Re: [PATCH] Simplify _AC_PROG_CC_G

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Oct 18, 2000, Akim Demaille <address@hidden> wrote:

> There was one of those famous Autoconf debates about it.  Alexandre
> will know better than I do.

The problem is that some compilers (GCC without GNU as on HP-UX, for
example) will accept `-g', print a warning message and proceed to
compilation, so the exit status is not enough.  On the other hand,
other compilers will print a Copyright statement before doing anything
else.  I don't see a correct solution to the problem.  Testing for an
object file works, but it may cause each compilation to print a
warning message, which is, at the very least annoying.  I think it's
better to try `-g' and get warnings than drop `-g' when it is
supported.  Which means Morten's change is a step in the right
direction.

One thing we could do in case a compilation with `-g' produces an
object file, a non-empty output and a zero exit status, is to run
another compilation without `-g' and compare the compiler output (but
not the object files, that may have embedded timestamps).  In case the
output changes, we assume `-g' is not supported.  How does this sound?

-- 
Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer                  address@hidden, redhat.com}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp        address@hidden, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist    *Please* write to mailing lists, not to me