This is a bash and Emacs related problem. So I post it here for some help. Sorry to bother again if you think it's not so relevant to shell.

I try to install vterm through straight's use-package integration with
the following configuration:

1.
(use-package vterm
:straight (
:pre-build (
("rm" "-fr" "build")
("mkdir" "build")
("bash" "-c" "cd build && cmake .. && make")
)))

2.
(use-package vterm
:straight (
:pre-build (
(shell-command "rm -fr build && mkdir build && cd $_
&& cmake .. && make")
)))

3.
(use-package vterm
:straight (
:pre-build (
("rm" "-fr" "build")
("mkdir" "build")
`("bash" "-c" "cd \"$1\" && cmake .. && make" "--"
,(concat (straight--repos-dir "emacs-libvterm") "build"))
)))

In the above methods, 1. and 2. can, but 3. can't build the vterm
module when I'm running `M-x straight-rebuild-package RET vterm RET'.

As you can see from my above description, the following one works:

("bash" "-c" "cd build && cmake .. && make")

But the following one doesn't work:

`("bash" "-c" "cd \"$1\" && cmake .. && make" "--" ,(concat
(straight--repos-dir "emacs-libvterm") "build"))

The above method is based on the suggestion given by Radon Rosborough here [1]:

***
I'd recommend (untested):

`("bash" "-c" "cd \"$1\" && whatever-command" "--" ,some-other-directory)
***

[1] https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el/issues/800#issuecomment-933009729

Any hints for this problem?

Regards,
HZ

Have you forgotten (or ever learned) how to formulate a sensible
subject line?

On Fri, 3 Dec 2021 01:13:05 -0800 (PST)
"hongy...@gmail.com" <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 2:48:08 PM UTC+8, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> > Have you forgotten (or ever learned) how to formulate a sensible
> > subject line?
>
> I failed to come up with a reasonable subject for this question.

How about "bash/emacs related problem" ? Crossposting to gnu.emacs.help
would have probably also been a good idea.

On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 5:49:14 PM UTC+8, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Dec 2021 01:13:05 -0800 (PST)
> "hongy...@gmail.com" <hongy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 2:48:08 PM UTC+8, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> > > Have you forgotten (or ever learned) how to formulate a sensible
> > > subject line?
> >
> > I failed to come up with a reasonable subject for this question.
> How about "bash/emacs related problem" ? Crossposting to gnu.emacs.help
> would have probably also been a good idea.

I've separately posted a mail on the Emacs user list.

On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 2:48:08 PM UTC+8, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> Have you forgotten (or ever learned) how to formulate a sensible
> subject line?

Basically, this is a problem on running bash command from Emacs by passing a parameter. More specifically, I noticed the following form works:

("bash" "-c" "cd build && cmake .. && make")

Now, I want to set the directory of `cd` command by passing a parameter, so I tried the following elisp code:

`("bash" "-c" "cd \"$1\" && cmake .. && make" "--" ,(concat (straight--repos-dir "emacs-libvterm") "build"))

In the above code, the leading "`" indicates that this is backquote constructs allow me to quote a list, but selectively evaluate elements of that list [1]. In this case, the last element of the list will be evaluated and passed to bash as the first parameter, due to that it has the ",()" construct.

In detail, ,(concat (straight--repos-dir "emacs-libvterm") "build") will be expanded to the following:

"/home/werner/.emacs.d/straight/repos/emacs-libvterm/build"

and then be passed to the bash process as the first parameter. As a result, the above elisp command is equivalent to the following:

("bash" "-c" "cd \"$1\" && cmake .. && make" "--" "/home/werner/.emacs.d/straight/repos/emacs-libvterm/build")
But according to my tries, using the above code line directly works, but the backquote construct doesn't work. This puzzles me most.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Backquote.html