Re: GLib 2.12.12 released

[Michael Ekstrand <mekstran scl ameslab gov>]

On Thu, 2007-05-03 at 12:41 -0700, Sergei Steshenko wrote:
> I can try, but I'm definitely missing the point, which is:
> 
> * 'make' CAN detect that it's GNU libiconv;
> * 'configure' can NOT detect that it's GNU libiconv

'make' does not detect that it is GNU libiconv.  'make' does not detect
anything.  The file that is being compiled does a little consistency
check - it makes sure that the type of iconv header it has is consistent
with the type of iconv that configure said it is supposed to be building
with.  'configure' does try to detect the type of iconv.  It evidently
determined that your system had a non-GNU (native) iconv.  But when the
actual compilation happened, it went "whoops, this isn't supposed to be
a GNU iconv header.... we have problems."  It looks like your iconv
library and the iconv header that the compiler finds don't match, most
likely.  Either that, or there's something else weird with your iconv &
build setups.

> So, what is the point in having such a configure script  - 'configure'
> is supposed to detect such things.

Things like this are what configure options are for - to guide configure
along when it doesn't make the right choice.  It is neither practical
nor, in many cases, possible for configure to provide a 100% guarantee
that its success will imply a successful 'make'.  It is not intended for
it to provide such a guarantee.  It merely tries to configure the
software and sets up the Makefiles - if it couldn't make sense of your
setup, it may not create appropriate Makefiles.  It can't detect every
possible contingency.  It did reasonable checks to see which iconv your
system has, and then that turned out to be inconsistent.

In this case, it may be practical to add a test.  That's up to the GTK+
devs.  But in general, asking configure to detect every possible 'make'
problem is essentially asking it to try to compile the program.  That's
make's job.  And you only want to run 'make' once.

- Michael

-- 
Michael Ekstrand
Research Assistant, Scalable Computing Laboratory
Goanna, compute cluster and InfiniBand network monitor tool:
        http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/Projects/Monitor/