Re: [xml] Building/configure errors on alpha/OSF-1

[Allan Sandfeld Jensen <snowwolf one2one-networks com>]

On Thursday 15 November 2001 14:07, you wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 01:40:16PM +0100, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> > Just a small build bug, but a sloppy one.
>
>   Not sloppy,
>
> > checking for snprintf... no
>
> [...]
>
> > ../entities.c:518: warning: implicit declaration of function `snprintf'
> >
> > I thought the point of having configure detect if snprintf worked or not;
> > was to either not use it, or report a configuration error.
>
>   When the configure script doesn't found the snprintf familly of
> string formatting functions which are a *basic* requirement to provide
> secure processing of strings, then libxml uses the internal trio
> replacement function providing those capabilities on those platform.
>   The warning indicate that something may be missing, the trio library
> do provide snprintf on alpha/OSF-1 this was tested by Bjorn Reese in the
> past if my memory is correct.
>
>   There might be a problem, it's definitely not a sloppy bug, and the
> problem analysis is wrong. Now why does trio is not used is a mistery to me
> I can't debug since I don't have access to that platform. One thing is sure
> I don't want libxml to use unguarded string formatting routine. If it means
> the library might not run on the platform, too bad, but
> I don't even want to take the risk to see libxml being a source of security
> problems due to use of sprintf and related heresy.
Looking through configure and Makefile. I concluded both config.h and 
Makefile was a 100% correct. After looking at the sourcecode, I acted upon a 
hunch and tried compiling in the source-directory like most people do. That 
worked. So it's only when building in a sub-directory (usefull when you 
support 4 different archs), that there is a problem. And it is most likely 
only troublesome when you also have old libxml2 lying around in 
/usr/local/include.

So it works :) It's just not a 100% GNU complient :( . 
Likely coused by un-carefull use of include directives.

BTW, it turned out gcc needed an -mieee option, that wasn't detected by 
configure either, but that was easily fixed since I always override CFLAGS 
anyway.

regards
Allan