Re: gettext: gnulib update; less automake warnings

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Bruno,

* Bruno Haible wrote on Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 02:12:57PM CEST:
> > 
> > 1) In gettext-runtime/src/Makefile.am, per-target compilation flags are
> > used.  For better portability, you should either use AM_PROG_CC_C_O in
> > gettext-runtime/configure.ac, or replace the per-target flags with one
> > setting of AM_CPPFLAGS (defines do not belong in AM_CFLAGS).
> 
> The fact that gettext is using these per-target CFLAGS since 2003
> (gettext-0.12) and no bug has been reported about it in 3 years
> indicates that the set of C compilers that don't support -c together with -o
> is negligible. So it seems appropriate to mark the AC_PROG_CC_C_O macro
> obsolete in autoconf, and AM_PROG_CC_C_O obsolete in automake, no?

So I can convince you by sending a bug report?  Would it suffice if
I changed the Subject: of this mail to `bug in gettext:...'?  ;-)

Oh, you would ask that I tell you something about my environment,
e.g., my compiler and system, no?  Even if I told you that I just
introduced AC_PROG_CXX_C_O a few months ago, and plan to introduce
AM_PROG_{CXX,F77,FC}_C_O too for consistency?

Well.  For Fortran, I only know a compiler for a system in the
Cray-Cyber museum.  This in itself would not be relevant to the
Autotools (as they don't target museum computers), but fact is I
do not have enough Fortran compiler experience, and the macros
will be completely optional for users, so nobody really loses.

For C and C++, there is MSVC, which uses /OUT, if you don't happen
to use a compiler wrapper such as cccl.  Yes, the current release
of Libtool does not fully support MSVC, but there is a set of (un-
fortunately) long-pending patches to "fix" that; you would not have
to adjust gettext when that is fixed.  And there is the UnixWare 2.03
compiler suite, for which there was a relatively recent bug report:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool/2005-10/msg00063.html

There is also a set of compiler wrapper scripts, most of which are
not so commonly used any more, that has distinct problems with -c -o
(some older MPI implementations shipped such scripts under names as
mpicc); this is rather less relevant to gettext, though.

Convinced now?  At least the change using AM_CPPFLAGS is so trivial
(and it makes for a smaller Makefile.in, too) that I don't see any
reason not to apply it.

Cheers,
Ralf