autoconf/TODO
1994-10-19 05:40:50 +00:00

103 lines
3.8 KiB
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-*- outline -*-
Things it might be nice to do someday:
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* Make AC_CHECK_LIB check whether the function is already available
before checking for the library. This might involve adding another
kind of cache variable to indicate whether a given function needs a
given library. The current ac_cv_func_ variables are intended to
indicate whether the function is in the default libraries, but
actually also take into account whatever value LIBS had when they
were checked for.
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* Add AC_PROG_CC_POSIX to replace the current ad-hoc macros for AIX,
Minix, ISC, etc.
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* Use AC_EGREP_CPP instead of AC_TRY_LINK to detect structures and members.
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* Make AC_CHECK_FUNC[S] automatically use any particular macros for the
listed functions.
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* Support creating both config.h and DEFS in the same configure.
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* Select the right CONFIG_SHELL automatically (for Ultrix, Lynx especially.)
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* Doc: Add concept index.
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* Doc: Centralize information on POSIX, MS-DOS, cross-compiling, and
other important topics.
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* Split up AC_SUBST substitutions using a loop to accomodate shells
with severely limited here document sizes, if it turns out to be a problem.
I'm not sure whether the limit is on lines or bytes; if bytes, it
will be less of a problem than it was with the long lines used for
creating a header file.
There has also been a report that HPUX and OSF/1 seds only allow 100
commands.
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* Allow [ and ] in egrep patterns and AC_DEFINE args.
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* Add a Makefile generator that supports the standard GNU targets.
(Being worked on.)
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* Mike Haertel's suggestions:
** Provide files containing decls for alloca, strings, etc.
** Cross compiling:
*** Error messages include instructions for overriding defaults using
config.site.
*** Distribute a config.site corresponding to a hypothetical bare POSIX system with c89.
*** Cache consistency checking: ignore cache if environment
(CC or PATH) differs.
** Site defaults:
*** Convention for consistency checking of env vars and options in config.site so config.site can print obnoxious messages if it doesn't like options or env vars that users use.
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* autoscan: Tell the files that caused inclusion of each macro,
in a dnl comment. (Seems to be hard.)
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* Look at user contributed macros: prototypes, IEEE double precision math,
shared libraries, various other things.
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* Test suite: more things to test:
** That the shell scripts produce correct output on some simple data.
** Configuration header files. That autoheader does the right thing,
and so does AC_CONFIG_HEADER when autoconf is run.
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