Ticket History #677: Build system problems

From ghudson@MIT.EDU Wed Dec 16 21:29:25 1998
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Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 21:29:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
To: krb5-bugs@MIT.EDU
Subject: Build system problems

Here are two problems with the krb5 build system:

* The user should be able to run "make CFLAGS=foo" to override
the non-required cflags (-g vs. -O and anything specified in
the CFLAGS environment variable at configure time) for the
program. The same applies to CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS. krb5
uses CFLAGS and LDFLAGS as its own variables, stuffing
things like the -I../include options which are required for
compilation. This violates the gnu makefile standards, and
means that I can't control the compilation of krb5 in the
same way I control the compilation of other autoconf'd
packages (by putting LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS or CFLAGS
declarations in config.site).

* When you have required preprocessor flags like -I../include
and -L../lib, they should go on the command line before
anything the user might have specified. If I tell the build
system I want -L/usr/athena/lib in my link lines, krb5
should not put that first and pick up previously installed
krb5 libraries from there.

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU>
To: krb5-bugs@MIT.EDU, Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
Cc: gnats-admin@RT-11.MIT.EDU, krb5-prs@RT-11.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: pending/677: Build system problems
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 12:44:11 -0500

* The user should be able to run "make CFLAGS=foo" to override
the non-required cflags (-g vs. -O and anything specified in
the CFLAGS environment variable at configure time) for the
program. The same applies to CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS. krb5
uses CFLAGS and LDFLAGS as its own variables, stuffing
things like the -I../include options which are required for
compilation. This violates the gnu makefile standards, and
means that I can't control the compilation of krb5 in the
same way I control the compilation of other autoconf'd
packages (by putting LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS or CFLAGS
declarations in config.site).

Use the --with-ccflags option to the configure script instead. IMHO, the
GNU Makefile standards are broken, since you can do the configure tests
with one set of CFLAGS options, and then compile with a different set of
CFLAGS options. It's also extremely inconvenient as a developer to
type "make CFLAGS=foo" each time I recompile in a particular directory,
instead of simply running "configure --with-cflags=foo" once, and then
simply typing "make" when I need to recompile in a particular directory.

Yes, at some point I suppose I should make CFLAGS work the way folks
used to GNU conventions work, but for now, the easiest workaround is to
use --with-ccflags option.

- Ted

Responsible-Changed-From-To: gnats-admin->krb5-unassigned
Responsible-Changed-By: raeburn
Responsible-Changed-When: Fri Sep 14 10:46:41 2001
Responsible-Changed-Why:

refiled