[Asymptote-developers] autotoolization

[Gregg R. <de...@mo...>]

Hi,

I mentioned some work on config/build stuff a few weeks ago on the
Help list.  I think the way to do this is for me to break the work
into discrete pieces, so it's be easier for the maintainers to
understand and test.

So I just uploaded piece number one to the "Patches" on the "Trackers"
tab on the sourceforge site.  It's a revision of the autoconf code for
handling the Boehm garbage collector.  It checks the version number of
libgc.a, and tests for c++ support.  Also supports --without-boehm-gc,
and --with-boehm-gc=/path/to/gc.  No option expressed means
--with-boehm-gc=yes, and searchs the Asymptote default install
directories.

It does away with building the GC, on grounds that that is not
Asymptote's job.  The Boehm GC is becoming quite common, so it's
better to treat it just like any other external package.  The INSTALL
file contains some rudimentary instructions for working with the GC.
'configure'-time error messages direct the user to the INSTALL file,
eliminating clutter in configure.ac.

I've only tested it on one Windows (cygwin) machine: Win2K, cygwin dll
1.5.24, gcc 3.4.4, autoconf 2.61, automake 1.10.

BUGS:  Just now realized I forgot to insert the warning message for
outdated gc versions.  That's an easy change, though.  The test for
c++ support needs to be checked by somebody more familiar with the GC
- I'm not certain my code properly tests a feature only available in
an --enable-cplusplus build.

To link against the gc dir within an existing Asy source tree, do either

  $ ./configure LIBS=-Lgc6.8 LDFLAGS=-lgc

or

  $ ./configure --with-boehm-gc=gc6.8

Sincerely,

Gregg