Hi Arsen,

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023, Arsen Arsenoviæ wrote:
>> Did you intentionally not implement the following part of my suggestion
>>
>>    if [ x${MAKEINFO}x = xx ]; then
>>    :
> > that is, allowing to override from the command-line (or crontab)?
> (answering both the questions)
> 
> This := operator is a handy "default assign" operator.  It's a bit of an
> oddity of the POSIX shell, but it works well.  The line:
> 
>   : "${foo:=bar}"
> 
> is a convenient way of spelling "if foo is unset or null, set it to
> bar".  the initial ':' there serves to discard the result of this
> evaluation (so that only its side effect of updating foo if necessary is
> kept)

I understand, just am wondering whether and why the : is required? I 
don't think we are using this construct anywhere else?

(I was aware of the ${foo:=bar} syntax, just caught up by you pushing
that part of the logic to the lowest level whereas I had it at the top
level. That's purely on me.)

Please go ahead and push this (or a variant without the : commands) and
I'll then pick it up from there.

Gerald