Subject: Re: Notification: incoming/581

From: Michael Han <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 20:11:24 -0800

This message was accidentally sent only to me, but I'm replying too,
just to make things confusing :)

Previously from Mark Manning
>I would have to say that yes, it is a bug.  But probably should be
>reported to the automake/autoconf developers as per the other message. 
>However, to whom the above problem should be given depends upon how
>automake/autoconf works.  I seem to remember reading that the entire
>autoconf system can be changed by those who use it.  In other words -
>you use autoconf/automake to create your ./configure file which then is
>used to generate the necessary commands to perform the make on the
>different systems.  If this is true then whoever made the autoconf file
>which produced the ./configure file needs to add in a few more
>statements so the generated ./configure file correctly looks first for
>gcc and then for plain old cc.  I got past the above problem btw, but
>then ./configure looked for c++ and croaked.  I can not figure out what
>environment variable I should have defined in order for the ./configure
>program to get past that next step.  If anyone knows I'd appreciate the
>info.

Try --without-cxx, IIRC. As I understand the standard cc test in
autoconf (and I *don't* understand it all that well -- a little help
Paul or Steve?), autoconf will test for gcc and if it doesn't find it,
cc. This is the behavior you're requesting. The problem is that if it
finds CC or CXX, it assumes it's working, which apparently isn't the
case for you with gcc and g++. So unfortunately, autoconf can't find
a CC or CXX, discover that it's broken, and then try other compilers.
If it could, you never would have filed a report (if I understand the
situation correctly), because autoconf would have found your broken
gcc, tested it, found it to be broken, and then continued looking for
cc, which you have. Sadly, autoconf isn't that smart.

>From my reading of autoconf docs and FVWM's autoconf stuff, we're just
using the standard test for CC. That is to say, the behavior you are
submitting a bug report against is the default behavior of autoconf
with respect to searching for the C compiler. So I'd say you want to
file a bug report with the autoconf distributors. The FVWM developers
essentially trust autoconf to Do The Right Thing, which may or may not
be the case. But the whole benefit of using autoconf is in expecting
it to automagically configure the Makefile for users, without a whole
lot of fuss on the part of the developers.

>I also downloaded fvwm-2.2.4 onto a linux box at home running Linux
>v4.1.  A bit behind the times I know, but 4.1 works fine for me and I
>keep all of the daemons turned off so no one can easily break into the
>system.  Anyway, I had no problems at all installing and/or using
>fvwm-2.2.4 on the v4.1 box.

Right, all Linux boxes I've ever encountered provide a working gcc.

>Anyway, again - yeah it's probably a bug and probably worth fixing since
>it would then make the installation a lot easier on non-Linux machines. 
>Fvwm-2.0 (a much earlier version than the present one) installed without
>a hitch on the SGI machines here and I've been using it ever since.  So
>there has been a change somewhere which now causes the ./configure file
>to fail in it's intent to compile and/or install the software.

Fvwm 2.0.x used the X11-standard Imake template for generating
Makefiles. But in 2.1.x the sources were migrated to the use of
autoconf, which has certain advantages over Imake. However, Imake
probably searches for cc first, not being GNU software.
-- 
[email-masked]                         http://www.best.com/~mikehan/
coffee achiever                              San Francisco, California
To understand recursion you must first understand recursion.
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---

From: Mark Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 11:42:07 -0600

Ah - got it.  Thanks!  :-)

It's off to see the wizards,
the wonderful wizards of autoconf....

Later! :-)