From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 19351 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 2011 18:19:19 -0000 Received: (qmail 19342 invoked by uid 22791); 26 Apr 2011 18:19:18 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.6 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,SPF_HELO_PASS,T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from smtp-out.google.com (HELO smtp-out.google.com) (74.125.121.67) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:19:04 +0000 Received: from kpbe19.cbf.corp.google.com (kpbe19.cbf.corp.google.com [172.25.105.83]) by smtp-out.google.com with ESMTP id p3QIJ2CD025739 for ; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:19:02 -0700 Received: from iyn15 (iyn15.prod.google.com [10.241.52.79]) by kpbe19.cbf.corp.google.com with ESMTP id p3QIJ0Sf012945 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT) for ; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:19:01 -0700 Received: by iyn15 with SMTP id 15so946732iyn.31 for ; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:19:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.43.64.66 with SMTP id xh2mr1315154icb.391.1303841940781; Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:19:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from coign.google.com (dhcp-172-22-120-216.mtv.corp.google.com [172.22.120.216]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id f7sm389484ibn.24.2011.04.26.11.18.59 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:19:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Ian Lance Taylor To: kevin diggs Cc: Steffen Dettmer , binutils@sourceware.org Subject: Re: binutils prerequisites (recent zlib version - what else?) References: Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:19:00 -0000 In-Reply-To: (kevin diggs's message of "Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:05:02 -0500") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-System-Of-Record: true X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact binutils-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: binutils-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2011-04/txt/msg00381.txt.bz2 kevin diggs writes: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Ian Lance Taylor wrot= e: >> >> Unrecognized --with options are ignored. =C2=A0The difference in the >> >> Ian >> > Why? Wouldn't it be better to tell the poor, confused user that they > are configuring up the wrong tree? So that we can go RTFM and get the > right option (or whine and complain if the desired functionality does > not exist)? It would be better in some cases, yes. However, the gcc and binutils trees are examples where there is a master configure script at the top which invokes a range of sub-configure scripts below. To make that work, the master configure script needs to pass all --with and --enable options to the sub-configure scripts. If configure scripts reject unrecognized options, then it would be necessary for every configure script to recognize every option. Since the sub-projects are maintained by different groups of people, that is infeasible. To avoid the problem there is, yes, an option: --enable-option-checking. It's sort of pathetic to have an option for option checking, since most people aren't going to be aware of it, but it's the best we have at the moment. Ian