On Sat, Jan 31, 2026 at 07:46:36PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote: > A chunk of the output of "./configure --help" is taken up by options > for SWIG: > > --enable-perl-install-mode > Perl SWIG interface install mode site/vendor/custom > (default: site) > --enable-installsitearch > Perl installsitearch directory (default: Perl > default) > --enable-installsitelib Perl installsitelib directory (default: Perl > default) > --enable-installvendorarch > Perl installvendorarch directory (default: Perl > default) > --enable-installvendorlib > Perl installvendorlib directory (default: Perl > default) > > These do not appear to be appropriate uses of --enable_* flags. From > the Autoconf manual for AC_ARG_ENABLE: > > If a software package has optional compile-time features, the user can > give ‘configure’ command line options to specify whether to compile > them. The options have one of these forms: > > --enable-FEATURE[=ARG] > --disable-FEATURE > > These options allow users to choose which optional features to build > and install. ‘--enable-FEATURE’ options should never make a feature > behave differently or cause one feature to replace another. They should > only cause parts of the program to be built rather than left out. > > This doesn't describe these options, which are there to allow the user to > provide strings to use as directory names. > > These options were introduced in the following commit: > > commit b2db2c2acf88fc21d844cebb3b58234b93399924 > Author: Patrice Dumas <[email protected]> > Date: 2025-07-16 08:29:08 +0200 > > Integrate Perl SWIG interface in the build system > > Are these options really useful?
--enable-perl-install-mode allows to change the Perl modules installation directories, using a similar interface to MakeMaker. I did not have any other idea to give the same interface, which translates to those possibilities for installation. This looks necessary to me for the installation of Perl modules that are supposed to be regular Perl modules (and not hidden modules, as are the Texinfo::* modules). Then the --enable-install* actually does the same as --libdir and so on, but for the Perl modules installation directories. In the default case, these directories are taken from Perl -V, but I think that we need to make them customizable. If I recall well, I tried to look at other GNU projects or Autoconf/Automake based projects for inspiration, but did not find any, so I invented something. > In my opinion, these options make the output of ./configure --help > less useful because there are so many options there that the user > wouldn't have any interest in, that they would be less likely to > see any that they might be interested in, choosing rather to skip > reading through the entire thing. > > Some of the --with-* options do take directory arguments: > > --with-gnulib-prefix=DIR search for gnulib's runtime data in DIR/share > --with-libiconv-prefix[=DIR] search for libiconv in DIR/include and DIR/lib > > - however, I see no reason for imitating these usages, as these do not > appear to match the intended use of AC_ARG_WITH either. And it is quite different, those are the directories used to search for, the --enalbe-* are used to specify how the installation is done. -- Pat
