Re: configuring sub directories optional

[Eric Siegerman]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 07:16:45PM -0500, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 01:52:20PM -0500, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> > AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(dirs, [action-if-succeeds], [action-if-fails])
> > 
> > is exactly what I had in mind.
> 
> If someone gets ambitious, it would be also useful to have
> AC_CXX([action-if-succeeds],[action-if-fails]) to deal with
> "compile-if-you-have-a-C++-compiler" bits of a package.

Assuming the AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS enhancement is made,
"compile-if-you-have-a-C++-compiler" should be implemented in
terms of it, by putting the C++ code in a subpackage.  This will
avoid a lot of rarely-used "[action-if-succeeds],
[action-if-fails]" goo spreading throughout the API.

IMHO, adding such goo to AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS is justified precisely
because using subdirectories is a common and obvious way to
factor out optional subcomponents of a package.  It's a single
change that's sufficient to handle a wide set of similar cases.

--

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|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        address@hidden
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