Re: libposix

[Sylvain Beucler]

Hi Gary,

On Sun, Nov 07, 2010 at 10:48:55PM +0700, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> > I saw the new 'libposix' branch and I was curious about it - how is it
> > supposed to be used?
> 
> The idea is to build a standalone library of posix compatible functions
> from gnulib that will make writing and porting programs that use the
> POSIX APIs easier; and without worrying so much about the (often spotty
> and imperfect) POSIX compatibility of the native libraries - ideally
> reducing the size and complexity of the configuration of projects that
> stick to documented POSIX apis considerably, and in any case saving
> drastically on the requirement to copy a large number of gnulib modules
> into many separate projects as would otherwise be necessary (as is the
> case right now in fact).
> 
> Building it should be a matter of:
> 
>   $ git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/gnulib.git
>   $ cd gnulib
>   $ git checkout topic/libposix
>   $ cd libposix
>   $ ./bootstrap
>   $ ./configure
>   $ make
>   $ sudo make install
> 
> There are still some pending issues and feedback to be incorporated
> before it can be merged back into master.

That sounds good, and this also sounds like quite a change from the
current gnulib.

As far as I understand, gnulib performs tests at ./configure time to
decide whether to use the gnulib replacement, or rely on the
decent-enough and hopefully-optimized system version.
I wonder how this will be done with libposix: will the replacement be
used in any case?

Also, it sounds like libposix can be handled as a classical library
dependency, which will probably make distros feel safer, thanks to the
absence of code replication in every project that use it.

Bruce also wrote it will be versioned, which hints at some kind of
release process.

This sounds (to me) so U-turn to gnulib that I want to get
confirmation, maybe I missed something :)

-- 
Sylvain