Re: configure --help output 'standard'

[Claudio Fontana]

Hello,

--- Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:

> Claudio Fontana <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > To be able to know what to expect, I need to know
> when
> > current output format (categories, options and
> > comments) was first introduced in autoconf.
> 
> That is not the Autoconf Way.  Instead, I would
> inspect the
> output of "autoconf --help" to see whether it's the
> format you like.

Surely you mean 'configure --help' above?

I wrote regular expressions that successfully capture
configure --help options when they are created using
AC_HELP_STRING (or not, if the output if somewhat
similar), so yes I am happy with the current format.

> You'd have to do this anyway, since configure.ac can
> put anything
> that it pleases there.

But still, every option gets categorized by autoconf
into "fixed" categories "Optional Features", "Optional
Packages", .., "Some influential environment
variables"? Or not? 

> > Another issue is whether current output format is
> > going to remain more or less stable.
> 
> It's meant for humans, not for programs.

However, the current output of autoconf-generated
configure --help seems to have patterns that make the
output readable by both. If the developer who writes
configure.ac does not do really evil things, then the
thing should work.

> If you
> need a programmatic
> way to find out the options then we should probably
> add an interface.

It would be really nice.

For the short term, however, the more pragmatic
approach of parsing what is already there to find
supported features seems necessary (and works decently
already). However I'd like to know when current option
categories ("Optional packages:", "Optional
Features:", "Some influential environment variables",
"X features:", ..) have first been introduced. So I
can parse autoconf version and decide what to expect
accordingly. Currently I suppose that the new format
corresponds to autoconf versions >= 2.50, and I would
like to be corrected here.

The program involved is a GUI interface to source
package configuration, compilation, installation,
tracking and removal, that provides a nice
configuration window for packages built with autoconf
>= 2.50.

Here is the project web page with an on line manual; a
working release and cvs address are available there
too (this is all very fresh).

http://www.gnu.org/software/sourceinstall/

cvs is recommended because things change fast.

It would be really nice if someone from autoconf would
want to join. GNU Source Installer could be another
incentive for developers to move to the autotools for
their source package creation.

Thanks

Claudio



                
__________________________________ 
Discover Yahoo! 
Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! 
http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html