[Dnsmasq-discuss] Fwd: [PATCH] Makefile: make variables overridable

Geert Stappers stappers at stappers.nl
Sun Jul 12 21:19:42 BST 2020


On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 09:05:17PM +0200, Pali Rohár wrote:
> On Sunday 12 July 2020 13:53:11 John Ericson wrote:
> > Hi, I am another NixOS maintainer.
> > 
> > Yes, it is true that ?= in makefiles is somewhat rare, and that we
> > can work around this other ways. But it was I who proposed the ?=
> > change on our side, so let say why I think it's the right choice:
> > 
> > Most C packages don't use "?=" and do
> >  FOO ?= foo
> > but instead do have a configure script, so they do
> >  FOO = @FOO@
> > with regular "=". However that configure script *does* silently
> > consume environment variables, so the effect is the same.
> 
> "FOO ?= foo" syntax is not supported by POSIX make:
> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/make.html
> 
> And requires some GNU Make extension.
> 
> I guess because dnsmasq is supported also on non-GNU Make systems, it
> cannot take some patch which adds dependency on Linux or GNU specific
> feature.

I rather hope that dnsmasq is considered usefull in worlds outside
the Linux and GNU world.

 
> > I wouldn't request upstream add a configure script is nothing
> > is needed, and I don't even like the implicitness of environment
> > variables myself. But the fact is it is the standard for distros
> > to communicate information to all the myriad build systems,
> > so I advocate this change so distros can remove extra packaging hacks.
> > 
> > The variable we need to override is PKG_CONFIG.
> 
> Basically I do not understand whole point of this patch. If you for
> compilation need to override some Makefile variable, why do you not
> set correct value of that variable?
> 
> It is lot of easier to set correct value during compilation as patching
> sources or sending patch to upstream and waiting if it would be released
> in new version.

I have prepared a patch which only changes the PKG_CONFIG
and does have explaination[1] in the commit message.


Groeten
Geert Stappers

[1] as I see it ...
-- 
Silence is hard to parse



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