Re: BUG (v1.5.6.1): ./configure missing check for zlib.h

From: tom fogal <tfogal@alumni.unh.edu>
Date: Jun 27, 2008, 15:07 UTC
Message-ID: <20080627150732.D88F64B4002@artemis.sr.unh.edu>
In-Reply-To: <m3prq3hr6n.fsf@localhost.localdomain>

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Mircea Bardac <dev@mircea.bardac.net> writes:
> 
> > $ ./configure
> [...]
> > configure: CHECKS for header files
> > In file included from daemon.c:1:
> > cache.h:9:18: error: zlib.h: No such file or directory
> > make: *** [daemon.o] Error 1
> > 
> > (installing zlib1g-dev on Ubuntu 7.10 fixed the problem)
> 
> What should ./configure do (what ./configure for other programs
> or packages do)?

If one can determine during configure time that a required library is not found, it (IMHO) is nice to give an error message and bomb out (via AC_MSG_ERROR).

The AC macro archive has a zlib macro which does this, as an example:

   http://autoconf-archive.cryp.to/check_zlib.html

I should note, however, that I disagree with that macro's logic in that it `searches' for zlib if the user does not specify it. IMO, if the user does not give a --with option, and it doesn't work `out of the box' (without hacking FLAGS), macros should die with an error rather than retry with changed FLAGS.

-tom