Re: A way to specify a host CC during cross compile?

[Daniel Herring]

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011, Dave Hart wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 22:15 PM, Martin Hicks <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Is there a way to specify a different compiler for compile-time helper
> > programs that are used during the build of a package?
>
> I think the short answer is no.  I have some source files in a package
> which are built by running a C program, which would be a use case for
> $HOSTCC-type functionality.  I use a cross-compiling AM_CONDITIONAL to
> disable the rules for updating those generated sources, and I
> distribute them.  The result is changes to the sources of the
> generated sources must be built in a non-cross-compile environment,
> then the up-to-date generated sources can be transported (such as via
> make dist, or committing to SCM) to the cross-build environment.

Similar story here.  HOSTCC is rarely the whole story.  You may need to 
split the project into two parts, one for the build machine and one for 
the executable host/target.

proj/configure.ac # for host machine
proj/tools/configure.ac # for build machine

By default, the top build system recursively configures and builds the 
tools.  For a cross-compile, the tools can be configured separately.  My 
systems use --with-tools= to specify this situation.

Make does allow you to specify target-specific variables; so that might be 
easier in some cases.  I have also done address@hidden@ to override the 
default in a single makefile...

- Daniel