Re: pure ansi/iso or posix environments

[Paul Eggert]

"Paul Edwards" <address@hidden> writes:

>> Sorry, that functionality isn't there now.  Demand for such
>> an ability is small, since Autoconf is oriented towards
>> build environments where you can easily run a compiler.
>
> That's a shame.  Can I put that in as a feature request?

Sure, but I'm afraid it's likely to languish in our long list of
feature requests.  Retrocomputing is not high priority for us.

> The sort of checks that configure does can easily be answered
> with reference to the C89/C90 standard.

No, because there are multiple variants of each standard.
We'd have to maintain a list of exactly what each standard
supports.  That'd be a maintenance hassle.  POSIX is
even worse, since it has thousands of variants.

If you have access to an environment that is C89 with no extensions
whatsoever, I suggest porting a minimal configure-time environment to
it, including the following programs:

   cat cmp cp diff echo expr false grep ln ls make mkdir mv pwd rm
   rmdir sed sh sleep sort test touch true

and then using that environment.  This will be some work for you, but
probably less work than modifying Autoconf, and also you'll benefit by
having a mini-quasi-POSIX environment.

If that doesn't work for you, then perhaps you can write your own sed
script that edits config.hin into config.h, which is tailored for the
C89 flavor you've chosen.  Similarly, you can write a sed script that
will edit Makefile.in into Makefile.