Re: Arguemnts to configure

[Eric Blake]

On 10/2/18 10:15 AM, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Is there a way to add a new "directory category", in addition to bindir,
> libdir, etc.?

Which directory are you thinking? Is it standardized somewhere, like GNU 
Coding Standards, Linux File System, or similar?  If it is worthwhile, 
autoconf should be providing that directory for everyone rather than you 
having to add custom code to support it.  Otherwise, why is your project 
special that it needs a directory that is not standardized, and can you 
fully justify why the existing directories are insufficient for your needs?

That said, commit a19743141 shows the addition of --runstatedir, as once 
such example of a globally-useful directory worth supporting, in 
response to GNU Coding Standards adding a variable for this directory in 
reaction to many distros preferring /run over /var/run when installing 
into /.  And, I'm woefully low on free time, as that commit has not yet 
appeared in a released version of autoconf (2.69 predates it, and I 
really need to get 2.70 out the door).

> And, more generally, is there a way to make a configure script accept
> arguments that have a shape different from --with, --without, --enable
> and --disalbe?

No, not without going against the GNU Coding Standards, which state that 
a configure script shouldn't need any other option prefixes.  Again, 
what is the exact semantics you are hoping to add, and why are the 
existing mechanisms inappropriate for those semantics?  A strong 
justification is needed, at which point maybe we can work on amending 
the GNU Coding Standards to document your use case for everyone to be 
able to share it.

--
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3266
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