suggestion for the autoconf configuration

[Warren Tennant]

Hello Richard

Several of us on this list have encountered the elusive "segmentation
fault" on RedHat Linux builds under varying conditions (usually with
NETCDF files and the template option). It sounds like you may be on to a
possible solution to our problems. I suspect library issues are
something to consider. Please go ahead - I will certainly try out your
build to see if it stops the problems I have encountered.

Regards
Warren

Richard A. Ryan wrote:

>Hello,
>
>
>I was/am having a difficult time building all the grads
>programs on a RedHat Enterprise Linux WS release 4 box
>and so I looked into the configuration and I came across
>a few areas where configuration may be simplified.
>
>
>Before the suggestions,  I have a question---is the
>libwww.a in the build files from http://www.w3.org/Library/ ?
>My first suggestion may be totally wrong if I'm making an
>incorrect assumption about libwww.a being the library from
>http://www.w3.org/Library/  However, if it is from that site,
>instead of just putting a libwww.a on link command line, you're
>probably going to want to get the libraries from
>
>   libwww-config --libs
>
>instead.  Similarly, you're going to want to get the
>include files for libwww from
>
>   libwww-config --cflags
>
>
>To those concerned that this relinquishes control of
>dynamic versus static linking of libraries, that leads
>me to the next suggestion about finding the correct
>libraries and linking to them either dynamically or
>statically.  I strongly suggest the use of libtool
>http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/libtool.html
>which is supported by automake which provides facilities
>to autoconf for libtool, including a command line option
>to configure for choosing either static or dynamic linking.
>
>
>This solution is far more simple than the use of a supplibs
>subdirectory.  The developers of libtool also do most of
>the work of hunting down libraries on different systems for
>your software.  It also handles the command line interfaces
>to the compilers and linkers for you on the different
>systems.  Because some software requires re-linking upon
>installation, libtool also handles software installation.
>
>
>For documentation on using libtool with automake please
>see http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/ or better yet,
>buy the book, ``GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool''
>by Vaughan, Elliston, Tromey, and Taylor.
>
>
>A third suggestion comes from the CLI I've seen used for
>ruby's configure, and that's the use of the
>``--with-PACKAGE-dir=<top package directory>''
>flag.  So if netcdf software is in /usr/local/netcdf,
>you would configure with
>
>   ./configure --with-netcdf-dir=/usr/local/netcdf
>
>so configure knows where to find netcdf's lib and
>include directories.
>
>
>I am thinking of trying to simplify the grads build
>configuration myself.  If I can set up another configure for
>the grads client, is anyone out there interested in getting
>the new configuration files, and in particular, maintaining
>it?  To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do
>this.
>
>
>Thanks,
>Richard Ryan
>
>