Linux installation fails: bash scripts have literal \n instead of newlines

[tve]

Build environment: Linux arch

Description
The shell scripts built have literal \n's in them

Steps to Reproduce

1. Git clone repo
2. cd build/makefiles/lin
3. make

make -f /home/sw/moddable/moddable/xs/makefiles/lin/xsc.mk                           
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/sw/moddable/moddable/build/makefiles/lin'         
# xsc debug : cc xsBigInt.c                                                          
# xsc debug : cc xsCode.c                                                            
...
# tools debug : mcconfig
...
# tools debug : mcrun
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/sw/moddable/moddable/build/makefiles/lin'
/home/sw/moddable/moddable/build/bin/lin/debug/mcconfig -d -m -p x-lin /home/sw/moddable/moddable/tools/xsbug/manifest.json
make: /home/sw/moddable/moddable/build/bin/lin/debug/mcconfig: No such file or directory
make: *** [makefile:42: debug] Error 127

4. cat /home/sw/moddable/moddable/build/bin/lin/debug/mcconfig

#!/bin/bash\nDIR=$(cd "$(dirname "$BASH_SOURCE")"; cd -P "$(dirname "$(readlink "$BASH_SOURCE" || echo .)")"; pwd)\n$DIR/tools mcconfig "$@"

5. Notice that this is one line with embedded literal \n's, that ain't gonna work...

[tve]

I'm using fish shell, man echo says:

       -E     Disable interpretation of backslash escapes (default).                 
       -e     Enable interpretation of backslash escapes.                            

using bash I get the same:

       -e     enable interpretation of backslash escapes
       -E     disable interpretation of backslash escapes (default)

puzzled how this works for you...

[andycarle]

Interesting... This is what I get in zsh on Ubuntu:

 acarle@ANDY-SURFACE ~/Projects/moddable cat ./build/bin/lin/debug/mcconfig
#!/bin/bash
DIR=$(cd "$(dirname "$BASH_SOURCE")"; cd -P "$(dirname "$(readlink "$BASH_SOURCE" || echo .)")"; pwd)
$DIR/tools mcconfig "$@"

[andycarle]

A few thoughts.

1. As you probably noted, these scripts are generated in a Makefile (build\makefiles\lin\tools.mk).
2. I believe make uses /bin/sh by default.
3. sh does not have a -e option and always interprets backslash escapes.

Perhaps you either have /bin/sh mapped so something else (e.g. fish) or you have over ridden the default shell for make?

[tve]

It works on ubuntu... (Although I have a headless system and didn't appreciate having 177 packages installed for libgtk-3-dev)
On Arch /bin/sh seems to have been bash for a long time
On Ubuntu /bin/sh is dash
I would suggest that adding -e to the echo statements is more portable... Don't you need that on macos as well? I have some vague (painful) memories of deja-vu...
I installed dash and ran make SHELL=/usr/bin/dash and that seems to have completed the build.
Thanks for the prompt replies!

[andycarle]

You're right, dash is what is being invoked on my system.

This from dash's echo seems problematic to the approach of always adding the -e:

$ echo -e "Testing\n123"
-e Testing
123

[tve]

then maybe set SHELL=dash in the makefile?

It looks like what I built compiles the helloworld fine, but I'm not sure it ran fine. When I ran mcconfig -d -m -p lin xsbug immediately displayed a stack trace on readPreferenceString and in its console shows:
/home/sw/moddable/moddable/modules/piu/PC/lin/piuFiles.c (222) # Break: readPreferenceString: No such file or directory!
Dunno whether I skipped some instructions or whether instructions are incomplete...

[andycarle]

May be another difference with arch — we definitely do most of our Linux testing on Ubuntu. I recommend opening a new issue for that one and I'll get the right person pointed to it.

[andycarle]

I think setting SHELL = /bin/dash in tools.mk is a reasonable compromise here. On the odd system that doesn't have /bin/dash that should at least fail fast.

I'll get that change in.

[tve]

Works now. Thanks!