On Tue, 15 Mar 2005, Braden McDaniel wrote: > On Tue, 2005-03-15 at 16:25 -0500, Dan Manthey wrote: > > You're confusing the semantics of --enable-* and --with-*. > > I'm not. Okay. It just seemed that --enable-foo=a --enable-foo=b setting $enable_foo to only 'b' makes a lot more sense to me than the corresponding use of --with-*. > > > --with-* is > > intended to specify use of an optional external package and as such often > > needs to have the external package's location specified (e.g. > > --with-X=/usr/local/X11R6). > > CPPFLAGS, LDFLAGS are generally better for that. Quoth the AC manual (node: External Software): Some packages require, or can optionally use, other software packages that are already installed. [...] The user can give an argument by following the package name with `=' and the argument. Giving an argument of `no' is for packages that are used by default; it says to _not_ use the package. An argument that is neither `yes' nor `no' could include a name or number of a version of the other package, to specify more precisely which other package this program is supposed to work with. > > > If you consider a "package" to instead be an > > interface, say to a set of functions, it becomes sensible to specify > > multiple implementing packages that each provide the interface (e.g. > > --with-line-ui=readline,some-other-thing). I don't know if such an > > interpretation is sanctioned by Autoconf, but it's well within the scope > > of --with-*, in which case, it may be reasonable for --with-foo=bar,quux > > to also be expressed as --with-foo=bar --with-foo=quux. > > Better, IMO, to provide mutually exclusive options and emit an error > message if they are used together. > My point was specifially about situations in which the specfied packages are _not_ mutually exclusive, so that doesn't pertain. -Dan _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
