Hi! I recently noticed that the getconf(1) interface is broken by design when it comes to cross-compiling. It always returns the information for the build system (GNU/dpkg terms), via the build system libc.
This means that any package using getconf(1) to get build-specific information such as LFS_CFLAGS, LONG_BIT, or many of the other constants will produce at least unexpected results, and at worst can produce broken builds. The exceptions would be for stuff like the _NPROCESSORS_* variables, but not much more. When it comes to LFS, starting with dpkg 1.19.0 you can now use the new «lfs» feature from the «future» feature area (documented in the dpkg-buildflags man page), which properly supports cross-building: ,--- $ export DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=future=+lfs $ DEB_HOST_ARCH=amd64 dpkg-buildflags --get CPPFLAGS -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 $ DEB_HOST_ARCH=x32 dpkg-buildflags --get CPPFLAGS -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 $ DEB_HOST_ARCH=i386 dpkg-buildflags --get CPPFLAGS -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 `--- I'll be filing a lintian report to emit a tag for any broken use of getconf(1). Thanks, Guillem
