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Re: [patch, toplevel] --enable-multilib*S* is an easy typo to recognize...


On Feb 15, 2004, Phil Edwards <phil@codesourcery.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 02:37:36AM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> Consider that we drop into the top level a new package that takes
>> --enable-multilibs as an argument?

> Ew.  I would hope we would point to gcc's spelling and say, conform or die.

Why should an unrelated package conform to GCC's spelling?  Wouldn't
you think this is quite presumptuous, especially if you were on the
other package's shoes?  Especially if you'd chosen that spelling
before GCC came up with it?

It doesn't even have to be *our* top level.  Someone might want to
build a top-top-level tree containing multiple such packages.  I quote
the autoconf docs:

   `configure' scripts do not complain about `--enable-FEATURE' options
that they do not support.  This behavior permits configuring a source
tree containing multiple packages with a top-level `configure' script
when the packages support different options, without spurious error
messages about options that some of the packages support.  An
unfortunate side effect is that option spelling errors are not
diagnosed.  No better approach to this problem has been suggested so
far.
</quote>

> :-)  If the new package needs different functionality, then they can use
> a spelling that's more significantly different.

Or maybe GCC should, if the spelling we chose is so prone to errors?

-- 
Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Happy GNU Year!                     oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
Red Hat GCC Developer                 aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist                Professional serial bug killer


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