Re: Partial autoconf transition thoughts

Maciej W. Rozycki
2003-06-10T10:59:09Z

On 9 Jun 2003, Alexandre Oliva wrote:

> >>> 4. Specify the same thing for both
> >>> 2.13: Both will be overridden; test $CC for cross mode.
> >>> 2.57: Both will be overridden, will build natively.
> >>
> >> Except that building natively is deprecated, and autoconf people have
> >> already pushed for removing this alternative. We probably don't want
> > Whaaaat? This seems like a rather dumb idea with no serious benefit.
>
> Be my guest in pushing against this. I tried it, and gave up. The
> idea that won was that, if you specify --host, you mean to cross
> compile, even if you specify the same triplet that you specify for
> --build. I can't really say it's a bad idea, it just looks bad
> because it's different from what we've had for a long time. The
> current test for $build = $host is there to ease the transition, and
> it will go away in autoconf 3.0, whenever that comes out, hopefully
> 5-10 years from now.

Well, if I specify --host, I mean I want to use a different alias than
the one that is expanded by config.sub. The change is not purely internal
to the compilation process -- there are examples, binutils and gcc
inclusive, where this alias gets propagated to file names, e.g. as a
prefix to executables or as a name of the tooldir.

I'd like to see this capability preserved, not necessarily exactly the
way it's being done now. One possibility for host_alias and also
target_alias is to default to build_alias and host_alias instead of host
and target, respectively, as it happens now.

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