[mdlug] OT: Windows XP + Cygwin + OpenCOBOL, spells oops!

[David Relson]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:10:47 -0400
Richard Staff wrote:

> In order to deal with a work related challenge of some old PC COBOL 
> programs, I went looking for "free" and/or "open" COBOL compilers.
> OpenCOBOL seemed to be the solution, however, we are a Windows XP
> shop and OpenCOBOL requires a *nix environment.
> So, I went ahead and installed Cygwin on a Windows XP Pro workstation 
> successfully.
> Next I downloaded the tar.gz file for OpenCOBOL and extracted all its 
> files to its own tree of directories.
> Upon running ./configure, here are the error messages:
> 
> ./configure: line 21: syntax error near unexpected token `elif'
> ./configure: line 21: `elif test -n "${BASH_VERSION+set}" && (set -o 
> posix) >/dev/null 2>&1; then
> '
> 
> What gives?  When I look at it, I don't see any obvious errors.  So
> here follows the first 24 lines from configure, please tell me what's
> wrong:
> 
> #! /bin/sh
> # Guess values for system-dependent variables and create Makefiles.
> # Generated by GNU Autoconf 2.59 for OpenCOBOL 1.0.
> #
> # Report bugs to <open-cobol-list at lists.sourceforge.net>.
> #
> # Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> # This configure script is free software; the Free Software Foundation
> # gives unlimited permission to copy, distribute and modify it.
> ## --------------------- ##
> ## M4sh Initialization.  ##
> ## --------------------- ##
> #
> # Be Bourne compatible
> if test -n "${ZSH_VERSION+set}" && (emulate sh) >/dev/null 2>&1; then
>   emulate sh
>   NULLCMD=:
>   # Zsh 3.x and 4.x performs word splitting on ${1+"$@"}, which
>   # is contrary to our usage.  Disable this feature.
>   alias -g '${1+"$@"}'='"$@"'
> elif test -n "${BASH_VERSION+set}" && (set -o posix) >/dev/null 2>&1;
> then set -o posix
> fi
> DUALCASE=1; export DUALCASE # for MKS sh

What shell is running?  Sounds like it doesn't understand 'elif'.
Perhaps there's a newer version of the shell available?  

Assuming there's no newer shell version available for cygwin, you may
have to modify configure, i.e. use 'else if' rather than 'elif'.  Of
course, if one such change is needed the odds are that other changes
will also be needed :-<

Good luck!

David