[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: How can I enable option-checking from configure.ac after it being de
From: |
Eric Blake |
Subject: |
Re: How can I enable option-checking from configure.ac after it being default-disabled? |
Date: |
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:49:47 -0600 |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0.1) Gecko/20120216 Thunderbird/10.0.1 |
On 03/19/2012 09:32 AM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On 03/19/2012 04:16 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
>
>> Meta-question: Why are you disabling option-checking in the first place?
>> It's contrary to GNU Coding Standards (the ability to disable option
>> checking is provided for non-GNU packages, but doesn't get as much
>> testing because GNU packages shouldn't be using it in the first place).
I think I used poor wording here; my intent was to state that the
ability to reject unknown options is something provided for non-GNU
packages, but that GNU packages should not be using the ability to
reject unknown options in the first place.
>
> Option checking presumes all config-subdirs configure scripts are
> accepting the same set of configure-options.
>
> This doesn't always apply and even less applies in cases of optional
> config-subdirs, esp. in cases when config-subdirs originate from
> different origins and are being treated as optional drop-in packages.
I think we're in violent agreement here. GNU Coding Standards state
that packages must silently ignore unknown options. Therefore, enabling
option checking (as a way to diagnose typos) is a violation of GCS.
Autoconf allows the ability to enable option-checking at the top level
for non-GNU packages, but the reason that you cannot re-enable option
checking after default-disablement is because autoconf cannot guarantee
that subdirs will behave correctly with option checking enabled.
Meanwhile, the mentioned hack of explicitly adding (and rejecting) just
the one commonly mis-spelled option, rather than all mis-spelled options
in general, can be argued to fit within the GCS - you are explicitly
recognizing a specific spelling and therefore it is no longer an unknown
option, while you continue to silently ignore all other unknown options.
--
Eric Blake address@hidden +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature