Re: configure's dependency on pkg-config

[Stephen Berman]

On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:12:43 +0100 Jan Djärv <address@hidden> wrote:

> I don't know why you are opposed to installing pkg-config, but it is not Emacs
> choice.  libxml2 has made pkg-config the way for users of that library to find
> out compiler and linker flags as well as dependencies on other libraries.  So
> of course Emacs uses that.  Who are we to argue about the validity of that
> descision?  Ditto for Gtk, dbus, and others.

I'm not opposed to installing pkg-config, I just didn't know I was
supposed to to get Emacs to use libxml2, until I looked in configure.
If it had been documented in INSTALL, I would have been spared that
effort and time.  (That libxml2 provides pkg-config data I also didn't
know: I just checked, and the only mention of "pkg-config" in the entire
libxml2-2.7.8 source tree is in the ChangeLog, which I didn't read
before installing libxml2.)

> If you wan't another way to use libxml2 without using pkg-config, you should
> take that up with libxml2-developers.  If they make another way to compile
> with their library, Emacs can use that.  But I don't understand why Emacs
> should take the trouble to make sure Emacs can use a library WITHOUT using the
> official, sanctioned way of using that library.

I don't want Emacs or its developers to go to such undue lengths, but
just to be clear about what lengths users need to go to.  Since I didn't
know pkg-config was supposed to be used for libxml2, I just went by the
INSTALL guidelines and hence was surprised when they failed for libxml2.

Steve Berman