Re: silent build rules

While we're on the issue of Automake silent rules, I've got a comment 
about Libtool hiding half of it's compiles.(Thus, I've added the libtool 
list as well.)

I was recently building a project that failed without an error message, 
while running under "non-silent" mode, or the original GNU build noise 
level. This puzzled me to no end until I realized that the error was 
occurring in one of the two (pic/non-pic) compiles that libtool shuffles 
off to /dev/null. The error was regarding global labels found in in-line 
assembly, that -fPIC builds didn't like. But the -fPIC builds were 
silenced.

Is there any command-line option for configure and/or make that will 
keep libtool from hiding half the compiles? (Odd that I, of all people, 
should ask for this, since I was one of the original proponents of 
silent builds!)

:)

John

On 4/1/2009 1:32 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Apr 2009, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>
>> * Eric Blake wrote on Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 08:52:36PM CEST:
>>> According to Bob Friesenhahn on 4/1/2009 12:40 PM:
>>>>
>>>> It seems that I will need to permanently define and export the 
>>>> arbitrary
>>>> variable 'V' in my shell environment in order to avoid confusion later
>>>> since I won't know how a build will behave until I type 'make'.  That
>>>> leaves 25 more single-letter variables for my own use.
>>
>> The rationale for keeping V was that users accustomed to the Linux build
>> system would not have to relearn.  Maybe that is not such a good
>> rationale: those who build the kernel regularly are hardly the least
>> experienced users.
>
> More significantly, GNU users are not restricted to the Linux kernel 
> or having any Linux experience at all.  What feels normal for a Linux 
> user may be bizarre for a non-Linux user.
>
> My opinion is that if this mode is optional that it should default to 
> "off" and that an action taken by the user (dot file, environment 
> variable, configure option) to declare a personal preference can be 
> used to trigger the Linux mode.  Perhaps additional build modes would 
> be contributed in the future.
>
>>>> Hopefully it won't alter the behavior of other scripts or builds.
>>
>> As I wrote off-list already, unless you use the 'silent-rules' option
>> for your packages, your code should be built as always.
>
> This new m4 release is the first package I have seen with this 
> automake "Linux mode".  I checked it for a special automake option and 
> did not find it so I assume that it was provided when m4 was manually 
> bootstrapped.
>
>>> the default verbosity level that they are comfortable with.  Something
>>> like './configure --disable-silent-rules' to request the V=1 behavior?
>
> It is wrong to change the default from the convention used by GNU 
> packages for at least 20 years.  GNU packages should all build the 
> same by default.  This year's package should build similar (by 
> default) to last-year's package.
>
> Users of complex packages like my own would suffer severely if they 
> build in Linux mode by default.  Users of simple stand-alone packages 
> like 'm4' are unlikely to suffer.
>
>> This is an open problem, and mentioned here:
>> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.patches/3408>
>> Suggestions welcome.
>
> A configure flag to set the user-preferred default is reasonable, as 
> long as the default is the traditional "GNU" mode.
>
> Bob
> -- 
> Bob Friesenhahn
> [email protected], 
> http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
> GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
>
>
>