Re: fedora 42 doesn't have awk: how to deal with autoconf subst?

On Sat, Apr 19, 2025, at 3:42 PM, James Cloos wrote:
>>>>>> "ZW" == Zack Weinberg <[email protected]> writes:
>
> ZW> this _only_ works because busybox's implementation of the shell language
> ZW> knows all the commands that are implemented by busybox.  if you want to
> ZW> use busybox together with a different shell then you do have to create
> ZW> all the symlinks.
>
> no, that is most certainly *not* how busybox works.

You are mistaken.

busybox's manpage only describes the behavior of individual busybox commands,
not the behavior of busybox's built-in shell.  The clearest documentation I can
find for the behavior I was talking about is embedded in
<https://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/shell/Config.src>:

# config FEATURE_SH_STANDALONE
#	bool "Standalone shell"
#	default n
#	depends on SHELL_ASH || SHELL_HUSH
#	help
#	This option causes busybox shells to use busybox applets
#	in preference to executables in the PATH whenever possible. For
#	example, entering the command 'ifconfig' into the shell would cause
#	busybox to use the ifconfig busybox applet. Specifying the fully
#	qualified executable name, such as '/sbin/ifconfig' will still
#	execute the /sbin/ifconfig executable on the filesystem. This option
#	is generally used when creating a statically linked version of busybox
#	for use as a rescue shell, in the event that you screw up your system.

And I know that this works because my main workstation's initrd wouldn't function
otherwise.

The text I quoted looks like this is an optional mode that's off by default,
but it would not make sense to install _just_ the busybox binary and not the
individual command symlinks, unless you did enable that option.  It would be
ridiculously tedious and error-prone to have to insert "busybox " in front of
all the standard commands in a complex shell script.

zw