[GMP build] rm: invalid argument: `' with coreutils 8.0

[Marc Glisse]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, Vincent Lefevre wrote:

> When building GMP 4.3.2 and GMP 5.0.0 under Linux (Debian/unstable,
> x86_64), I get error messages:
>
>  rm: invalid argument: `'
>
> e.g.
>
> [...]
> Making all in mpn
> make[2]: Entering directory `/home/vlefevre/software/gmp-5.0.0/mpn'
> /bin/bash ../libtool --mode=compile gcc -std=gnu99 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -D__GMP_WITHIN_GMP -I.. -DOPERATION_`echo fib_table | sed 's/_$//'`    -O2 -pedantic -m64 -mtune=core2 -march=core2 -c -o fib_table.lo fib_table.c
> mkdir .libs
> rm: invalid argument: `'
> gcc -std=gnu99 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -D__GMP_WITHIN_GMP -I.. -DOPERATION_fib_table -O2 -pedantic -m64 -mtune=core2 -march=core2 -c fib_table.c  -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/fib_table.o
> rm: invalid argument: `'
> gcc -std=gnu99 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -D__GMP_WITHIN_GMP -I.. -DOPERATION_fib_table -O2 -pedantic -m64 -mtune=core2 -march=core2 -c fib_table.c -o fib_table.o >/dev/null 2>&1
> /bin/bash ../libtool --mode=compile gcc -std=gnu99 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -D__GMP_WITHIN_GMP -I.. -DOPERATION_`echo mp_bases | sed 's/_$//'`    -O2 -pedantic -m64 -mtune=core2 -march=core2 -c -o mp_bases.lo mp_bases.c
> rm: invalid argument: `'
> [...]

It looks like the problem is inside libtool. Did you try adding set -x to 
libtool and rerunning this command to see which rm fails this way?

> This doesn't seem to have any side effects, though.
>
> Note that with the coreutils 8.0,
>
>  rm -f ''
>
> is an error.

A bit painful, and apparently they changed a few things related to empty 
string arguments in the following releases...

-- 
Marc Glisse