[Zlib-devel] configure - test execution method

[Mark Adler]

On Apr 20, 2010, at 1:56 PM, Alon Bar-Lev wrote:
> Why not check for execution status?

I could have sworn we've talked about this already.

Because that would be a massive change to ./configure that would likely cause problems, but with no benefit.  The first reason is simply, don't fix it if it ain't broke.

The second reason is that I just recently saw the wisdom of using output instead of the exit status.  In testing for __attribute__ using the exit status resulted in ignoring compiler warnings in Solaris, which then resulted in massive useless warning barfing when compiling the source files.  Testing using the output avoids the problem.  So the second reason is that its better.

If there are warnings that make the zero output case fail, then we should know what the warnings are.  Then we can see if they matter, and fix the code or the compile options to eliminate the warnings, once we're satisfied its ok.  So the third reason is that checking only the exit status can hide something important.

Mark