autotools and compiler detection (was: Re: talks at meetings ...)

[Joost van Baal <joostvb@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 04:45:07PM +0100, Lionel Elie Mamane wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 04:29:17PM +0100, Joost van Baal wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 03:49:59PM +0100, Lionel Elie Mamane wrote:
> 
> >> Is autoconfiscating worth it for non-C programs, for languages that
> >> have no portability issues?
> 
> > I use it for all my projects.  Some contain only shell scripts, some
> > only Perl scripts, some only documentation.
> 
> Does "./configure" even succeed if it doesn't find a C compiler? In
> examples, even if the configure.in contains no "this project uses C,
> find a compiler" (that I see), the configure has the C compiler
> detection.
> 
> Example:
> 
> ------------ end example ------------
> AC_PREREQ(2.52)
> 
> AC_INIT(uf-view, 2.2, http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=uf-view)
<snip>
> data/Makefile
> po/Makefile.in
> ])
> ------------ end example ------------

I guess the C compiler detection is done due to some magic: e.g. since
.c source files were detected.  For a project containing no C source
files:

( http://mdcc.cx/caspar/  , cvs.caspar.alioth.debian.org ) :

joostvb@nagy:~/cv...debian.org/caspar/caspar% ./configure 
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating doc/Makefile
config.status: creating mk/Makefile
config.status: creating sgml/Makefile
joostvb@nagy:~/cv...debian.org/caspar/caspar% 

configure.ac reads:

----------

m4_include([VERSION.m4])dnl

AC_INIT([Caspar],
       [CASPAR_VERSION],
       [joostvb-caspar@xxxxxxx],
       [caspar])

AC_PREREQ(2.53)

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE

AC_COPYRIGHT([
Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 Joost van Baal <joostvb-caspar-c-12@xxxxxxx>
])

AC_REVISION($Revision: 1.2 $)

AC_PROG_INSTALL

AC_CONFIG_FILES([
   Makefile
   doc/Makefile
   mk/Makefile
   sgml/Makefile
])

AC_OUTPUT

------------

Bye,

Joost

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