Re: clean-temp and large files

[Bruno Haible]

Eric Blake asks:
> > Should we just make GL_EARLY always invoke AC_SYS_LARGEFILE, so
> > that any application that uses gnulib automatically also supports large
> > files?

Yes. The 32-bit off_t is nowadays only historical baggage. There is normally
no good reason to _not_ use AC_SYS_LARGEFILE. I'd even vote for making
AC_SYS_LARGEFILE the default in autoconf. I.e. Invoke AC_SYS_LARGEFILE
by default, unless configure.ac also invokes a new macro called, say,
AC_SYS_SMALLFILE.

Paul Eggert wrote:
> Won't that be overkill for applications (probably libraries)
> that don't do any file I/O?  'configure' is bloated enough....

configure files larger than 1 MB hurt nobody. What I fear more is the use
of off_t in public APIs and ABIs. I.e. when a library offers an API with
off_t, it needs to provide it in two versions: 32-bit and 64-bit. But
vendors of such libraries probably have handled the problem by now - LFS
is in use for long enough.

Bruno