From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: TODO additions Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 23:48:47 -0500 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200210291902.g9TJ2AY18220@rum.cs.yale.edu> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1036645962 24328 80.91.224.249 (7 Nov 2002 05:12:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 05:12:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: monnier+gnu/emacs@rum.cs.yale.edu, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 189ey7-0006KA-00 for ; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 06:12:39 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 189f6w-0006F2-00 for ; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 06:21:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 189ewi-0000Fw-00; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 00:11:12 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 189eb9-0001ff-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Nov 2002 23:48:55 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 189eb1-0001Qs-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Nov 2002 23:48:51 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 189eb1-0001QP-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Nov 2002 23:48:47 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.10) id 189eb1-0003BL-00; Wed, 06 Nov 2002 23:48:47 -0500 Original-To: d.love@dl.ac.uk In-reply-to: (message from Dave Love on 05 Nov 2002 11:33:17 +0000) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:9210 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:9210 > That would be very difficult. Even if we could have Autoconf figure > out every relevant parameter, and have eliminate the s and m > directories, that would not eliminate the need for preprocessing of > src/Makefile.in. I don't understand why. That's the canonical use of autoconf, and it's clearly more reliable than using a cpp which may not exist. Sorry, I don't understand that response at all. Autoconf substitutes various values into config.h and Makefile.in. The preprocessing operates on the result. Right now the symbols that it tests are mostly defined in {s,m}*.h, but if those symbols were instead defined in config.h thanks to Autoconf, we would still need to use them to edit the makefile. I think it will be hard to make Autoconf set those symbols. For instance, consider the variable ORDINARY_LINK. How would Autoconf determine that? It is possible that all modern systems use ORDINARY_LINK and we can eliminate the conditional, but otherwise I see no substitute for handling it the way we do now.