Re: config summary output?

[Bert Wesarg]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 6:57 AM, Harlan Stenn <address@hidden> wrote:
> Some packages (like ClamAV, for example) will output a summary of the
> configure "state" at the end of the configure run.
>
> I've also had cases where I've wanted to accumulate some (status)
> information that gets displayed in the middle of a configure run and
> (also) put it out at the end of a configure run.
>
> The code in ClamAV to do this mostly uses AS_ECHO.
>
> While this is good, I'm also aware that it would be nice to have a
> 'config.summary' file that contains all of this information.  It could
> be this file that is emitted, which would also leave a record of the
> status for future reference.
>
> I note that I'd want this to work usefully for nested runs of configure.

We have such a summary framework in our Score-P [1] project. Which
also has nested configures. It collects all config.summary at the end
into the $PACKAGE.summary file, which can than also be installed for
later inspection.

I put up the M4 file file here [2]. If you are using nested configures
inside the same package (i.e., not stand alone sub-packages) than you
can also use the afs_package.m4 too and call AFS_PACKAGE_INIT in the
top-level configure and AFS_PACKAGE_BUILD_INIT() in the sub-configures
before calling AFS_SUMMARY_INIT. This gives nice summary sections per
sub-configure.

Than call AFS_SUMMARY_COLLECT after AC_OUTOUT in the top-level configure.

HTH,
Bert

[1] score-p.org
[2] https://gist.github.com/bertwesarg/8d2bd38677a467779318

>
> I just wanted to start a discussion about this, as I think it would be a
> useful "core" function for autoconf.