On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 03:24, Erik de Castro Lopo <erikd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote: > Robert Rehammar wrote: > > This way autotools would > > integrate with (e.g.) apt to make installations more smooth. This would > > save the user the work to download and install all packages that bar > > depends on and that exists in the apt repository. > > A better idea would be to defined an M4 macro which wraps AC_CHECK_LIB > and the PKG_CHECK_* macros. The wrapper would be called with whatever > info is required to see if the library is installed plus the name of > the required debian package. > > If the macro fails to find the lib using AC_CHECK_LIB/PKG_CHECK_* then > it would add the debian package name to a list. At the end of the config > process if the debian package name list is not empty, it would print > out something like: > > AC_MSG_ERROR([Missing packages. Please run 'apt-get install $deb_pkgs'.]) The product of autoconf is a script that runs on possibly different environment than it was built on. For example, running "autoconf" building a configure that is sued later on a Solaris box. The safest step would be: AC_MSG_ERROR([Missing component $foo probably provided by project $bar or package $dog.]) In short, this allows for possible later extensions, while taking a step towards that in a helpful hint-message. This could later be extended so that if there's a platform-specific "go get lib$foo" script to translate to a "apt-get build-dep $thispkg" or "apt-get install $foo" or "pkgadd $dog" or "custom -i $dog" or "dpkg install $bar" or "yum -y install $dog". A URI could also be given in the $foo maintainers to allow for equivalent package/project names to help resolve this dependnecy, but that only a possibility. The first step would probably be the "hint" message that possibly takes maintainer-declared hints of a list of canonical identifiers. ...ugh, maintaining that list could suck, but this is the possibility that this kind of step takes in a way that doesn't put the maintenance burden onto Autoconf's shoulders. Allan -- allanc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "金鱼" http://linkedin.com/in/goldfish please, no proprietary attachments (http://tinyurl.com/cbgq)
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