mainGNU Libtool - Support: sr #110674, Option --with-pic is a misnomer

 
 

sr #110674: Option --with-pic is a misnomer

Submitter:  Bruno Haible <haible>
Submitted:  Thu 23 Jun 2022 04:29:37 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  None Priority:  5 - Normal
Severity:  3 - Normal Status:  None
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  None
Open/Closed:  Open Operating System:  GNU/Linux
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Mon 29 Jan 2024 05:56:34 PM UTC, comment #6: 

I have also verified, of course, that with the two patches the output of './configure --help' is as desired.

Bruno Haible <haible>
Mon 29 Jan 2024 05:37:11 PM UTC, comment #5: 

Find attached two patches that fix the problem. I have verified them by

  • running libtool's "make check",


  • applying them to GNU gettext and verifying that (on FreeBSD) the generated libintl.a is compiled as PIC when --enable-pic or --with-pic is specified and as non-PIC by default.


  • applying them to GNU gettext and verifying that (on AIX 7.1, in 32-bit mode) the options --enable-aix-soname=both and --with-aix-soname=both have the same effect (of creating a file libintl.so.8 and a symlink libintl.so).



(file #55641, file #55642)

Bruno Haible <haible>
Mon 29 Jan 2024 03:24:49 PM UTC, comment #4: 

Spreading confusion about what --enable-... and --with-... options mean is one of the problems. Another one is that, in the './configure --help' output, these options appear in the section "Optional Packages", whereas they belong in the section "Optional Features".

Bruno Haible <haible>
Mon 29 Jan 2024 01:57:32 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Makes sense. We could change this after the next release. It does seem odd now that I'm looking at it.

Ileana Dumitrescu <ildumi>
Group administrator
Mon 29 Jan 2024 08:42:09 AM UTC, comment #2: 


> old versions that have --with-pic & not --enable-pic will stick around basically forever.


Yes, we can't make old versions disappear. E.g. a search on codesearch.debian.net shows that 6% of all Debian sources still integration with libtool version 1.x.

But that's not the point. The point of this bug report is that the './configure --help' output (and the libtool documentation) should not spread confusion about what --enable-... and --with-... options mean.

The support for the old spelling does not need to be documented; it can be supported silently.

Bruno Haible <haible>
Mon 29 Jan 2024 06:32:56 AM UTC, comment #1: 

i don't know that we would ever really drop the option.  since libtool is included in source distros, old versions that have --with-pic & not --enable-pic will stick around basically forever.

Mike Frysinger <vapier>
Group Member
Thu 23 Jun 2022 04:29:37 AM UTC, original submission:  

A configure script that is built with libtool 2.4.7 has the options
('configure --help' output):

  --with-pic[=PKGS]       try to use only PIC/non-PIC objects [default=use
                          both]
  --with-aix-soname=aix|svr4|both
                          shared library versioning (aka "SONAME") variant to
                          provide on AIX, [default=aix].


Per the GNU Coding Standards, https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Configuration.html, these options ought to be called --enable-something, not --with-something.

Probably you'll need to continue to support the --with-* spelling for a while, though, for backward compatibility.

Bruno Haible <haible>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

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Attached Files
file #55641:  0001-Rename-option-with-pic-to-enable-pic.patch added by haible (9KiB - text/x-patch - Proposed fix (2 patches))
file #55642:  0002-Rename-option-with-aix-soname-to-enable-aix-soname.patch added by haible (6KiB - text/x-patch - Proposed fix (2 patches))

 

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    Follow 2 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2024-01-29 haible Attached File- Added 0001-Rename-option-with-pic-to-enable-pic.patch, #55641
        Attached File- Added 0002-Rename-option-with-aix-soname-to-enable-aix-soname.patch, #55642

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