Re: cross-compiling but keeping one target native

[Christian Rössel]

Dear Natalie,

Am 5/15/2010 10:52 AM, schrieb Natalie Tasman:
> I'm working on a build system with autotools.  I'd like to 
> cross-compile, building a mingw/windows executable from linux.  So far, 
> my system works well with the --host option (and appropriate cross tools 
> installed, from the mingw-cross-env project.)
> 
> I have one target which is actually a utility used during *build* time. 
>   Is it possible to specify one target which should *not* be built with 
> the cross-compiler, but natively instead?
> 
> I've considered creating a separate config.ac/Makefile.am for this one 
> executable, but am hoping to find a simpler solution.
> 
> (It was suggested that I post here over at the automake list).

I had a similar problem, see e.g.
http://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg14826.html

My solution to the problem was to create a new macro
AC_CONIG_SUBDIR_CUSTOM([path to sub-configure], [your configure
arguments]) based on AC_CONFIG_SUBDIR. As the new macro uses some
autoconf internals I implemented it in autoconf's status.m4. To not
alter the autoconf installation, I put the modified status.m4 in my
AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR.

If you call the macro with an empty argument list, it will call the
sub-configure with the top-level --prefix, --disable-option-checking,
--cache-file=/dev/null and the --srcdir option.

To use some of the options provided to the toplevel configure in the
custom sub-configure, I write all user provided configure arguments to
file and process this file in a second step.

Please find attached a patch to be applied on autoconf's 2.65.
status.m4. Hope that helps.

Best regards,
Christian

status.m4.patch
Description: Text document