[DotGNU]--disable-native-libs (was Re: extension APIs)

[S11001001]

Gopal V wrote:
> S11001001 wrote,
>
> > Hate to say it, but it would be much nicer if we had 
> > pnet-built, pure IL  libs. 
>
> As far as possible we will !. It's just that I'm not upto
> the System.Xml challenge .
>
> Also libxml# parses .xml.gz files (which was a suggestion I made
> months ago -- Gzipped XML) 

Hmm. Here's an idea for DotGNU-standard extension APIs, inspired by 
@libobjs@:

Extension APIs *in* the pnetlib standard distribution must at least have 
a fallback IL implementation. They can have nice pinvoke things as well.

For example, an arbitrary math precision library that either uses GNU MP 
(libgmp) or falls back to an IL implementation.

By default, `configure' would check for the presence of GNU MP; if 
found, it would set #defines for cscc, i.e. WITH_NATIVE_GNU_MP. These 
would be pinvoke()-using, and would not build the C# fallback code. If 
not present, it would skip the pinvokes and just build C#.

However, because libgmp is not available on all machines, if we were 
building a standard distributable pnetlib (remember the thing about it 
working on all machines, because the internalcalls are in ilrun? this 
takes it even further), we would use --disable-native-libs to force C# 
building of everything. This would not always be necessary; i.e., if we 
were building a GNU-specific pnetlib, one could expect the presence of 
libgmp, and pass --with-native-gnu-mp to configure, overriding the 
--disable-native-libs for that specific library.

It'd be a fairly good motivation for building your own, at least.

> That is my idea -- "here ,now" ... (and "fast")

I think this way, we can have it both ways: "here, now, fast" and 
"portable! (IL-based)" Because both claims are valid at the same time.

--
Stephen Compall
DotGNU `Contributor' -- http://www.dotgnu.org

Giving the Linus Torvalds Award to the Free Software Foundation is a
bit like giving the Han Solo Award to the Rebel Alliance.
        -- RMS, accepting the Linus Torvalds Award for Community
        Service at LinuxWorld (9/1999)