[asterisk-dev] zaptel, menuselect and autoconf

[Oron Peled]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 07:34:54AM -0500, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> On Tuesday 31 July 2007, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> > So again: what usage scenarios are there where there is a benefit
> > from using menuselect with asterisk?
> >
> > (This is not a rhethorical question. Please provide examples)
>
> I think the main benefit is persistance.  If you really only need
> to build two modules for a particular installation, then it is
> easier simply to do (on update):  "svn update ; ./configure ; make
> ; make install" (and remember, it is EXACTLY the same sequence as
> Asterisk, which, on an update, you are going to build as well). 
> And the persistance saves you both thought time (what does this box
> actually have installed in it?) and compile time (why am I
> compiling a module that this box will never use?).

Persistence is an easy one for autoconf. Let's put in our
toplevel Makefile the following bit from autoconf docs:

     Makefile: Makefile.in config.status
             ./config.status

     config.status: configure
             ./config.status --recheck

Explanation:
 1. Every run of configure create config.status
    Running ./config.status regenerate configure outputs
    without wasting time on re-running configure.
 2. However, if configure itself changes, we need to re-run
    it with the *same options* to regenerate config.status
    That's what ./config.status --recheck does.

So your use-case would be a bit shorter:
   svn update; make ; make install

This is valid for asterisk as well (or any autoconf based system).

[BTW: of course if asterisk would use automake as well, it would
      build this magic into your makefiles and the discussion would
      have been moot from the beginning]

Anything I missed?

-- 
Oron Peled                             Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492
oron at actcom.co.il                  http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
ICQ UIN: 16527398

... Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers.