Re: autoconf + automake support for MSVC

[Peter Rosin]

Stefano Lattarini skrev 2011-10-19 15:59:
> On Wednesday 19 October 2011, Peter Rosin wrote:
>> Stefano Lattarini skrev 2011-09-03 09:41:
>>> For what concerns this: are you willing to re-submit your patch
>>> series about AM_PROG_AR to automake-patches? I will try hard to
>>> look into it, if you are willing to do the required testing and
>>> to patiently explain to me the details I won't undertand (and
>>> be warned that there will probably be many of them, since I'm a
>>> total Windows noob).
>>
>> It is not a patch series, it is single patch that adds a new
>> macro that is modeled after AM_PROG_CC_C_O, some tests to catch
>> regressions and a plethora of trivial updates to the testsuite.
>>
> But then we should also add a new `windows' (or better `msvc'?) warning
> category, so that we won't force users not interested in MSVC portability
> to choose between a mandated use of the new macro (which would probably
> be perceived as gratuitous bloating) and the forsaking of all the
> portability warnings (which is bad, bad, bad).  I don't care whether
> this new warning category is introduced by a preparatory patch or by a
> follow-up one, as long as it's in place before a merge to `maint' takes
> place.

I'm not too fond of any of these names. What if some other non-POSIX
archiver materializes? And it seems philosophically wrong to add something
as visible as a warning category named after some random 3rd-party-company
or non-free-tool.

Perhaps -Wno-portability-extra, -Wno-extra-portability or
-Wno-extreme-portability?


Hmmm, I think my favorite so far is -Wextra-portability, and I think
I would like it to work like this:

-Wall -> *all* warnings.
-Wportability -> portability but not extra-portability
-Wextra-portability -> portability *and* extra-portability
-Wall -Wno-extra-portability -> Everything but extra-portability.
-Wall -Wno-portability -> Neither portability nor extra-portability.

So, the special cases are that turning on extra-portability also
turns on portability, and turning off portability also turns off
extra-portability. Is that too complicated? Should it simply be
two orthogonal categories instead?

Which, if any, of --gnits, --gnu and --foreign should turn on
extra-portability?

>> Ah, and the little portability warning of course, triggered when
>> building libraries w/o AM_PROG_AR in configure...
>>
> Yep, see above.  And today I agree with you that this warning should be
> enabled by `-Wall'.

Good, let's keep it that way :-)

>> Anyway, I have rebased the patch on top of the current msvc branch
>> and have added fixes for fallout in a few new tests etc.
>>
>> The testsuite is ccccrrrraaaaaawwwwllllliiinnnnngggggg along, I'll
>> post the updated patch as soon as it finishes satisfactory. I just
>> wanted to post this in case it improves the odds of making the
>> release...
>>
> I'd give at least three weeks before the 1.11.2 beta(s), so there no
> need to hurry excessively.  But thanks for the heads-up.

A few testsuite runs and three weeks is gone in a hurry...

Cheers,
Peter