Re: cache directory is not removed

[Andreas Buening]

Bill Wendling wrote:

[snip]

> If there's a problem with old stuff being in the cache, then that stuff
> probably doesn't belong in the cache.
> 
> For our users, they rerun configure to add different options. The generic
> checks (for libraries, header files, sizeof types, etc) shouldn't need to
> be rerun.

I very appreciate that config.cache is not created by default
any more. Especially libraries require a rerun. If you've
just added a -L/odd/path -lfoo to your *FLAGS then you
expect that this will be recognized next time.


> Blasting the whole cache file seems to be to be throwing the baby out
> with the bath-water...

[snip]

> Again, I don't think we should get rid of the cache, just allow us the
> option of turning it off if we want...Just for the record, I think caches
> are good. But only if you want/need them around.

In my opinion there are three possibilities:

1) You know what you are doing and you want to install
   a specific package: You define your flags,
   run configure once, then make, done. It doesn't matter
   whether there has just been created a cache file.

2) You know what you are doing and you want to modify
   a specific package (as a developer). Then you should
   be able to run "./configure --help" to find out
   that there is a -C option if you want a cache file.

3) You don't know exactly what you are doing, but you
   want to install a specific package: If you have an
   out of the box Linux installation on your own PC
   and you're root then there might be no problem,
   but if it's another Unix (or even a non-Unix) system
   and you have only user permissions then you might
   have a problem: You might have to find out which
   compiler flags you need, which libraries, where to
   find them, which package specific options you can use
   and which one you cannot use on that system.
   There may be different versions of the same library
   in different directories, some necessary libraries
   may have been installed by other users (which means
   outside the /usr/local tree). On systems like AIX
   installing huge packages like lyx or kde can become
   a real challenge. And the last thing you want to
   encounter is that you accidently choose the correct
   flags/options/libraries combination but the compilation
   fails because the cache file still contains the results
   from the first run. Running "make distclean" every time
   is also no solution.

Therefore I think using no cache file as default is
the best (because most failure safe) solution.

bye,
Andreas