Earnie Boyd wrote: >> 1) Variable `ac_default_prefix' is explicitly initialised, >> as `ac_default_prefix=/usr/local' >> >> 2) Variable `prefix' is explicitly initialised, as >> `prefix=NONE' >> > > Relative paths are not converted so the value of prefix will be unchanged. > >> 3) Command line arguments are parsed; if `--prefix=value' >> is specified, then variable `prefix' is redefined, as >> `prefix=value' >> >> Then, when we get to the AC_OUTPUT phase, I see: >> >> `test "x$prefix" = xNONE && prefix=$ac_default_prefix' > > So when prefix is set to /usr/local it is converted to the win32 path > (E.G.: C:/MSYS/1.0/local). I've used my change enough now to know that it > works well. I want to do a few more configure exercises before I upload a > snapshot. That seems pretty much what we want, for the purposes of configuring and making autotool managed packages. However, still playing devil's advocate, my concern is not that this won't work -- I'm sure you've made it work very well indeed -- but that it is making MSYS, and its implementation of `bash', unnecessarily specialised towards this goal. I appreciate that this *is* the primary goal of MSYS; however, it is also genuinely useful far beyond this primary goal. Agreed, attaching special significance to an environment variable called `prefix' is a small price to pay, in order to better realise the goal; I do wonder, however, if it is the best solution to a problem which could be eliminated at source, by a fairly trivial patch to autoconf's `general.m4' code, to make it more intelligent in its initial assignment of `ac_default_prefix'. As a short term solution, this MSYS change sounds ideal; I look forward to trying it out, when the snapshot is available. In the long term, I still think it is worth pursuing the idea of an autoconf patch. When that eventually filtered through to the majority of packages, the need for specialised handling of `prefix' would fall away. Perhaps it would never become completely unnecessary however; how feasible would it be to provide this special `prefix' handling feature, but to also incorporate some mechanism, say with a custom `shopt' or `set -o' option, to enable and disable it at will? > If you care to suggest a package configure to try, feel free to let > me know about it. The one with which I am most closely involved is `groff' -- the current CVS, from savannah.gnu.org, builds OOTB when `prefix' is correctly defined, although there are some additional dependencies beyond MSYS and MinGW, which I have satisfied with packages from the GnuWin32 project, http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/, and GhostScript from http://www.ghostscript.com/ Best regards, Keith. _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
