[pacman-dev] [PATCH] Have configure set pactest options that it knows.

[Jeremy Heiner]

Allan McRae <allan at 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