Problem with configure

[Michael Mueller]

W. Tasin wrote:

> Hmmm... and now to the problem, what do you want to do with a define in
> the gcc-call??
>
> Where is the difference between having it in a header file (which is
> created by autoheader/autoconf) and with a -D switch and for what is
> this define good for (is it only for developing purpose?)?
>
> The problem is the conflict in the shell and make substitution.
>
> Use for the KDevelop options -DSOMEPATH='\"/foo/bar\"', so you will have
> the desired result.
>
> But I don´t agree with this version, if you want to distribute this
> DEFINE.
> The compiler-switch inserted in KDevelop will not be exported to the
> distribution, so
> calling make from the console wouldn´t set the define.
>
> So later you would have to patch either acconfig.h and/or configure.in,
> if you wanted to give the DEFINE also to the user of your product.

In fact, the define comes from an environment variable which has to be set at compile
time and is used to construct pathnames for directories (executables, temporary files and
configuration files). So actually, the option would have to be
-DSOMEPATH="${PATHVARIABLE}", but I first tried the simpler version without the
environment variable and came to that problem. The environment variable is set
differently for different products and for debug and release versions. A similar
construct is used to bring a version string into the compiled software.
Maybe I should note that we are currently investigating whether to use KDevelop for
porting a large package of legacy software to Linux. I never had to deal with configure
before using KDevelop, so I don't know much about it. May be it doesn't make sense for us
to use configure, since it makes no sense to distribute our software because it can only
be used together with very expensive hardware which only we build and sell. But KDevelop
by default uses configure and so I first tried to do it this way. May be we will use
KDevelop with only ordinary makefiles.

Regards,

Michael