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Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 16:54:22 +0200
From: John Marino <freebsdml@marino.st>
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To: mexas@bristol.ac.uk
Subject: Re: make: /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk line 1638: warning: Couldn't
 read shell's output for if /sbin/sysctl -n compat.ia32.maxvmem >/dev/null
 2>&1; then echo YES; fi
References: <201306211442.r5LEgwV8052391@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk>
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Cc: Anton Shterenlikht <mexas@bris.ac.uk>, freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
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On 6/21/2013 16:42, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> On ia64 r252055 with ports at r321471 make issues lots of warnings
> like:
>
> # make -C /usr/ports/ fetchindex make:
> "/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.subdir.mk" line 101: warning: Couldn't read
> shell's output for "if /sbin/sysctl -n compat.ia32.maxvmem >/dev/null
> 2>&1; then echo YES; fi" make: "/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk" line 1638:
> warning: Couldn't read shell's output for "if /sbin/sysctl -n
> compat.ia32.maxvmem >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo YES; fi"
>
> *and many more idencal ones*

That looks like bmake output.
There should be an "else" part of the conditional that returns TRUE or 
echo.  bmake shell commands don't like null output.

The bsd.port.subdir.mk needs to be tweaked for bmake.

John