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Re: AC_HEADER_MAJOR vs. glibc 2.25(-to-be)
- From: Paul Eggert <eggert at cs dot ucla dot edu>
- To: Zack Weinberg <zackw at panix dot com>, Nick Bowler <nbowler at draconx dot ca>
- Cc: autoconf at gnu dot org, GNU C Library <libc-alpha at sourceware dot org>
- Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 18:32:32 -0700
- Subject: Re: AC_HEADER_MAJOR vs. glibc 2.25(-to-be)
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <CAKCAbMgx-N-w4iuCh3+GkMOup=FQ749vd_qPJ2qyZusaVsnEgQ@mail.gmail.com> <CADyTPEzsvKjY+wPOE7V=1jOpzDW+npojohsEbk2C42oDLyeWSg@mail.gmail.com> <CAKCAbMiU62_7RrNFaVsRzBd93DE+Kuj+XF3KLw3ChF4LedwZ_A@mail.gmail.com>
It seems that the simplest short term solution is to just not use
-Werror when building packages. Other than the warning, the header
detection worked, and the test is behaving as documented, right?
AC_HEADER_MAJOR is obeying the letter of its documentation but not the
spirit. People using it reasonably expect that it should handle this
transition seamlessly for them.
Sure, but Nick's correct that Autoconf-generated code typically cannot be
configured with -Werror, as there are too many false positives. The problem with
AC_HEADER_MAJOR is just one of many. So I wouldn't worry about a change causing
an error for that case. People should not configure with -Werror, that's all.
This has long been common practice among Autoconf users. For example:
There's your problem right there. We really do not recommend the use of
CFLAGS=-Werror during configuration, because it simply does not work.
...
Seriously - the recommendation on this list is that you never use
-Werror during configure (except maybe to temporarily probe whether
-Werror even works);
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2012-12/msg00001.html