On 2014-05-25 17:46 +0200, Дилян Палаузов wrote: > According to my understanding, for each feature X it shall print either > --enable-X or --disable-X, so that the one running ./configure has to > type only parameters which change the default behaviour, without having > to check README. > > That said, assuming that the person on the system knows exactly what the > local config.site does, ./configure --help shall print either > --enable-silent-rules or --disable-silent-rules. > > If you check ./configure --help from curl (http://curl.haxx.se/), you > will see a lot of --enable-X / --disable-X , even though there is no > practical use when one uses the --enable-X option. As an example, > --enable-http / --disable-http : one either specifies --disable-http, or > the HTTP support is enabled; no need of explicit --enable-http. I > believe this over-listing of options there is due the lack of guidelines > what to print at ./configure --help . > > Please correct me, if there are such guidelines (in the Autoconf > manual), which clarify when to print both --enable-X and --disable-X and > when to print one of them.
Other than the example usages of AC_ARG_ENABLE/AC_ARG_WITH in the manual, I'm unaware of any specific style instructions. I suggest that is is rarely useful to print any help text for --disable-foo or --without-foo because the default text already covers those options in a generic way. So it's best to only describe the function of --enable-foo/--with-foo, with some text to state the default behaviour. The curl help output does indeed seem needlessly excessive. Cheers, -- Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)
