Re: Contributions for ac-archive

[Guido Draheim]

Scott Pakin schrieb:
> Guido,
>
> Sorry to take so long to get back to you but I've been pretty busy
> these days.

no problem, everyone of us is too short on time for the things
that we would like to do... ;)

> > [...]
> > (a) you've picked the AX_-prefix for the macros but the various
> >     dedicated variables (like for CACHE_CHECK) there is ac_cv_
>
>
> Fixed.  I guess I was unsure if "ac_cv" was special or not.

I'm not sure either, but it is actually a similar problem as
with the AC_ prefix - one might easily hit a shellvar used
by core autoconf - if not now then perhaps later. *sigh*

> [..]
> > (f) I am not sure whehter they should be named AX_FUNC_ as is, as
> >     they do not provide the functionality. They are CHECK functions
> >     in a way. Also, the AC_DEFINE value is not quite guessable
> >     from the macro name. Hmmm, looking into the main autoconf parts,
> >     I guess it would be better to choose this scheme:
> >     (1) AX_FUNC_POSIX_MEMALIGN
> >         AC_DEFINE(HAVE_POSIX_MEMALIGN,
> >         [whether your system has a working `posix_memalign' function])
> >     (2) AX_CHECK_PAGE_ALIGNED_MALLOC
> >         AC_DEFINE(HAVE_PAGE_ALIGNED_MALLOC,.... (etc as is))
>
>
> Good points.  I don't particularly like the way that the built-in
> Autoconf macros HAVE_<FOO> tend to mean "<FOO> exists and works
> properly" -- I'd have put "WORKS" in the name for working tests and
> left it out for existence tests.  Still, I consider it important for
> the AC-Archive macros to be consistent with Autoconf's macros.  Here's
> how I've renamed things for consistency with Autoconf:
>
>     AX_FUNC_POSIX_MEMALIGN   ax_cv_func_posix_memalign_works   
> HAVE_POSIX_MEMALIGN
>
> for consistency with:
>
>     AC_FUNC_MALLOC           ac_cv_func_malloc_works           HAVE_MALLOC
>     AC_FUNC_CHOWN            ac_cv_func_chown_works            HAVE_CHOWN
>
> I also renamed AX_CHECK_MALLOC_ALIGNED to AX_CHECK_MALLOC_ALIGNED as
> you suggested.
>
> In addition to your recommendations, I replaced "return" with "exit"
> in AX_FUNC_POSIX_MEMALIGN and AX_CHECK_PAGE_ALIGNED_MALLOC as I just
> noticed a line in the Autoconf manual that says, "Test programs should
> `exit', not `return', from `main', because on some systems (old Suns,
> at least) the argument to `return' in `main' is ignored."
>
> The new versions of my functions are attached below.
>
> Thanks for your constructive criticism,

Looks great, thanks to you for taking so much effort
in making them - and allowing us to have them published.
I'm putting the macros into an incoming `pakin` area
at sfnet for the moment, Peter will have a look later
as to where to put them finally.

http://ac-archive.sf.net/pakin/

have fun,
-- cheers, guido