Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker wrote:
>
> behnke> Would it be possible to port autoconf/m4 to Perl?
>
> That should be possible. Personally, I like the idea enormously! At
> least the autoconf stuff. It might be a good idea to keep the m4 part
> of it, that's not the hard part. The hard part is to translate all
> the sh code in the m4 files to other languages, for OS:es where sh is
> not at all a good thing to try.
>
I know this might sound like the ultimate MegaKludge, but would it be
possible to make perl execute the shell code.
The reason for having to do this is the fact that translating all the
M4 macros does not solve the problem. Everybody would need a correctly
configured autoconf suite, most of all the _user_ (in the
stroustrup-library
sense, not the DAU), because the configure script would be dependant on
the
target OS. Only under the assumption that the target machine has a
sh(1), a
ready made configure may be distributed and that is why
'./configure && make && make install' works in the first place.
Thus, not targeting the autoconf suite, but rather a sh-mode for perl
would make the whole thing work. Off course we would still need the
proper
macros for the use of VC++ or the Borland compiler, but those may be
shared
with the users of the cdk.
It might be argued that the project could distribute a perl and a sh
configure
file, but that would need every designer of a M4 macro to implement it
for sh
and perl.
Dough! I was hoping for a rapid move to autoconf, libtool and automake.
mfg lutz
--
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Lutz Behnke Tel.: 040 / 766 29 1423
TC TrustCenter for Security Fax.: 040 / 766 29 577
in Data Networks GmbH email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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