Re: Two problems for autoconf(1.NEC SX 2.Cray)

[Paul Eggert]

> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 21:07:10 +1100 (EST)
> From: Jeroen van den Muyzenberg <address@hidden>

> > > Seems to me that there has been a great deal of effort into dealing with
> > > "brain-damaged" compilers. Why stop now?
> >
> > Because the code is working now.  In the case of the other compilers I
> > mentioned, the resulting code didn't work.
> 
> Well, some of us are willing to put in the effort.

That's fine, and you can certainly talk us into further improvements
here, but we need something that continues to work with those
brain-damaged compilers (as well as with the Cray compiler, which is
merely irritating).  Simply checking the compiler's exit status isn't
enough, unfortunately.

> > A better fix in this case is to fix your package's aclocal.m4 or
> > whatever so that it uses only portable sed commands.  But if you can't
> > do that for some reason, you can work around the glitch by setting
> > PATH.
> 
> Also agreed. Though it does take the meaning out of "auto".

Unfortunately Autoconf cannot automate everything.  :-)

Autoconf's goal is to port the application; 'configure' is merely a
means to that goal.  One of Autoconf's assumptions is that you are
trying to write a 'configure' script that is as portable as possible.
Autoconf does not (and cannot) check that the shell code that you
insert into 'configure' is portable; that has to be your responsibility.