Re: [Nmh-workers] nmh leaving gentoo?

[Anders Eriksson]

> This is an out of date version of the configure.in. The one in CVS says:
>     dnl There are at least four implementations of ndbm, and
>     dnl several of those can be in different places at the whim
>     dnl of the system integrator. A good summary of this mess
>     dnl can be found at http://www.unixpapa.com/incnote/dbm.html
> 
>     dnl Classic ndbm with no library required (eg NetBSD): try this
>     dnl first so we don't accidentally link in a pointless but harmless
>     dnl library in one of the later ndbm.h+libfoo tests:
>     NMH_CHECK_NDBM(ndbm.h,,,
>     dnl Berkeley DBv2 emulating ndbm: header in db.h:
>       NMH_CHECK_NDBM(db.h,db,,
>     dnl Berkeley DBv1 emulating ndbm:
>         NMH_CHECK_NDBM(ndbm.h,db,,
>           NMH_CHECK_NDBM(ndbm.h,db1,,
>     dnl Classic ndbm:
>             NMH_CHECK_NDBM(ndbm.h,ndbm,,
>     dnl glibc2.1 systems put db1 in a subdir:
>               NMH_CHECK_NDBM(db1/ndbm.h,db1,,
>     dnl GNU gdbm emulating ndbm, with header possibly in gdbm/
>     dnl and possibly needing gbdm_compat library:
>                 NMH_CHECK_NDBM(gdbm/ndbm.h,gdbm,,
>                   NMH_CHECK_NDBM(gdbm/ndbm.h,gdbm_compat -lgdbm,,
>                     NMH_CHECK_NDBM(ndbm.h,gdbm,,
>                       NMH_CHECK_NDBM(ndbm.h,gdbm_compat -lgdbm))))))))))
> 
> (plus some logic I haven't quoted for allowing the user to override the
> autodetection.)
> 
> There were some errors in this dbm checking logic which I spotted and fixed
> shortly after we released 1.2 (mostly applicable to the BSDs). Unfortunately
> it looks like we never got round to actually making a proper release with
> the fixes in :-(
> 
> (There was talk of another release but it seems to have petered out.)
> 
> >My thinking is to create an nmh-1.2 ebuild, fixing this db stuff, and attach 
> >it to the gentoo bug. Hopefully that's enough to keep it in gentoo.
> 
> Head of CVS might be your best bet. Gentoo users like the bleeding edge,
> right? :-)
> 

I'll see to that once I get a 1.2 build in decent shape. It seems swapping a 
dependecy on berkdb for one on gdbm is the easy way out, though it'd be better 
to be able to support any of the ones supported by nmh. Do you know what the 
official package names are for that impressive pile of libs and headers?


> Having said that, I don't think there's anything wrong with the original
> 1.2 configure on a Linux system -- it just looks for what's present and
> goes with the first plausible thing it finds. If you don't want it to
> link with libdb1, don't have the library and headers on your system...
> (Or with the head of CVS, override the guessing algorithm with configure
> arguments.)
> 
Yep. But that's not quite how gentoo works. If there's an optional dependecy 
on a lib, that should be accounted for.

BR,
/Anders