readline issue

[James Berry]

Paul,

thanks for the analysis.

I see two really easy choices, either of which I would support:

	(1) As you say, simply "fix" the readline location. We could make it  
a configure option for those who really want to change it.
	(2) Remove the readline library from MacPorts altogether. It's used  
only in interactive mode, which I believe about two people have ever  
used.

Given my druthers, I'd choose (1), but I'm happy with either  
solution, and certainly will listen to any other feedback people have.

James

On Apr 7, 2007, at 9:14 PM, Paul Guyot wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> We cannot simply autoconf for readline for the following reasons:
> (a) readline comes with two incompatible APIs.
> (b) Apple's gcc reads /usr/local/include before /usr/include
> (c) Apple's ld reads /usr/lib/libreadline.dylib before /usr/local/ 
> lib/libreadline.a when provided with -L/usr/local/lib
> (d) some users have an incompatible version of readline in /usr/local.
>
> In other words, if you install the incompatible version of readline  
> available in ticket 10651 in /usr/local, I think you cannot compile  
> *and* link the following piece of code without redefining  
> completely the list of system includes, with -nostdinc. Which is  
> the beginning of a nightmare.
> https://svn.macosforge.org/projects/macports/ticket/10651
>
> #include <stdio.h>
> # include <readline/readline.h>
> int main(void) {
> 	void* ptr = (void*) rl_username_completion_function;
> 	return 0;
> }
>
> or this one:
>
> #include <stdio.h>
> # include <readline/readline.h>
> int main(void) {
> 	void* ptr = (void*) username_completion_function;
> 	return 0;
> }
>
> I think it's time to wonder why we autoconf for readline (and other  
> stuff). At some point we decided that MacPorts (then darwinports)  
> was to support MacOS X only. (I was against this decision, but here  
> we are today; and considering that I no longer can install MacPorts  
> on linux boxes I have access to, I would favor the use or more  
> MacOS X technologies). Should we simply drop the autoconf options  
> for readline? Should we just determine what's the API version of  
> readline installed in /usr/? Should we keep users whining they  
> cannot install MacPorts because they have a readline in /usr/local?
>
> Vincent: before you comment on this, I must say that I am not  
> taking into consideration the C*_PATH and LIBRARY_PATH problem. In  
> fact, I do not care about it at all, I am concerned by end-users  
> not people with a Ph.D. in computer science who are wise enough to  
> know that if they set these variables, it might break things and  
> they need to unset them before compiling base/ :)
>
> Paul
>
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