autoconf computed include file name - include

Would anybody know if there's any way of computing the name of an included file in autoconf ?
I have a project capable of building one of several variants currently based on an identity defined in configure.ac - my aim is to be able to identify the variant from the CLI when autoconf/configure is run and include an m4 file if/as appropriate. AFAICT, only string literals are allowed as the filename in either the include or sinclude macro calls ... and it's now starting to drive me to distraction =:-O
Any help most gratefully received
DP

The identity is setup at configure runtime, not when configure is created. Any m4 level (e.g. m4sugar) manipulation of configure will happen before then, so this doesn't look possible.

Related

How do I specify compile time defines in Mercury?

How do I specify compile time defines in Mercury?
I would like to have the build system read the version number out of a configuration file and pass it into the module for access by predicates and functions.
For example, in C I'd do something like: gcc -DVERSION="1.2.0", and then use the newly defined macro VERSION in the source.
Zoltan Somogyi on the Mercury Users Mailing List Responded with:
[Compile time defines, like in C, aren't possible in Mercury], because it is that is a piece of functionality that is rarely needed, which is easy to achieve without special support within Mercury itself.
....
[For your specific need, pushing in the version number from the build system]
Have something like a file named version.m.in containing
:- module version.
:- interface.
:- func version = string.
:- implementation.
version = "#VERSION#".
and then have a shell or sed script that constructs version.m from version.m.in by replacing #VERSION# with the actual version string. If you want the version string to change without human intervention (e.g. to reflect the current date), you would then add an mmake rule to construct version.m from version.m.in automatically at appropriate points in time.

Linking against an external object file (.o) with autoconf

For work purposes I need to link against an object file generated by another program and found in its folder, the case is that I did not find information about this kind of linkage. I think that if I hardcode the paths and put the name-of-obj.o in front of the package_LDADD variable should work, but the case is that I don't want to do it that way.
If the object is not found I want the configure to fail and tell the user that the name-of-obj.o is missing.
I tried by using AC_LIBOBJ([name-of-obj.o]) but this will try to find in the root directory a name-of-obj.c and compile it.
Any tip or solution around this issue?
Thank you!
I need to link against an object file generated by another program and
found in its folder
What you describe is a very unusual requirement, not among those that the Autotools are designed to handle cleanly or easily. In particular, Autoconf has no mechanisms specifically applicable to searching for bare object files, as opposed to libraries, and Automake has no particular automation around including such objects when it links. Nevertheless, these tools do have enough general purpose functionality to do what you want; it just won't be as tidy as you might like.
I think that if I hardcode the paths and put the
name-of-obj.o in front of the package_LDADD variable should work, but
the case is that I don't want to do it that way.
I take it that it is the "hardcode the paths" part that you want to avoid. Adding an item to an appropriate LDADD variable is not negotiable; it is the right way to get your object included in the link.
If the object is not found I want the configure to fail and tell the
user that the name-of-obj.o is missing.
Well, then, the key thing appears to be to get configure to perform a search for your object file. Autoconf does not have a built-in mechanism to perform such a search, but it's just a macro-based shell-script generator, so you can write such a search in shell script + Autoconf, maybe something like this:
AC_MSG_CHECKING([for name-of-obj.o])
OTHER_LOCATION=
for my_dir in
/some/location/other_program/src
/another/location/other_program.12345/src
$srcdir/../relative/location/other_program/src; do
AS_IF([test -r "${my_dir}/name-of-obj.o"], [
# optionally, perform any desired test to check that the object is usable
# ... perhaps one using AC_LINK_IFELSE ...
# if it passes, then
OTHER_LOCATION=${my_dir}
break
])
done
# Check whether the object was in fact discovered, and act appropriately
AS_IF([test "x${OTHER_LOCATION}" = x], [
# Not found
AC_MSG_RESULT([not found])
AC_MSG_ERROR([Cannot configure without name-of-obj.o])
], [
AC_MSG_RESULT([${OTHER_LOCATION}/name-of-obj.o])
AC_SUBST([OTHER_LOCATION])
])
That's functional, but of course you could embellish, such as by providing for the package builder to specify a location to use via a command-line argument (AC_ARG_WITH(...)). And if you want to do this for multiple objects, then you would probably want to wrap up at least some of that into a custom macro.
The Automake side is much less involved. To get the object linked, you just need to add it to the appropriate LDADD variable, using the output variable created by the above, such as:
foo_LDADD = $(OTHER_LOCATION)/name-of-obj.o
Note that if you're building just one program target then you can use the general LDADD instead of foo_LDADD, but note that by default these are alternatives not complements.
With that said, this is a bad idea overall. If you want to link something that is not part of your project, then you should get it from an installed library. That can be a local, custom-built library, of course, so long as it is a library, not a bare object file, and it is installed. It can be a static library if you don't want to rely on or distribute a separate shared library.
On the other hand, if your project is part of a larger build, then the best approach is probably to integrate it into that build, maybe as a subproject. It would still be best to link a library instead of a bare object file, but in a subproject context it might make sense to use a lib that was not installed to the build system. In conjunction with a command-line argument that tells it where to find the wanted lib, this could make the needed Autoconf code much cleaner and clearer.

how to check for a macro defined in a c file in Makefile?

