From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ulrich Mueller Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: grep-changelog in the emacs distro Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 08:54:08 +0100 Message-ID: <20228.1440.172574.968484@a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de> References: <86d3b0l2x9.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1325663662 27652 80.91.229.12 (4 Jan 2012 07:54:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 07:54:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 04 08:54:18 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RiLft-0007GU-04 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:54:17 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51379 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiLfs-0000Kk-4e for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:54:16 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:36125) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiLfp-0000KT-7Q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:54:14 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiLfo-0008E0-BN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:54:13 -0500 Original-Received: from a1iwww1.kph.uni-mainz.de ([134.93.134.1]:55268) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiLfo-0008Dt-16 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:54:12 -0500 Original-Received: from a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de (a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de [134.93.134.92]) by a1iwww1.kph.uni-mainz.de (8.14.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id q047s9D4000470; Wed, 4 Jan 2012 08:54:09 +0100 Original-Received: from a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de (8.14.5/8.14.2) with ESMTP id q047s88P031559; Wed, 4 Jan 2012 08:54:08 +0100 Original-Received: (from ulm@localhost) by a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) id q047s8fC031558; Wed, 4 Jan 2012 08:54:08 +0100 In-Reply-To: <86d3b0l2x9.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> X-Mailer: VM 8.1.1 under 23.3.4 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 134.93.134.1 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:147255 Archived-At: >>>>> On Tue, 03 Jan 2012, Randal L Schwartz wrote: > 'grep-changelog' is apparently the *only* thing in the current emacs > HEAD that requires Perl. AFAICS, Perl isn't required at build time, but only for running the grep-changelog script. > Would it be possible to put its build and install behind a configure > switch so that a variant of Emacs might be built and packaged that > does *not* require Perl? We've had similar discussions in Gentoo, and the conclusion was that doing such things isn't feasible. Emacs relies on several external programs. They're kind of "soft" dependencies which are required to perform various functions at runtime. So, if you take the road of removing grep-changelog if there's no Perl, then you should also remove other parts of Emacs if other programs are absent. For example, you'd have to remove tramp if there's no ftp, ssh, or sudo. ispell.el requires some spell checker. Functions for printing don't work if there's no print system (like cups or lpr) installed. vc*.el needs some version control system. Also, what are you going to do if Perl is installed on the system at a later time? You'd have to rebuild Emacs in that case. Ulrich