Re: Please make docs and makeinfo conditional on the --enable-docs variables, instead of being unconditional

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Yuri,

> I need to install the latest binutils on an outdated CentOS system where no 
> package manager is available, and the installed gcc is 4.5.2 from 10+ years ago.

If this problem is related to CentOS, then you really should file
a bug report with their system, rather than here.

In case it helps, the CentOS binutils sources include an option
to build the rpms without documentation, which should solve your
problem.


> Binutils unconditionally requires 'makeinfo' which comes from print/texinfo.

No it doesn't.  The binutils sources only need the makeinfo program if the
documentation sources are newer than the compiled documentation files.  I
suspect however that you are encountering a know problem with the distribution
of the sources via tarballs: when you unpack the tarballs the documentation
source files end up having the same file creation date as their compiled
versions.  This leads the build system to think that the documentation needs
to be recompiled, and hence makeinfo is needed.

One workaround for this problem is to touch the compiled documentation files
after they have been extracted from the tarball.  For example:

  $ tar xvf binutils.tar.xz
  $ find . -name *.info -exec touch {} \;

Cheers
  Nick