I have a #define ONB in a c file which (with several #ifndef...#endifs) changes many aspects of a programs behavior. Now I want to change the project makefile (or even better Makefile.am) so that if ONB is defined and some other options are set accordingly, it runs some special commands.
I searched the web but all i found was checking for environment variables... So is there a way to do this? Or I must change the c code to check for that in environment variables?(I prefer not changing the code because it is a really big project and i do not know everything about it)
Questions: My level is insufficient to ask in comments so I will have to ask here:
How and when is the define added to the target in the first place?
Do you essentially want a way to be able to post compile query the binaries to to determine if a particular define was used?
It would be helpful if you could give a concrete example, i.e. what are the special commands you want run, and what are the .c .h files involved?
Possible solution: Depending on what you need you could use LLVM tools to maybe generate and examine the AST of your code to see if a define is used. But this seems a little like over engineering.
Possible solution: You could also use #includes to pull in .c or header files and a conditional error be generated, or compile (to a .o), then if the compile fails you know it is defined or not. But this has it's own issues depending on how things are set-up in your make file.

Trying to make SCons Ada Builder work with VariantDir

I'm struggling with the last pieces of logic to make our Ada builder work as expectedly with variantdir. The problem is caused by the fact that the inflexible tools gnatbind and gnatlink doesn't allow the binder files to be placed in a directory other than the current one. This leaves me with two options:
Let gnatbind write the the binder files to topdir and then let gnatlink pick it from there. This may however cause race conditions if we want to allow simulatenous builds for different architectures and compiler versions which we want.
Modify the calls to gnatbind and gnatlink to temporarily go down to the build directory, in our case build/$ARCH/src-path. I successfully fixed the gnatbind step as this is explicitly called using a env.Execute from within the Ada builder. To try to fix the linking step I've modified the Program env using
env["LINKCOM"] = SCons.Action.Action(ada_linkcom)
where ada_linkcom is defined as
def ada_linkcom(source, target,env ):
....
return ret
where ret is a string describing what should be done in the shell. I need this to be a function it contains a bit complicated logic to convert paths from being relative to top-level to just containing their basenames.
This however fails with an error in scons-2.3.1/SCons/Executor.py on line 347 in function do_execute. Isn't env["LINKCOM"] allowed to be a function with ada_linkcom's signature?
No, it's not. You seem to think that 'env["LINKCOM"]' is what actually calls/executes the final build command, and that's not quite correct. Instead, environment variables like LINKCOM get expanded by the Executor/Builder for each specified Action, and are then executed.
You can have Python functions as Actions, and also use a so-called "generator" to create your Action strings on-the-fly. But you have to assign this Action to a Builder, and can't set it as an environment variable directly.
Please also have a look at the UserGuide ( http://www.scons.org/doc/production/HTML/scons-user.html ), especially section 18.4 "Builders That Execute Python Functions". Our basic guide for writing Builders and Tools might also prove to be helpful: http://www.scons.org/wiki/ToolsForFools

script within a Makefile to find out path to a toolchain genericaly

I am trying to write a Makefile for a JVM port. I have already exported a variable like $CROSS_COMPILE=mipsel-linux-
This can be different for different platformd with its specific toolchains.
The toolchain can be located at different locations, but is guaranteed to be in the PATH( eg: /opt/toolchains/mipsel/bin/mipsel-linux-gcc)
My aim is to genericaly get the path upto "opt/toolchains/mipsel/bin/mipsel-linux-" from within my make file.
My current thinking is the do something like
1) which $(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc ----- Which will return something like "/opt/toolchains/mipsel/bin/mipsel-linux-gcc"
2) Use that string and remove the gcc from the end.
I guess this should be possible. I have no idea though on how to proceed. Pointers on how to start will be appreciated.
I have tried "which $(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc" and which ($(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc), both of which arent working
There are plenty of GNU Make funcions to retrieve for example a directory name.
PATHTOTOOLS:=$(dir $(shell which $(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc))
Also note the use of the := assignement to compute it only once and thus avoid running the which command repeatedly.

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