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Re: config.cache considered harmful
>>>>> "AD" == Akim Demaille <akim@epita.fr> writes:
>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Buchholz <martin@xemacs.org> writes:
Martin> But this is just a special case that will reduce the
Martin> mismatches, but leave the most damaging mismatches (because
Martin> the most confusing and misleading and most likely to be
Martin> silent) to the end.
AD> I think we all agree Alexandre proposal is very acceptable. In
AD> addition, one just has to export cache_file=./config.cache to have
AD> what she was used to.
Yes! We've reached rough consensus.
Martin> My new vague proposal above would leave the config.cache used
Martin> mostly for programs that were designed to be used together.
AD> I don't agree here (or I misunderstood your suggestion). The
AD> decisions belongs to the installer, period. She can use both
AD> $cache_file (we might discuss yet another envvar name, but I don't see
AD> much point here) and --cache-file to do what we wants, this seems
AD> enough to me.
Forget this thought experiment of mine.
Martin> I shouldn't be admitting this, but it is possible to turn off
Martin> the caching for a specific variable by just setting a
Martin> particular shell variable.
AD> How??? I see a means with `unset', but it is not portable, so it is
AD> excluded.
I think I used `unset'. And XEmacs' configure uses `unset' today, and
no one I know of has hit this non-portability. XEmacs does not try to
be as portable to hostile systems as autoconf, and this is as it
should be.
Martin