Re: Adding command line parameters to configure

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Clayton,

* Huntsman, CD Clayton @ IS wrote on Sat, May 20, 2006 at 08:53:34PM CEST:
>  
> The only way I have found to extend configure's command line is through
> the AC_ARG_ENABLE. But, this macro requires a syntax of the form
> enable-variable or disable-variable, which is not really what I want.

There is also AC_ARG_WITH.

> The question is, is there some sort of hook so that I can expand the
> option set to configure, that has command line checking, etc like the
> built-in path variables do?

No, you'd have to resort to some hackery (that's been done before).

There is (at least) one good reason to keep this restriction: uniformity
of interface.  I can (theoretically) pass the same
  --enable-foo --without-bar --disable-baz
flags to all configure scripts of all packages that use Autoconf: they
either ignore it, or deal with it (in a hopefully similar way).  That
way, packages can be stacked, and flags passed to sub-configure scripts
without them erroring out due to unknown flags.

(Note I'm not arguing for or against keeping this restriction, or the
practicality of the idea, merely pointing out something that may seem a
disadvantage to a developer, but an advantage to a distribution person.)

Cheers,
Ralf