[MPlayer-dev-eng] deterministic builds

[Joey Parrish]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 08:42:55PM +0100, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> While playing a while with ./configure i've noticed some things:

> * some common automake parameters like --sysconfdir are not supported

If, like most distros, you have a patchset to apply to a package before
build, just create a very simple patch to add --sysconfdir for whatever.
If this is truly required to do some task instead of just being a stub,
then your patch should map it to the mplayer configure representation.
(How is --sysconfdir different from --confdir?  Have you read the
beginning part of ./configure --help?)

> * many feature options are only available as --enable-xxx or --disable-xxx
>   (the default setting seems not to be supported as explicit parameter)

It's the default, why do you need an explicit parameter to specify it in
the first place?  If you want it autodetected and such a detection is
available, don't say anything.  If you want to force it on, use
--enable, to force it off, use --disable.  Both are supported, despite
the defaults listed in ./configure --help.

> * there seems to be no way for finding out what build configuration 
>   configure is in fact using.

After it's done, read config.h and config.mak that it generated.  This
is the most complete description of what it decided.  Also, see
configure.log for details, although this would be more difficult for a
machine to parse and understand.

--Joey

-- 
All philosophy is naive.