[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #49503] [mxe-octave] cross-building packages with configure script calling octave itself have issues

[Markus Mützel]

Follow-up Comment #16, bug #49503 (project octave):

Are you sure the detection mechanism is broken?

I haven't checked the other packages. But the impact for the image package
would have been minor. Either core functions would have been shadowed (but
probably still work). Or functions would be missing.

There is also a warning during "make" if the correct version of Octave wasn't
found. So I wouldn't say "it was pure luck". E.g.:

Warning - could not find native build version 6.0.91 of octave - some packages
may fail, but continuing


I'd argue that detecting features is generally better than detecting versions.
But it is probably difficult to come up with a tool that checks which
functions exist in a certain version of Octave without installing that
version. (That is why building of-image depends on Octave.) Writing such a
tool is probably more complicated than just building Octave.

I'd also argue that it wouldn't make using MXE Octave more complicated if it
built one more build tool (i.e. Octave itself in that case). It does that for
(most of) the other build tools already.
We could also have a configure switch "--enable-system-octave" like we do for
other build tools or dependencies. With that option, "build-octave" wouldn't
be built. (Or maybe turn it around and only build "build-octave" with
"--disable-system-octave".)

If no one opposes, I'll see if I can put something together.

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