On Thu, 2003-10-30 at 08:24, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Larry Doolittle wrote: > > > I know this subject keeps coming up. I hope my > > suggestions are taken as constructive (presumably > > for post-2.58). > > > > I ran into one more package (GNU screen-3.9.15) where > > the authors used autoconf, and made no provision for > > cross-compiling. In fact, they use many detailed > > run-time tests. I was able to edit configure.in > > to add ACTION-IF-CROSS-COMPILING arguments (tuned to > > my special case) to their AC_TRY_RUN macros, and got > > myself on the air. Not very satisfying. > > > > There is an implicit assumption in autoconf that > > people who cross-compile have no way to run the > > executables from within the configure script. So, > > no provision is made for that possibility. > > There are an infinite number of ways to run executables on a target. Let me add that there also exists an infinite number of targets where no possibility exists to run executables as part of autoconf checks. > How is configure to know how to run executables on a target? Your > example of a Unix-like system with NFS mounts to the build system is > the most trivial case. > > One possiblity that comes to mind is to use DejaGNU as the framework > to execute the program on the target and require the user to write the > code to download the exectuable to the target and run it. The user > would be responsible for writing the bit of Tcl code required to > interface to the target. Even if you can manage to get this working, this only helps in cases where you have physical access to a target. In cross-compilation situations however, you often work off-line, without any physical access to the target hardware. Ralf
