Re: [PATCH] Add --disable-timezone configure option

["Joseph S. Myers" <joseph at codesourcery dot com>]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2012, Allan McRae wrote:

> A number of Linux distributions ship timezone data and utilities as a
> separate package and patch glibc not to build and install these files.
> This adds a --disable-timezone configuration option that removes the
> need for such patching.

I don't think we should support building and installing the data at all - 
it's maintained elsewhere, it's not closely tied to libc, and it's 
generally the case that distributions want to update it much more 
frequently than glibc (and glibc's copy hasn't actually been updated since 
2009i).  It should still include in the source directory the data that is 
needed to run the timezone parts of the testsuite - but there would be no 
need to update it any more as its sole purpose would be as test inputs not 
as a description of the current state of the outside world.

As for the utilities (also not updated for some time ... there I think we 
*should* probably update them from the current tzcode while working out 
what to do long-term), eventually I'd like those separated out as well.  
I'm not sure if there are any useful glibc-specific patches or if tzcode 
is sufficient as a source for them without having a glibc-specific package 
of them, but generally I support separating things out of the glibc build 
unless they really are closely entangled with libc.  It would in that case 
be necessary to use a host zic to build the files for testing, but zic's 
output is system-independent and new zic should work fine with older input 
files.

> 2012-02-12  Allan McRae  <allan@archlinux.org>
> 
> 	* configure.in: Add --disable-timezone support.
> 	* config.make.in: Likewise.
> 	* Makeconfig: Likewise.
> 	* configure: Regenerate.

I don't think the approach here of disabling the whole timezone 
subdirectory is the right way to go; even with installing timezone data 
disabled and utilities coming from elsewhere, the testcases in that 
directory should still be run to verify the timezone functionality in libc 
is working.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com