelstoops , jimtcl is the only part of our setup process that breaks with spaces-in-the-path.

EDIT: And tests/Makefile also has

	@$(DEF_LD_PATH) $(jimsh) /tmp/some other path/jimtcl/tests/runall.tcl

and

	@rc=0; for i in /tmp/some other path/jimtcl/tests/*.test; do $(tclsh) -encoding utf-8 $$i || rc=$?; done; exit $$rc

[msteveb]

I've pushed some changes. Hopefully this will fix all the problems.

[lurch]

Fantastic, thanks so much @msteveb ! 👍