Re: AS_TMPDIR in _AC_PATH_PROG_FEATURE_CHECK, $debug

[Paul Eggert]

Stepan Kasal <address@hidden> writes:

> Perhaps we should set ``debug=false'' at the beginning of the configure
> script.

Yes, that makes sense.  But this whole area seems to be a bit of a
mess.

How about if we add a new argument to AS_TMPDIR that specifies whether
the trap should be added?  When Autoconf itself invokes AS_TMPDIR with
a "confstat" prefix, it can tell AS_TMPDIR that no trap should be
added, since Autoconf itself will remove the directory.

> As far as the _AC_PATH_PROG_FEATURE_CHECK macro is concerned, perhaps it
> could do without the tmp dir?  Why couldn't _AC_FEATURE_CHECK_LENGTH work
> in current directory?  It uses the names conftest.*, which are removed
> by the autoconf cleanup at the end of the standard trap.

One general issue is that some tests do a chdir, so relative directory
names are a problem in cleanup traps.  That isn't the case here, though.

Another general issue is that /tmp is often a lot faster.