Re: Partial autoconf transition thoughts

Maciej W. Rozycki
2003-06-11T19:39:58Z

On 11 Jun 2003, Alexandre Oliva wrote:

> > Agreed, as long as there is a way to have $host_alias and $target_alias
> > set up as desired.
>
> We (toplevel, not autoconf) call them $host_noncanonical and
> $target_noncanonical now. autoconf no longer provides this feature.

It's good we do that, but it's bad autoconf does not. Any reasonable
justification?

> > $ locate libbfd-2.13.2.1.so
> > /usr/i386-linux/mips64el-linux/lib/libbfd-2.13.2.1.so
> > /usr/i386-linux/mipsel-linux/lib/libbfd-2.13.2.1.so
> > /usr/lib/libbfd-2.13.2.1.so
>
> > Where does that "i386-linux" above come from, then?
>
> Seems like an artifact of your install. I don't think we use host in
> install pathnames by default.

Well, see how AM_INSTALL_LIBBFD is defined. ;-) There was a discussion
last year...

> > Well, this is probably an option, but I don't know why such a
> > complication necessary.
>
> It's necessary because of changes in autoconf that make the
> propagation of command-line flags from build to host and host to
> target not easily available. If we want to avoid using the

Why is that so? I am looking at what autoconf does right now and I can
see that $ac_cv_host_alias is set to $ac_cv_build_alias if $host_alias is
empty and $ac_cv_target_alias is set to ac_cv_host_alias if $target_alias
is empty. Why can't the same be done for $host_alias and $target_alias at
the same place? I hope not for the lone reason of differing between
implied and user-specified values -- it can be trivially be done
differently and more explicitly => cleanlier.

> canonicalized names, which we do, using the macros written by
> Nathanael is pretty much the only way to go.

That's a reasonable approach for now, but why can't autoconf be fixed
ultimately?

> > Have you seen the dependency graphs I sent yesterday? I believe my
> > proposal is the simplest solution.
>
> I believe Nathanael's macros are the implementation of the solution.
> BTW, we already use them. See config/acx.m4.

Indeed, but I would prefer to see it done in autoconf so that it need not
be repeated locally elsewhere.

--
+ Maciej W. Rozycki, Technical University of Gdansk, Poland +
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
+ e-mail: macro@ds2.pg.gda.pl, PGP key available +