* Joseph S. Myers wrote on Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 11:42:34PM CET: > On Sun, 17 Feb 2008, Ralf Wildenhues wrote: > > > So, here's another alternative: fix the MinGW issue only, while not > > regressing on any of the other reported bug (famous last words): > > One way for path translation on MinGW would be to use > > CMD //c echo "@set srcdir" "$(abs_srcdir)" > > If the abs_srcdir value is not usable by the host tools on some platform, > shouldn't that be fixed in the code setting abs_srcdir, and not for an > individual use of abs_srcdir? Or is it not feasible to fix the abs_srcdir > setting without changing Autoconf itself?
First, since Autoconf code sets abs_srcdir, a clean change of the code should be inside Autoconf. That could be overridden in configure.ac, for GCC only. This path translation is really necessary on MinGW only for programs that have not been provided by mingw.org and thus do not live below /bin, and that also receive paths via means other than the command line. IIRC, the tools below /bin are compiled in a way that they don't need path translation, and for tools placed elsewhere, the system translates command line arguments that somehow look like absolute paths. Blanket abs_srcdir translation for a system whose very reason of existence is to allow to run configure scripts (unmodified?), is to be weighed against the danger that abs_srcdir uses may not be prepared for a C: directory prefix. Thus my proposal to limit the translation to the places where it's absolutely necessary. I would further suggest to plan to remove the use of abs_srcdir for gcc-vers.texi at all again as soon as fixed texinfo 4.11 can be required. Should I note this alongside the Makefile rule? OK for trunk and 4.2? Thanks, Ralf
