Re: Configure help

[Bob Rossi]

> Something like a
>   --with-readline[=included]
> might be useful, although I don't know of an established convention for
> the optional `=included' part.
> 
> > Also, AC_CHECK_LIB can not even look for libreadline.a until after the
> > "make" is done. Is there a way to ./configure && make && make install
> > the readline package, and then continue with CGDB's configure?
> 
> Well, if you use your prepackaged readline, there is no need to check
> for either the headers nor the library -- you know they _will_ be there.
> (Of course, in that case your configure.ac should set appropriate flags
> for preprocessor and linker/libs.)  

Thanks for the general philosophy on how to accomplish this task, it's
much needed. I have several questions though,

I understand how to set the libs flag,
   LIBS="$LIBS -lreadline -lhistory"
however, I can't simply set the -I and -L flags because the path is
relative to the current build directory, right?

Is there a way to get the absolute path to the $srcdir/readline-5.0 in
the configure.in, so that I can simply say
-I$ABSOLUTE_srcdir/readline-5.0 -L$ABSOLUTE_srcdir/readline-5.0?

or do I have to have each Makefile.am specify the relatvie path back to
$srcdir/readline-5.0, and only if the internal readline is chosen?

BTW, what's the appropriate way to set the CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS?
This is what I have been doing,

LDFLAGS="-L$opt_with_readline_prefix/lib $LDFLAGS"
CFLAGS="-I$opt_with_readline_prefix/include
-I$opt_with_readline_prefix/include/readline $CFLAGS"
CPPFLAGS="-I$opt_with_readline_prefix/include
-I$opt_with_readline_prefix/include/readline $CPPFLAGS"

Thanks for the much needed help,
Bob Rossi