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Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 13:39:22 -0400
Message-Id: <200004051739.NAA20196@k5.localdomain>
From: Jeff Trawick <trawickj@bellsouth.net>
To: new-httpd@apache.org
In-reply-to: <20000405121351.A17136@io.com> (message from Manoj Kasichainula
	on Wed, 5 Apr 2000 12:13:52 -0500)
Subject: Re: [PATCH] possible solution for a RANLIB make problem
Reply-to: trawickj@bellsouth.net
References: <200004051510.LAA19727@k5.localdomain>
 <20000405121351.A17136@io.com>

> > Certain make utilities get confused when they see stuff like
> > 
> >   RANLIB=:
> > 
> > in a makefile.  
> 
> Which ones, out of curiousity?

OS/390, for one.  Mortice Kern provided the make utility originally,
and Mortice Kern has been doing that on other systems for years.  I
sort of doubt that they rewrote it from scratch for OS/390 just to
introduce little quirks like this.  I have no idea whether or not
Mortice Kern make is used somewhere else where Apache might be built.

> Somebody should probably be sending these issues to the autoconf team,
> so that we can stop worrying about them.

I thought about that.  At first, I thought that defaulting to a colon
was a bug, but it seems very intentional.  I don't know what I'd tell
them, other than "I think your choice of default isn't cool and I
want you to break all the autoconf scripts folks have written over the
years that do stuff with RANLIB so that my stuff works without
changes."  I can only imagine what the response would be.  Somehow the
pissing contests here seem more tame.

My favorite test that fails on OS/390 is a supposed check for ANSI
header files.  The test requires that only lower case letters occupy
'a' through 'z' in the code page.  Without a tweak, configure says we
don't have ANSI header files.  

Another one is the autoconf-provided test for mmap() which APR uses.
The test requires that mmap() be willing to fix arbitrary storage in
order to say that you have mmap().  APR doesn't use that flag, XOpen
doesn't require that flag to be supported, but APR won't use mmap() on
such a system (yet; unfortunate patch to come later).

Have fun,

-- 
Jeff Trawick | trawick@ibm.net | PGP public key at web site:
     http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/9289/
          Born in Roswell... married an alien...