Eric Blake wrote: > At this point, we're pretty good about picking up gnulib dependencies > without having to be warned about them. The time spent in configure > to check for declarations is pretty expensive, and really only needs > to be done by a maintainer every once in a while, rather than by > every downstream client on every configure run. > > * configure.ac (gl_ASSERT_NO_GNULIB_POSIXCHECK): Comment out, > with a note why. > --- > > I've been camping on this one for a long time; I guess it would be > even more impressive if I compared benchmark numbers of the timing > difference between using this patch and omitting it.
I too have considered that. I could go either way, but would need the nudge of actual numbers. Since I rarely configure without using a cache, I suspect that the speed difference will be negligible for me. On the other hand, for most people, even a speed-up of just a few seconds would probably be welcome. How about a compromise: leave the code there, but guard it with some new envvar setting that is normally off. Then add something to my-distcheck so that for at least one ./configure run it is enabled. That will preserve the safety net *and* save most people the cost of those added tests.
