Re: Failure to use -lnsl on Solaris with AC_CHECK_LIB

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 11:56:21AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Stepan Kasal <address@hidden> writes:
> > 1) Libraries should be _prepended_ to LIBS, not appended.
...
> Right, and socket and nsl don't depend on anything except each other on
> those systems where they're needed, so they're properly placed at the end.

well, that would mean that the test should also place them to the end.
The resulting macro would be too big.

Another solution is to tell people that the macro should be "near the top
of configure.ac".  The LIBS list is almost empty by then.
The Autoconf manual explains that AC_SEARCH_LIBS is used to _incrementally_
build the LIBS list, so it in fact implicitly contains this advice.

> This is a valid point, but the existing code is tested on Unisys (which
> has this particular issue) and I'm very reluctant to change it to
> something that hasn't been tested, even if it looks more correct.

The other side is with free software, each piece of code is no only
executed, but also read.
This means that my "theoretical purity" helps people which will come to
study and/or modify the code.

But the file could contain both versions, one of them could be commented
out.  A comment would explain the difference.

But I'm happy with Warren's decision, too, of course.  ;-)  If there is a
problem, we are likely to get a mail about it.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan