Re: lynx-dev Just an FYI

[Bela Lubkin]

Michael Sokolov wrote:

> I have just made a good laugh out of Mr. Dickey's gargantuan script watching 
> it
> CRASH MISERABLY on a real UNIX(R) system (a VAX running Ultrix v4.00). If Mr.
> Dickey is curious to see what his monster has spit out, he can go to:
> 
> ftp://blackwidow.cwru.edu/home/msokolov/pub/special_present_for_mr_dickey/

If you spend a couple of minutes reading through that output, you should
be able to figure out the problem.  configure assumes that ultrix cc
will support a "-Olimit 600" directive (which controls some aspect of
the optimizer).  Yours doesn't.  Find the one occurrence of "600" in
configure, and fix it appropriately.  The appropriate fix for you is to
remove the offending option(*).

You won't be successful as a patch integrator if simple problems like
this stop you...

(*)Appropriate fix for distribution is to do a configure test on it,
i.e. on ultrix systems only, see whether things compile successfully
with that flag, and add it only if it works.  This might be done in a
general manner, for all sorts of compiler- and OS-specific flags,
something like:

  case $OS in
    ultrix) try_cc_flag "-Olimit 600 -G 7";;
    SCO_SV) try_cc_flag "-belf"; try_cc_flag "-O3 -Kspace";;
    ...
  case $COMPILER in
    gcc) try_cc_flag "-g3";;
    ...

Where try_cc_flag is a shell function that does all the necessary work.
There's a long history of Lynx failing to compile on particular systems
because the Makefile stanza for that system, or now the configure
assumptions, have obsolete compiler options embedded in them.

>Bela<