Re: ./configure --help

[Nick Bowler]

On 2014-05-25 17:46 +0200, Дилян Палаузов wrote:
> According to my understanding, for each feature X it shall print either 
> --enable-X or --disable-X, so that the one running ./configure has to 
> type only parameters which change the default behaviour, without having 
> to check README.
> 
> That said, assuming that the person on the system knows exactly what the 
> local config.site does, ./configure --help shall print either 
> --enable-silent-rules or --disable-silent-rules.
> 
> If you check ./configure --help from curl (http://curl.haxx.se/), you 
> will see a lot of --enable-X / --disable-X , even though there is no 
> practical use when one uses the --enable-X option.  As an example, 
> --enable-http / --disable-http : one either specifies --disable-http, or 
> the HTTP support is enabled; no need of explicit --enable-http.  I 
> believe this over-listing of options there is due the lack of guidelines 
> what to print at ./configure --help .
> 
> Please correct me, if there are such guidelines (in the Autoconf 
> manual), which clarify when to print both --enable-X and --disable-X and 
> when to print one of them.

Other than the example usages of AC_ARG_ENABLE/AC_ARG_WITH in the
manual, I'm unaware of any specific style instructions.

I suggest that is is rarely useful to print any help text for
--disable-foo or --without-foo because the default text already
covers those options in a generic way.  So it's best to only
describe the function of --enable-foo/--with-foo, with some text
to state the default behaviour.

The curl help output does indeed seem needlessly excessive.

Cheers,
-- 
Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)