Re: autoconf/configure information sources?

[Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org>]

Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net> writes:

> Just how many options can I put on the command line?

Lots.  Included below is a patch to implement a --enable-SOMETHING for
all the questions they define.  Putting an --enable-SOMETHING or
--disable-SOMETHING will turn off that question and enable or disable
the feature.  Any feature which doesn't have an --enable or --disable
on the command line still gets the question asked.

> Could I add one more "feature" that would control them all (like
> SET_DEFAULTS) and then modify the macro to check for this and use
> the defaults instead of asking the question.

You could, but I don't like that solutions because you can't
selectively override the defaults.  Besides, I've already implemented
the above, and don't want to implement the lesser solution.  8^)

This solution does require that you keep track of what options are
used in each version, but grep ASK_FEATURE configure.in will tell
you.  You can safely put --enable/--disables on the command line, even
if they aren't being used by a specific target.

Pass the patch upstream, it looks fine to me.

>> It may be that the upstream really wants to ask questions, so instead
>> you could lobby for some kind of "configure config file" or something,
>> that the debian packaging could put into place before running
>> configure.  This would require changes to their ASK_FEATURE macro.
>> 
> I'm not sure I'm following you here. How would this differ from my above
> example solution?

Well, this would let you selectively override the defaults for a
specific option (by putting it in the file).  But I don't like it as
much as the below.

--- configure.in.ats	Thu Oct 18 19:13:32 2001
+++ configure.in	Thu Oct 18 19:13:36 2001
@@ -220,6 +220,14 @@
 dnl ask user about configure option
 AC_DEFUN(ASK_FEATURE,
 [
+AC_ARG_ENABLE($1, [  --enable-$1 $2 ],
+[ if test "$enableval" = "yes" ; then
+   AC_MSG_RESULT([Enabling $1])
+   AC_DEFINE($1)	    
+  else
+     AC_MSG_RESULT([Disabling $1])
+  fi
+],[
 if test -n "$ac_cv_a800_$1"; then
 a800_defans=$ac_cv_a800_$1
 else
@@ -234,6 +242,7 @@
   AC_DEFINE($1)
 fi
 ac_cv_a800_$1=$a800_ans
+])
 ])

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space.