2012-08-17 21:26:47

by Jan Engelhardt

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] scripts/patch-kernel fix


On Thursday 2012-07-26 12:10, Michal Marek wrote:
>On 19.7.2012 23:49, Daniel Wisehart wrote:
>> diff --git a/scripts/patch-kernel b/scripts/patch-kernel
>> index d000ea3..a7672eb 100755
>> --- a/scripts/patch-kernel
>> +++ b/scripts/patch-kernel
>> @@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ fi
>>
>> # This all assumes a 2.6.x[.y] kernel tree.
>> # Don't allow backwards/reverse patching.
>> -if [ $STOPSUBLEVEL -lt $SUBLEVEL ]; then
>> +if [ "$STOPSUBLEVEL"0 -lt "$SUBLEVEL"0 ]; then
>
>Hi Daniel,
>
>While this is correct, it is not obvious at first sight why you need to
>multiply the numbers by 10. Or at least it was not obvious to me :).

Word has it some really old shells nobody would use to compile Linux on
interpret "" not as an empty argument, but as a non-existing argument,
turning if [ "" != "" ] into essentially if [ != ].

Doing x10 avoids the uncertainity whether shells might attempt to
interpret it as octal or not.
So far the interpretation..

>Could you use the more common idiom 0$NUMBER? The shell interprets the
>numbers as decimal, so it's works fine.

Wonder what POSIX says about that.