[CCing the mailing list]
James K. Lowden wrote:
... The Cobol
language defines the use of indexed files. GnuCOBOL implements indexed
file support via a configurable library. By default, it looks for
Berkeley-DB, which (as you know) is what caused your build to fail.
Indexed-file support is "optional" in that different libraries can be
used. The one to use is chosen at configure time. One option is
"none", but that's chosen at the expense of removing from the Cobol
compiler support that it would normally have, and that most Cobols
have.
I don't think that makes indexed-file support "optional" in the sense
that it should automatically be excluded if the 3rd-party library
doesn't happen to be installed (or isn't found). I think the user
running configure should understand it's a normal dependency that can
be excluded if desired. Unless specifically excluded, configure
should report the missing library as a configuration error.
What word should we use to convey "normally expected to be found
unless explicitly configured to be unsupported"?
These are all good and valid considerations.
I did not know that the Cobol language defines the use of indexed files.
In this light, the current implementation (explicit option '--without-db'
being required) makes more sense than I had thought. (By the way, GNU clisp
has a similar option: --ignore-absence-of-libsigsegv.)
Bruno