[vlc-devel] [PATCH] configure.ac: enforce compilation check for wordexp

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le keskiviikkona 2. joulukuuta 2020, 19.32.27 EET David Fuhrmann a écrit :
> Hello all,
> 
> If I recall correctly, in the past we discussed the situation that a symbol
> might not be available in the oldest OS version we support, but it was
> introduced later on and is available in the current version we are
> compiling on. 

In the past, we considered the problem of an SDK exposing a symbol that cannot 
actually be used, and whether overriding the autoconf variables was an 
appropriate solution. I did point out that would just keep breaking, and that 
it was not even explicitly supported by autoconf.

As I recall, everybody agreed that patching all the configure scripts was 
intractable. Besides, it is all but guaranteed to break tests on many non-CI-
tested platforms.
I think people are getting fixated on CI and losing the plot here. The point of 
feature tests in configure scripts is not to make a reverse abstraction puzzle 
game to support CI targets. We can do that much more easily with OS-specific 
code. The point is to support the millions of build setups that are *not* 
tested in CI.

You were the only to insist overriding tests results either in configure or in 
the shell script, leading to the compromise on the shell script.

Don't come splitting hairs now.

> This is a problem which is specific to release building of
> VLC, which can be considered a special use case.

In other words, it's the exact same problem.
Newer systems seem to work just fine.

-- 
Реми Дёни-Курмон
http://www.remlab.net/