On Fri, Jan 23, 2026 at 12:48:38AM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote: > > If the behaviour you describe is useful, we could devise another value > > for TEXINFO_XS than "required" to switch to such behaviour. > > Maybe changing the semantics of 'required' is not a good idea. I'll try > to explain more clearly what is the behaviour I would like to have, then > you can decide if it is right to change 'required' behaviour or add > another possibility or change nothing. > > To me the TEXINFO_XS setting, the TEXINFO_XS_* variables setting, and > whether XS is disabled or not are easy to know and in often under the > user control. Therefore it is does not seems very interesting to me to > diagnose situations where there are inconsistencies among those > variables. Conversely, given TEXINFO_XS_* variables values, whether all > the XS modules and functions that could be loaded are actually loaded is > an interesting information, and is not an information that is easy to > get. One have to set TEXINFO_XS=debug, look at the result, and analyse > it to get to the conclusion that an XS module that could be loaded is > loaded or not. > > What I would like to add is the possibility to set TEXINFO_XS to some > value that leads to a failure if some XS modules that could be loaded > given the values of TEXINFO_XS_* are not loaded. TEXINFO_XS=required as > it is now cannot play that role, because if a XS modules is not loaded > because it is implied by the TEXINFO_XS_* value the command fails.
That all sounds fine but I would like to keep "required" as it is. It's fine to add another option. I suggest "requiredifenabled". The "enabled" part could refer to the result of running 'configure' or the TEXINFO_XS_* variables. I've got in mind to think about how to report status of XS code better for the test suite, but haven't been able to get to this yet. > For example, with TEXINFO_XS_PARSER=0, there is no possibility to > enforce that all the MiscXS modules are loaded (no other XS module can > be loaded since the Parser is the pure Perl parser). Since the other XS > modules cannot be loaded, setting TEXINFO_XS=required leads to a failure > because the Parser pure Perl module is loaded, not the XS module. > > Is it clearer? Does it seems interesting? If yes, should 'required' > meaning be changed, another TEXINFO_XS possibility be added or something > else? > > -- > Pat
