Re: new module 'iconv_open'

[Simon Josefsson]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

> Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> For example, in GnuTLS, I recently received a patch that added a
>> configure-time warning about missing non-required tools:
>> 
>> AC_PATH_PROG([GAA], [gaa])
>> if test "x$GAA" = "x"; then
>>    AC_MSG_WARN([[***
>> *** GAA was not found.  It is only needed if you wish to modify
>> *** the source code or command-line description files.  In this case,
>> *** you may want to get it from http://gaa.sourceforge.net/
>> ***]])
>> fi
>
> Such a warning has the potential to confuse many tarball users, or have them
> spend time to install tools that they won't need in the end.

I think the warning message is sufficiently clear to avoid that.

> Also, AC_PROG_YACC doesn't do this. It simply prints one line of output,
> like most other autoconf tests.

Right, but AC_PROG_YACC doesn't test whether there is a yacc tool
installed.

However, I don't feel strongly about this, I just wanted to echo the
reports from some users that wanted better error handling in some of
my projects.  Further, I think I can print the appropriate warnings in
my own configure.in if I want to inform users that they need gperf to
build modified sources or directly from VC.

/Simon