Re: Patch to check for required programs when building from source checkout

[Pádraig Brady]

Jim Meyering wrote:
> Pádraig Brady <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Jim Meyering wrote:
>>> Thanks for writing that up.
>>> Would you care to ensconce it somewhere more permanent?
>> How about the attached?
> 
> Thanks!
> However, since your instructions are Fedora 8-specific (and hence
> guaranteed to be far less useful in a year or two), I hesitate to
> put it in this file.

Well they're Fedora specific instructions rather than Fedora 8 specific.
But I take your point in that it's not general enough for that file.

> Also, you probably didn't realize, but that file
> deliberately minimizes mentions of coreutils, because I've used it almost
> verbatim in a couple other projects, e.g., idutils.  The only varying
> part is the list of required tools.

I missed that yes.

> And even that, ... prompted by recent suggestions from Ed Avis, I've been
> thinking about how best to do what he wants (bootstrap-time version/prereq
> tests) without compromising generality.  Looking at README-hacking,
> I think I found a good way:
> 
> have README-hacking refer to a list of files with package-name,min-version
> pairs and have bootstrap read that same file.  Then bootstrap would
> be able to perform tests for the required tools, and README-hacking
> would no longer have the per-package-varying list of prerequisites.
> 
> So, whether the list of pairs would go in bootstrap.cfg
> or merely be in a separate file and be read by bootstrap.cfg
> (former sounds better), I'm not sure...
> 
> Are you interested in doing something like that?

Well all missing dependencies are currently reported I think,
but it can be minutes into the build before this happens.
I'll add a list to bootstrap.conf to give immediate feedback.

> Regarding your build recipe, maybe we need a wiki?
> New file?

Perhaps we need a README-{fedora,debian,solaris,mingw,...}
./bootstrap should just work, but the above files would
detail how best to get the prerequisites.

Pádraig.