| > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | > Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 08:57:10 -0400 (EDT) | > | > So which is the recommended practices way to handle this with autoconf? | | The GNU coding standards say this: | | You will note that the categories `--with-' and `--enable-' are | narrow: they *do not* provide a place for any sort of option you might | think of. That is deliberate. We want to limit the possible | configuration options in GNU software. We do not want GNU programs to | have idiosyncratic configuration options. | | So the recommended practice is to not do what you're doing. :-) | | If you really want to do it anyway, despite the recommendation, I | suggest using environment variables. For example, with GNU a2ps you | can say this: | | with_medium=a4 ./configure | | (With a2ps configure you can also use the --with-medium option, but | that runs a bit contrary to the coding standards.)
Just for the records: the fact that with_medium ./configure works is a mere consequence of --with-medium support. And I introduced this --with only because, amongst the zillions of runtime options to be defined in /etc/a2ps.cfg, this one defaulted to A4 makes half the planet complain, and defaulted to Letter makes the other half complain (which does imply, indeed, that the whole planet uses a2ps :). And finally, what I did at that time (way before my being swallowed by Autoconf) is certainly not what I'd recommend today (it's not even properly quoted :).
