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Re: config.guess and freedom
From: |
Gary V . Vaughan |
Subject: |
Re: config.guess and freedom |
Date: |
Thu, 8 Jan 2004 22:42:37 +0000 |
On Thursday, January 8, 2004, at 04:32 pm, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
Wrt. your example: You are supporting aix3*. Now IBM renames AIX to
something else or changes some fundamental characteristics of their OS
without changing the $host_os.
All you can do is to extend, extend and extend your "case".
Agreed, but often that is easier than writing comprehensive checking
code.
How would libtool find out what the shared library soname versioning
algorithm is with runtime tests for example?
Another problematic case is ensuring "correctness" of guess-derived
results. Without additional checks, you can't guarantee anything.
Eg. wrt. host_os, you can't guess on the object format or if an OS
honors LD_LIBRARY_PATH/LD_RUN_PATH or other advanced linker features
libtool might require on a system (I am not a libtool expert, so bare
with the examples).
Libtool has however done exactly this with reasonable success for the
last 8 years... There are cases where testing $host is simply the path
of least resistance, but pragmatism is not a bad thing.
To me, using config.guess'ed values should only be applied as absolute
last resort if all else fail. In any case using them is fragile.
I don't disagree with any of the points you make, but libtool probably
wouldn't have ever got off the ground at all if all of the parameters
it needs to check had to be probed from first principles.
The beauty of open source is that if something is causing a real
problem, it can be fixed and patched up stream. config.guess is
without a doubt a very useful piece of code, and libtool is a prime
example where leveraging it has probably saved thousands of programmers
untold pain.
Cheers,
Gary.
--
Gary V. Vaughan ())_. address@hidden,gnu.org}
Research Scientist ( '/ http://www.oranda.demon.co.uk
GNU Hacker / )= http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool
Technical Author `(_~)_ http://sources.redhat.com/autobook
- Re: 1.8 and mkdir_p, (continued)
Re: 1.8 and mkdir_p, Harlan Stenn, 2004/01/07
- Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Bruno Haible, 2004/01/07
- Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Harlan Stenn, 2004/01/07
- Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Ralf Corsepius, 2004/01/07
- Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Gary V. Vaughan, 2004/01/08
- Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Ralf Corsepius, 2004/01/09
- Re: config.guess and freedom, Gary V. Vaughan, 2004/01/10
- Re: config.guess and freedom, Ralf Corsepius, 2004/01/08
- Re: config.guess and freedom,
Gary V . Vaughan <=
- Re: config.guess and freedom, Bob Friesenhahn, 2004/01/09
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Andrew Suffield, 2004/01/10
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Bruno Haible, 2004/01/08
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Harlan Stenn, 2004/01/13
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Bruno Haible, 2004/01/13
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Ralf Corsepius, 2004/01/13
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Harlan Stenn, 2004/01/13
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Harlan Stenn, 2004/01/13
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Bob Proulx, 2004/01/13
Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p), Bob Friesenhahn, 2004/01/13