Re: config.status has been broken by issue 5780 "Accept GUILE 2 without extra configure options"

[David Kastrup]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> If I previously did
>
> GUILE_CONFIG=/usr/local/tmp/guile-1.8/bin/guile-config ./configure
> ./config.status --recheck
>
> then the Guile configuration was reused.  If I now do
>
> PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/tmp/guile-1.8/lib/pkgconfig ./configure
> ./config.status --recheck
>
> the configuration information is lost and configure reverts to the
> system configuration.
>
> In addition, PKG_CONFIG_PATH is not documented in our configuration or
> with ./configure --help.
>
> How to fix?
>
> A documented option --with-guile-prefix or --with-libguile-prefix that
> puts up a working configuration might be a reasonably transparent and
> future-safe option.
>
> Also now I don't think it made sense to _remove_ the GUILE_CONFIG
> variable: if it's set, it seems worth heeding.  If it's unset, going via
> pkgconfig may be the right way.  --with-libguile-prefix could pick the
> right option underneath, checking that it is viable, and prefer using
> PKG_CONFIG_PATH .

To put this into perspective: this definitely is a showstopper for
2.21.0.  A quick fix would be reverting the whole patch for issue 5780
in order to get back to a compatible state to what we had previously.  A
minimum fix would be recovering use of GUILE_CONFIG (when it is being
specified) in order to get back to the previous state of usability.
Given that I had several segfaults with GUILE-2.2 in recent days, I also
strongly lean towards continuing to require --enable-guile2 for getting
Guile2+.  We can reword the "highly experimental" bit.

At any rate, INSTALL.txt does not reflect _any_ of these changes.  It
states

   • Guile (http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html) Use version
     1.8.8.  Version 2.x of Guile is not currently supported.

-- 
David Kastrup