On Sunday 11 April 2004 01:19, Jim Lynch wrote:
OK; right. Those macros are in tcl.m4, which xotcl also has a copy of. Are they actually copies of each other? Which one is actually used by autoconf, and under what circumstances?
there are many tcl.m4; the one used in xotcl is from an itcl verison.
OK, given that, is not the best tclsh the one specified in the tclConfig.sh file? The SC_PROG_TCLSH does not look for that one first. Further, if any macro finds a different tclsh, you're saying here that it shouldn't be used, for at least all the reasons you just gave.
So, I contend it shouldn't use a macro with any search path which would bottom out to any ol' tclsh that might be found in the $PATH; if it doesn't find a tclsh specified in tclConfig.sh, that should be an error which can and should be caught right there.
i did not argue that SC_PROG_TCLSH finds the right tclsh. the right approach is not to modify SC_PROG_TCLSH in a way such it works more correcty in situation like yours (this might break other cases, where people depend on the behavior of SC_PROC_TCLSH), but to move to the new TEA macros, that i finally found.
But I can tell you about three of them that I know I do have:
o There is a system-wide tcl which was installed as a debian package; I don't use that myself. I like building, then I control what version I use. The tclsh for this tcl is in my $PATH, and therefore will be found by SC_PROG_TCLSH.
o There is a tcl-8.4.5 I built for use in a test jig. This is where I'm currently trying to find the build/configure problems in xotcl. Happens that the string "aolserver" is in the directory path to both the tcl source and its install prefix, so a previous but fixed problem would have assumed this tcl was for aolserver3.x and therefore compiled in support for it. Also happens that there is an aolserver4 nearby. This tcl was built for use with that aolserver4. This aolserver4 is loosely considered part of the test jig, but so is a nearby perl interpreter. The tclsh for this tcl is -not- in my $PATH, so is unlikely to be found first by SC_PROG_TCLSH even though most builds of xotcl I'm doing now use its tclConfig.sh.
o Finally, there is a tcl-8.4.5 built for a different aolserver4 located in a completely separate dir, /usr/local/aolserver. The username that can write to this dir is nsadmin; the tclsh in this tcl might be in nsadmin's $PATH; I don't remember for sure. This aolserver and tcl are used to support a few test instances of openacs, which I hope to try with xotcl, and to allow other openacs users to also do. Some openacs users and core developers have expressed great interest; it is for this reason I even start with xotcl at all. I am dumb as a stump with xotcl, I just know some things about building it :)
well, you do not have a simple setup, now i can understand your situation more clearly. it is a tricky setup where using the wrong file-set can lead to problems not easy to figure out.
however, we will get this working.
i have just now converted the xotcl build stuff to TEA3 (at least, i believe that this is now TEA3). The good news is that the configure/make stuff became less code. I am certainly not through, but at least make make test make install-aol seems to work. I have still to work through the various configure options, the subdirectories have to be adjusted as well.
In summary here, I want to have xotcl be able to build in all three of these situations and many more. Early on, I had mentioned that I was unaware if my "help" in this area (make the configure/build work and be stable) is actually welcome, and I repose that question here and now, adding this: Once the build and configure processes are stable, will they be kept maintained that way?
i have the constant hope that the configure/build somehow settles and will become stable. furtunately, TEA3 looks nicer then what we had before, configure.in and Makefile.in for xotcl is about 20% shorter (maybe more can be removed). If we can find a maintainer for this stuff, we would certainly be happy.
-gustaf PS: if you are interested on getting the TEA3 stuff just now, and/or you are willing to help, please drop me a line.