On Sep 6, 2000, Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It's a common complaint that people can
> ./configure
> make prefix=/foo
> make install prefix=/foo
> Why would anyone complain about this? Please explain
> what you think is a problem.
It's common to have packages that generate header files out of
configure options. If prefix changes from configure to build time,
the header files end up incorrect.
Ok, so the right thing to do is to generate the header files at build
time, based on `make' options, right? But then, what if someone
starts a build with `prefix=/foo', modifies some files, then re-starts
with `prefix=/bar'? Since there's no way for `make' to notice that
there has been a change in `prefix', to trigger the re-generation of
the header file, the final executables will very likely be
inconsistent.
That's why it's better to have these things fixed at configure time.
Of course, sometimes it's convenient to change these options at build
time, but the potential for trouble is such that I wouldn't recommend
this practice.
--
Alexandre Oliva Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer aoliva@{cygnus.com, redhat.com}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist *Please* write to mailing lists, not to me
