>>>>> "Ralf" == Ralf Corsepius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Why am I Cc'ed? There are existing mailing lists for Autoconf.
>> So you are saying that the default cache file will become
>> /dev/null??
Ralf> Somewhat oversimplifying, yes.
Yes, and it will *not* change. And it's not oversimplifying, it's
exactly that.
>> So, how will we be able to get the results of an upper level
>> configure???
Relying on the fact that caches are shared is out of the Autoconf
contract.
Ralf> You'll have to parse the configure arguments in each
Ralf> subdirectory configure once again. This isn't a major drawback,
Ralf> because subdirectory configure scripts already have parsed them
Ralf> with autoconf-2.1x anyway.
I don't understand this answer too well. Arguments are always given
to sub configures and this is independent of the cache issues.
Ralf> With the old behavior however, it could happen that a higher
Ralf> level configure script had put a value into its cache which
Ralf> could contradict to the result of a subdirectory configure
Ralf> script's argument parsing result. I.e. the new behavior is
Ralf> cleaner than the old one but also is more sensitive than the old
Ralf> behavior.
Definitely. A major problem with the cache variables is that they
don't encode their dependencies with say CFLAGS etc. Suppose the top
level configure is using AC_PROG_CC_STDC and not the sub configures,
and you see how bad the result turns to be. There are millions of
means to shoot in your foot with that.
>> I say keep the cache file, just rm it at the beginning if you want.
Sure, you are telling me that it is to the novice that we have to tell
what to do, not to the expert.
I strongly disagree.
If you want a shared cache, just pass -C (short hand for
--cache-file=config.cache).
If you *always* want to use a cache, use config.site.
But the two `if'es above are on the installer's side.
As a maintainer, if you *rely* on a common cache file for different
configure.in, then you are out of the proper use of Autoconf.
The cache is an optimization and nothing else. Any different use is a
mistake.
