Re: [PATCH] Compile popt under Windows using gnulib

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 11:31:49AM -0400, Jeff Johnson wrote:
> FYI: patches to <address@hidden>, please. I'll take
> patches however they are sent however. *shrug*
>
> I can't tie builds of popt to gnulib, even for cross-compiles, there's  
> way too many
> projects that depend on popt.

Gnulib is a source code library, not a "library" library, so in normal
usage Gnulib source files are included in the final tarball:

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/gnulib.html#Library-vs-Reusable-Code

So there's no extra dependency.

As for whether you store the Gnulib files inside your version control
system, that is a slightly different issue, discussed here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/gnulib.html#VCS-Issues

> What could be done is disable the usage of glob(3)
> if glob is not available through configure tests.

While I agree this is one way to do it, it does mean that Windows
users get one less feature.  AIUI globbing is used to implement the
/etc/popt.d/* directory (?), hard-coded in the source unfortunately.

There's actually another portability issue which Gnulib can help with
in the future - namely, random/srandom missing.  I hacked around this
in the patch I just sent, but Gnulib will solve it properly (and also
for other platforms, not just Windows, which lack these calls).  I've
got a patch for Gnulib lined up to provide the random family of
functions.

Rich.

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