Hello,

>> For the person configuring curl, it shall be clear by looking from
>> "./configure --help" which options are unnecessary to achieve
>> certain configuration, and which are needed to tweak something.
>
>> This practice shall be applied consistently over all options: Is
>> with "./configure" --enable-debug or --disable-debug active, and so
>> on.
>
> That's not a bad thought, but is it really feasable? ./configure
> --help is a whopping 244 lines already. I count 71 --with* and
> --enable* lines. The amount of information there drowns even
> experienced hackers. I'm far from convinced that adding 'default' on
> 70 something places will help...

I compile the software on my system 100% on my own, so I run
./configure --help on everything and can scan the output very fast.
Autoconf defines internally the meaning of --with-PACKAGE and
--without-PACKAGE, and --enable-FEATURE / --disable-FEATURE. You
could assume, that the one invoking ./configure is aware of the
principles, and mention only on of --with-X / --without-X (merely, the
one which is not default and which is not auto-detected).

The final summary is indeed great, but in order to adjust the right
options, with the current "./configure --help" output, I need first to
run "./configure" then analyze the summary, and then tweak options to
activate more features. Otherwise I have to either put preventively
unnecessary much --enable/--with parameters, or to run "./configure",
see what is missing, adjust the parameters and then run again
"./configure". The purpose of the proper output of "./configure
--help" I see in abolishin the need to run "./configure" twice, for
the above mentioned reasons.

Comparing the possible options, and the summary, I see that there is
no output for the symbol-hiding; versioned symbols; compiler
optimizations; coocies; list of protocols, which are supported by
curl, but which will not be compiled in. In these particular cases,
the summary is not sufficient.

The further, I cannot find documentation how the --enable-optimize
option works, neither by running ./configure nor by looking in
doc/INSTALL.

Greetings
   Dilyan

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Received on 2014-04-22