config. and libtool update primitive needed

[jpm@…]

a lot of source out there needs an updated config.guess and config.sub as well as the libtool files. it would be nice darwinports offered a primitive that would do this for you instead of having the maintainer constantly implement it across ports.

on darwin we can copy them from /usr/share/libtool/ but it would be nice if there were a more robust way of handling this issue. i think fink has this functionality but really i have no idea.

i know gnu maintained config files can be found at: ​ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/config/config.guess ​ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/config/config.sub

[landonf@…]

Is it safe, and will it always work, to copy the files from /usr/share/libtool/ ? If so, we can look into this. I prefer people to generate patches to the project and submit them back to the author.

[jpm@…]

speculating: i would think that the version in /usr/share/libtool/ should always work for darwin, but would this primitive also work on other platforms? if not it might be safer to just pull the gnu maintained versions down and use those.

looking at the timestamps on the config scripts, the gnu maintained version is more than fifteen months newer than that in darwin's /usr/share/libtool/

i will see if i can make a simple primitive to do this later this week (post-finals). it would be a decent _real_ contribution to the project. reassign if you please...

[landonf@…]

Toss a diff in here if you get to this. We can review it apple CCC style.

[jpm@…]

diff that adds configure_update primitive

[jpm@…]

okay i added the variable configure_update which defaults to 'no', but when enabled updates both config.guess and config.sub. i am unsure if the config scripts exist in the same location on not-darwin platforms so until then i default to an error message when executed elsewhere.

i am a little confused on making the 'configure_update' variable an exported option but it seemed to work out correctly. if i am making some stupid tcl-mistakes just slap my hand and i will learn :0)

please take a look at the diff when you get a minute or two...

[drm@…]

Most packages which need an update to config.sub and config.guess just need an update to *some* version which recognizes Darwin at all. So the version supplied by Apple should be fine.

However, it would great to have the option to also copy these files to a list of subdirectories of ${worksrcpath} as well. Some packages run ./configure in multiple directories and may need multiple copies of these files (or may be a single copy, but in a "config" directory or some such).

[drm@…]

There is another thing which is needed by older software packages (ones using libtool 1.3.5): drop-in replacements for ltmain.sh and ltconfig. Suitable replacements were written by Christoph Pfisterer and can be obtained at ​http://fink.sourceforge.net/files/ltconfig and ​http://fink.sourceforge.net/files/ltmain.sh .

See ​http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/porting/libtool.php for some general background on libtool-related porting issues.

[jpm@…]

should the libtool updating switch be the same as the one that activates the config scripts? perhaps that should be filed as a separate bug

if there is interest / desire to incorporating this feature, i will update the patch but i haven't heard much yet. ping.

[landonf@…]

The need for this has drastically decreased, and cleaner alternatives are available.