On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Thomas Dickey wrote:
On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
On Mon, 2004-09-13 at 11:40, Dale Mellor wrote:For the record...
I recieved about half a dozen responses to this and the overriding message is: config.h is worse than useless for packages which install libraries and public header files, so don't use it
That's FUD.
The essence is: Don't install config.h headers. They are not designed nor supposed to be installed. If you nevertheless insist on installing then, you are on your own.
Since the topic comes up regularly, and the knee-jerk response from regulars on this list is always some variation on the above, it's fairly apparent that there is no intention on their part to resolve the problem.
The fact of the matter is that some/many libraries have header files which are OS/CPU/compiler dependent and there has to be a way to record/work-around these dependencies so that the library headers work right. This way is commonly known as 'config.h'.
The Autoconf folks have done little/nothing to provide the configure script author with a really easy way to build a non-conflicting configuration header. There are often references to macro packages outside of autoconf which rename all defines so that they are no longer compatible with the the package source code. In order to make use of them, you must be willing to alter almost every source file/header in your package.
As for myself, I find that installing a trimmed-down configuration header which only includes the definitions required for the headers to work correctly is the best choice.
Bob ====================================== Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen
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