Re: Updating top-level autoconf to 2.59

[Michael Eager <eager at eagercon dot com>]

Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> "Joseph S. Myers" <joseph@codesourcery.com> writes:
>
> > * If you want to build an explicitly cross tool despite host == target, or 
> > act like you are cross compiling despite build == host, or build a native 
> > tool (i.e. one using the native directory layout and installed as plain 
> > "gcc") despite host != target, or act like you aren't cross compiling (so 
> > can run execute tests for $host) despite build != host, these should be 
> > determined by explicit configure options; not by which of build, host and 
> > target where specified explicitly and which were defaulted.  (And not by 
> > older autoconf's experiments to see if it can execute a program built for 
> > the host.)
>
> I completely agree that this is how it should work.  Unfortunately,
> this is not how autoconf {2.x,x>13} works.  I don't agree with a
> number of the decisions made by the autoconf maintainers.  However, I
> do think that as long we use autoconf, there is some benefit to be
> gained by following autoconf's default behaviour.

I'll stick my toe into this discussion.

Much of the discussion seems to be about how autoconf should guess what
the user intended by --host, --build, --target.  When --host or --build
is omitted, autoconf makes guesses about what the user might have
specified, then uses these guesses (as well as the exec test) to determine
whether this is a native or cross build.  The result is that the user
tries to guess how autoconf is trying to guess what the user means.

When user=me, I go crazy.  :-)

I would much prefer explicitly specifying that the build is cross or
native.  I want to specify --cross or --native (or the equivalent).
I'd be happy to discard backward compatibility.

--
Michael Eager	 eager@eagercon.com
1960 Park Blvd., Palo Alto, CA 94306  650-325-8077