Re: m4 should check for gnugetopt, gnuregex already present on the system

[Eric Blake]

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According to Mikhail Teterin on 12/14/2005 10:15 PM:
> FreeBSD, as well as -- I'm sure -- all Linux distributions already have
> both the GNU getopt and the GNU regex functionality available -- either
> as part of (g)libc or as additional libraries.
> 
> Using those will help cut the m4-executable's size (30% on my
> FreeBSD/amd64), as well as avoid the bugs already fixed by the later
> revisions of these libraries.
> 
> m4's configure should check for these and avoid compiling m4's own
> regex.o and getopt*.o

If you are patient enough, m4 CVS head (which will become m4 2.0) already
does this.  m4 2.0 has a dependency on the release of libtool 2.0, but it
uses the gnulib version of regex which can detect whether or not it is on
a system with a new enough glibc to avoid compiling the replacement
version.  However, be aware that there are still known bugs in the glibc
regex, which are not present in the gnulib version, such as POSIX
compliance issues on 64-bit platforms, so even then, the gnulib version
might be selected unless you explicitly use a ./configure option to use
the (potentially buggy) platform version.

> 
> Attached is the patch, I'm trying to include into FreeBSD port of m4 --
> it should help illustrate, what I'm talking about.

Patching the 1.4 branch of CVS is not worth it at this point, but thanks
for your efforts anyways.  However, you are free to patch the FreeBSD port
if you wish; after all, m4 is free software.

- --
Life is short - so eat dessert first!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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