Re: feature request: allow plus signs in AC_ARG_ENABLE

[Eric Blake]

On 03/16/2010 12:04 AM, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Bruno Haible wrote on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 09:49:54PM CET:
>> Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>>> Those semantics already have users out there, though.  For example GCC
>>> relies on --disable-libstdc___v3, so this would be an incompatible
>>> change.
>>
>> OK, the name of the variable is not important to me (the user can define
>> his own variable anyway). Here's a revised patch:
> 
> Thanks.  The patch looks ok to me, but is lacking testsuite exposure and
> NEWS update.  I'll let Eric decide if he wants this in before the
> release, or at all, with the below squashed in, which is at least a
> start at testsuite exposure.

[3 months later...] Yes, this seems nice to have in autoconf, so I've
applied the two patches.

> 
> Please note however that using this new feature may introduce
> incompatibilites in a package tree where different Autoconf releases are
> used.  For example, 2.61-generated configure scripts will reject and
> fail upon --enable-c++, so somebody using your package in a subtree and
> a 2.61-using package in another part of her subtree will be in trouble.

Hopefully someone piecing packages together like that can figure out how
to rerun a single version of autoconf across the entire tree to unify
the behavior.  And if you don't use + in a variable name, it won't
affect your package.

> 
> Actually, I think standards.texi should be updated to document which
> characters exactly are acceptable in a FEATURE name, and the Autoconf
> test suite updated to ensure we accept exactly those names.

Yes, but that should be a separate report to bug-standards.

> 
> Cheers,
> Ralf
> 
>     * tests/base.at (AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH): New test.
>     * NEWS: Update.
> 

I've now pushed the combination of Bruno's and Ralf's patches, after
adding a combined ChangeLog entry and re-running the testsuite to make
sure I didn't see any regressions.

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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