Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcnc!decvax!testmax!evans
From: evans@testmax.ZK3.DEC.COM (Marc Evans Ultrix Q/A)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Problem with Configure on Ultrix
Message-ID: <6382@decvax.dec.com>
Date: 3 Jan 90 12:28:01 GMT
References: <1170@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Sender: news@decvax.dec.com
Reply-To: evans@decvax.DEC.COM
Organization: Synergytics
Lines: 26

I sent Larry a patch for the VOIDSIGNAL problem last week. The problem
in the Configure is actually a bit further reaching then you might think.
On MIPS based hosts (not vaxes!) under ULTRIX, /bin/cc sets the environment
variable LANGUAGE_C when the file being processed is determined to be C
source code (it looks for the '.c' on the end of the name). This allows for
assembly code to be processed by the same front end, as well as the include
files to be used by both C and the assembler.

The approach that I took in modifing Configure was to modify the test header
text to include a '#ifdef LANGUAGE_C', and then modify each invocation of the
$cppstdin to have the argument '-DLANGUAGE_C'. The problem is that I do not
know how portable this construct will be (eg. do all *ix /bin/cc parse the
'-D' syntax?). I guess that Larry can figure this out as needed.

The bottom line of why I am sending this message is because there are other
include files (and a lot more will be comming in the next major release of
ULTRIX) that will contain this construct, so we better get used to handling
it if that is possible (maybe an ULTRIX detector in configure would be
useful?).

- Marc Evans

==========================================================================
Marc Evans - WB1GRH - evans@decvax.DEC.COM  | Synergytics    (603)893-8481
     Unix/X-window Software Contractor      | 3 Koper Ln, Pelham, NH 03076
==========================================================================