Re: [xml] autoconf patches to 2.4.2 (determine socklen_t type)

[Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com>]

On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 03:05:05PM -0500, xml thewrittenword com wrote:
> The current autoconf code to determine the socklen_t type is icky.
> Relying on a return error from the compiler doesn't seem so robust to
> me (in all fairness though the patch below requires the compiler to be
> smart enough to error out when two prototype declarations don't
> match). So, I suggest the attached patch. NOTE: this depends on
> autoconf 2.52 (2.50 will probably work). I could get it working under
> 2.13 if need be. You will need to regenerate config.h.in. I am trying
> to get the same socklen_t detection into rsync (which switched to
> autoconf 2.50 hence the dependency). This patch has been tested on
> Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 7, 8, IRIX 6.2, 6.5, Tru64 UNIX 4.0D, 5.0A, 5.1,
> HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, and AIX 4.3.2 with success.

  Is it broken ? I.e. does the current detection fails ? If yes
then what architectures ?

  basically, I have learnt the hard way that:
    - requiring the latest auto* is a path doomed to failure
      for example the latest libtool happily break my setup here.
    - socklen_t detection have been a PITA so far
 
 I'm sorry, but my attitude w.r.t. the autoconf scripts are:
   "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"

 So the first question to answer is:
   - is it broken ?
   - if yes, what arch ?
   - then how can we fix it with no added requirement to the
     auto*/libtool stuff ?

 Honnestly I do think that the auto* is a pile of crap (multi thousand
lines of perl stuff, nuff' said) and the less I have to mess with it the
better I feel. This is "icky" and "not robust" anyway from the framework
itself, so I don't really consider aestetic questions at that level, but
just "does it work ?".

  Sorry for being a bit negative, but there are dragons that are better
left asleep, unless really needed.

Daniel

-- 
Daniel Veillard      | Red Hat Network http://redhat.com/products/network/
veillard redhat com  | libxml Gnome XML XSLT toolkit  http://xmlsoft.org/
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