Bug 196478

Summary:	[enhancement] Change make.conf parser to accept "" like rc.conf
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	rsimmons0
Component:	conf	Assignee:	Mateusz Piotrowski <0mp>
Status:	Closed Not A Bug
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	0mp
Priority:	---
Version:	10.1-RELEASE
Hardware:	amd64
OS:	Any

Description rsimmons0 2015-01-04 09:14:37 UTC

The parser for make.conf does not work well with quotation marks. If the value has multiple entries, using quotation marks prevents the file from being parsed properly.

For example, if you enter
OPTIONS_UNSET="DOCS EXAMPLES NLS"
it is not parsed properly.

If you enter
OPTIONS_UNSET=DOCS EXAMPLES
everything works fine.

If the parser was changed so that quotation marks are parsed well, then the sysrc(8) utility can be used to create and modify make.conf.

Comment 1 Mateusz Piotrowski freebsd_committer

2022-12-05 23:26:15 UTC

Hi, this is by design. Makefiles have completely different syntax than shell files. It's only an unfortunate illusion that sysrc could be used for anything other than shell files.

I agree that it would be nice to have one tool that can edit all configuration files on FreeBSD. I myself learnt the hard way that sysrc is not suitable for loader.conf and sysctl.conf.