Re: [PATCH] remove warning for --host without --build

[Bruno Haible]

Peter Rosin wrote:
> It is clearly confusing that you get different behavior by
> explicitly specifying a default value.

Yes, and documentation can help people to understand this.

> Bruno thinks it is bad to enter cross-compile mode when the build
> system can execute host code

More precisely, I think that activating cross-compilation mode when
it is not necessary leads to suboptimal guesses from 'configure'.
But it is good that there is a mechanism to force cross-compilation
mode, because some compiler guys apparently want to have this.

> I think it is bad that the variable 'cross_compiling' is set
> to the wrong thing

Would it satisfy you to add some more documentation to the
'cross_compiling' variable?

> and would rather get rid of the heuristic
> that sets it to "no" just because the build system happens to be
> able to run host code.

I object against this: It would deteriorate the results of bi-arch builds
(e.g. x86 on x86_64) and of mingw builds when run from Cygwin or Linux/Wine.

> People have been known to use the outcome
> of that test as an argument that they are not cross-compiling when
> in fact they are.

The fix for these people is easy: They can use
   test "$host_alias" != "$build_alias"

Bruno