[GRASS5] ./configure and --enable/--disable ??

How come --enable/--disable don't work anymore to turn on/off features?

For instance:

  ./configure ... --disable-odbc

doesn't work. But,

  ./configure ... --without-odbc

does. It's rather confusing to have both the enable/disable and
with/without switches, with some working for certain things and
not for others.

Also. I think the dependency list is growing large enough that it's
worth considering having a "configure" front end to help ease users
setting/unsetting certain options and arguments. I imagine the new
user must find compilation pretty daunting (admittedly, it's better
than the old, old system).

--
Eric G. Miller <egm2@jps.net>

Eric G. Miller wrote:

How come --enable/--disable don't work anymore to turn on/off features?

For instance:

  ./configure ... --disable-odbc

doesn't work. But,

  ./configure ... --without-odbc

does. It's rather confusing to have both the enable/disable and
with/without switches, with some working for certain things and
not for others.

A while back, I changed the namings to conform to the autoconf
documentation[1], which basically says that --with[out] controls the
use of external features/libraries, while --{en,dis}able controls the
use of features provided by the package.

[1] and to be consistent with other packages' configure scripts.

So, the following are controlled by --{en,dis}able:

  --enable-sysv define the compiler macro SYSV
  --enable-another-button use two-button mouse conveniently
  --enable-socket use socket XDriver (default)
  --enable-fifo use FIFO XDriver instead of sockets
  --enable-w11 use W11 library for Windows X11 emulation

Everything else (i.e. library dependencies) uses --with[out].

--
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements@virgin.net>