Re: --enable-* flags for SWIG directory options?

On Thu, Feb 05, 2026 at 08:11:11PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> We could also allow the user to provide these on the configure line,
> like "./configure SWIG_PERL_INSTALLDIRS=vendor".  This would seem to be
> a better interface than  "./configure --enable-perl-install-mode=vendor",
> especially for the other directory variables.

I do not have any preference. What you propose could be more consistent
with the GNU Coding Standards the way I read it, though I am not very sure.

> I am not familiar with ExtUtils::MakeMaker, but looking at some of its
> documentation, this would seem more similar to the MakeMaker interface
> we are emulating.  That takes its configuration parameters as key-value
> pairs:

Not that it matters much, but I think that it is not such a good
argument, as the two build systems are very different.

>     The Makefile to be produced may be altered by adding arguments of
>     the form KEY=VALUE. E.g.
>     
>     perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=~
> 
> https://metacpan.org/pod/ExtUtils::MakeMaker#Default-Makefile-Behaviour
> 
> The equivalent variables that we are emulating with --enable-* flags
> are documented here: https://metacpan.org/pod/ExtUtils::MakeMaker#make-install