Re: Linux-kernel style output

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Tommie Gannert wrote on Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 02:11:11PM CEST:
> 
> Okay then. I hope to get a Gentoo flag which enables pretty printing if
> available.

That sounds like a good idea (not quite sure what a Gentoo flag is,
though; but then again, I haven't used it much).

> (And some automated way of sending bug-reports. Maybe a shell script which
> copies config.* and environment variables to a tarball.)

That always sounds like a good idea.

> > > If developers want to know the settings a user is using, the user should
> > > send them config.log and config.status.
> >
> > But that's often not enough!  Looking at the compilation line is often
> > necessary.
> 
> But then you have dynamically assigned variables in the Makefile. Otherwise
> it would be deterministic from the Autoconf configuration. Doesn't
> that mean the maintainer isn't using Autoconf fully?

Hehe, if the world were as simple as that.  The bigger part of the
problem is that I'm often not the maintainer of the package.  :-)
No, seriously, many bug reports against Libtool require us to see
the actual compile/link line, possibly even with --debug.  Also,
independent of the autotools, it's often much easier to analyze a
bug with the additional information given.  Then, one should keep
in mind that system-dependent failures are often not reproducible
on the developer's system.  All in all, even if the information is
fully deducible from the information given, it's usually a time
saver to see the actual failure including command.

Cheers,
Ralf