autoconf and cl.exe

[Braden McDaniel]

AC_PROG_[CC,CXX] are able to detect and use cl (the Microsoft Visual C++
compiler); but things fall apart quickly as soon as one tries to do
something  like check for a library. cl doesn't understand POSIX compiler
command line arguments, so the likes of AC_CHECK_LIB just don't work.

The Coin <http://coin3d.org> folks have solved this by using a wrapper that
translates the POSIX arguments to cl-ese. I'm wondering (1) if such a thing
as this would be considered a useful addition to autoconf itself; and (2),
if so, what kind of requirements it would need to meet (i.e., presumably it
ought to be written in sh).

--
Braden McDaniel <address@hidden>
Software Engineer, Object Sciences Corporation