[XForms] Re: xforms configuration

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

>>>>> "Angus" == Angus Leeming <angus.leeming at btopenworld.com> writes:

Angus> Jean-Marc, Laurence Marks has been trying to compile xforms cvs
Angus> and has made some changes, attached. Below is his summary of
Angus> what he's done, but I think it can be simply summarised as

Angus> Why do we ship these files in the config directory:
Angus> config.guess config.sub depcomp libtool.m4 ltmain.sh

Angus> They are all parts of the autoconf/libtool code. Why not allow
Angus> the user to use the versions that come with their versions of
Angus> the autotools?

Because a user of xforms is not required to have any of the autotools
installed (unless when using cvs, of course).

I think that we have to ship all these files, except possibly
libtools.m4. However, I think that we must sync this file with
ltmain.sh, so even this one is needed.

The right thing to do is to upgrade libtool files to the latest
version (our libtool.m5 is from 2001, it seems). The choice is libtool
1.4.2 from october 2002 or 1.5 from last month. I do not know whether
1.5 can cause problems.

depcomp comes probably with automake, and the config.* from autoconf.
All we have to do is upgrade from recent versions.

Angus> 1) Removed the "on", since it does not seem to be needed. 

This is of course a solution, but how does 'on' appear on this system?
Is this a preprocessor define in some system header? This would be
_very_ bad... 

Angus> 2) Removed AC_FUNC_MALLOC since it is broken on many systems.

Fine, we probably do not need this one. But I do not think it makes
any difference, since we do not rely anywhere on the HAVE_MALLOC
macro. Laurence, did it really cause a problem?

Angus> 3) Added in acinclude.m4 ac_save_CFLAGS=$CFLAGS At least in the
Angus> version I was using it was not being set. 

I'll have to check this one.

Angus> 4) Removed the libtool stuff that you had in acinclude.m4, and
Angus> let automake/autoconf/libtool handle all this. Your version did
Angus> not work with automake-1.7, autoconf-2.57, libtool-1.5 

I think we should just upgrade the versions we have (after making sure
that libtool 1.5 requirements are not too high).

Angus> 5) Added (slight overkill, but AC_PATH_XTRA does not work the
Angus> way it claims to!) AC_SUBST(X_LIBS) AC_SUBST(X_PRE_LIBS)
Angus> AC_SUBST(X_CFLAGS) LIBS="$X_LIBS $X_PRE_LIBS -lX11
Angus> $X_EXTRA_LIBS $LIBS" CPPFLAGS="$X_CFLAGS $CPPFLAGS" 

Probably OK.

Angus> 6) Added a few files needed by make dist (e.g. README, I can't
Angus> remember them all).

Good idea.

Angus> 7) I also did some stuff for our own purposes, primarily
Angus> removed pixmap.c so no extra libraries are needed and removed
Angus> the checks for them, turned off sharing by default, restricted
Angus> the build/dist to the library and removed some of your
Angus> informational output at the end of the build. FYI, it works
Angus> fine, and is setup so our code will compile forms if it does
Angus> not find a working copy already existing on the computer.

This should be investigated...

Thanks for the input Laurence.

JMarc