Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
So I need to reconfigure in a different directory to run with different pacman? No thanks.
No, not reconfigure. Just configure. One time, to create the builddir.
From then on, until you 'rm -r' it, that buildir remembers the --with-scriptlet-shell (and other configured args) you set it up with. It is connected to your srcdir (== git workdir) so it sees whatever branch / proposed patch you load there, making it very easy to recompile with the alternate scriptlet-shell, run new tests against your system pacman, or any other thing you need to do under those configured args.
If you are using in-srcdir builds then you are doing reconfigures that are wasting a lot of your time. Maybe it doesn't happen every day, but when someone submits a patch to you that pertains to a configuration other than your current in-srcdir build what do you do? Take the Doxygen patches I posted recently, for example. Don't you need to try those out with at least both --enable- and --disable-doxygen? Please don't tell me you tried it out in-srcdir with your standard configure args, then, after that was done, reconfigured and retested, and then reconfigured back to restore your working dir config! With multiple VPATH builddirs you could avoid all that reconfiguring and even run the makes in parallel. I am completely flummoxed. Your time is infinitely more valuable than any disk space spent on VPATH builddirs. You're very smart, so it will take you little time to adjust your workflow to use these tools. And the payoff will be much less of your time wasted. Good grief! I sound like a shill for autoconf. Sorry about that. I would have to be really desperate before I took that job, even if it actually existed. Dave: I ceded to your desire to author the patch that fixes VPATH builds. So you must understand what I'm saying. Back me up here. And somebody please reassure me there's a CI running with a good cross-product of the configurables. Jeremy