Re: [PATCH] Improve behavior of AC_CHECK_TOOL; introduce AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOL.

[Peter Eisentraut]

Nathanael Nerode writes:

> It also introduces an AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOL macro, which checks for tools
> normally native to the target, an oddity needed in gcc and probably useful
> in other compiler projects which include runtime support libraries.

I will not question why you need to know about a target tool during your
build process, but it indeed seems to be an oddity, because a target tool
would presumably run on the "host" platform which is in the general case
not available during the build.  As such, I don't think this feature is
suitable for general consumption.

> The whole logic for that part would be much simpler, and would work better
> in some corner cases, if I made AC_CHECK_TOOL & company depend on
> AC_CANONICAL_HOST and AC_CANONICAL_BUILD, so I could just check whether
> $host = $build.  However, I didn't want to add that dependency unless it
> was considered desirable.

Well, if you need to evaluate the host and build identity then you need
to call AC_CANONICAL_HOST and AC_CANONICAL_BUILD.  That's the deal.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   address@hidden