Re: Generating makefile for C library.

["Sam Roberts" <vieuxtech@...>]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Asko Kauppi <askok@dnainternet.net> wrote:
>
> Sam Roberts kirjoitti 27.10.2008 kello 18:26:
>
>> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Heesob Park <phasis@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Is there any module for automating makefile generation?
>>
>> Check on luaforge, but I've never seen one used. Its kindof clunky,
>> but lua projects just seem to come with simple makefiles. The
>> philosophy seems to be, agree with it or not, that lua is mostly used
>> as a script core embedded into larger projects - and that you will use
>> that larger projects build system.
>
> Well, he was asking about a C library, a Lua module that is.

I know. My justification for the (relative) crudity of makefiles in
the Lua world was instended to forestall a "Lua doesn't have X that
some other language has? Wow, Lua sucks" remark.

> I would suggest taking some existing one, s.a. Lua Lanes or maybe LuaSocket,
> and seeing how that is being built.

His question assumed the members of the lua list are conversant with
how ruby modules are built. Clearly, not such a good assumption! :-)

LuaSocket's makefile, like all the lua C modules I've seen, and Lua's
itself, has hardcoded paths in it. In order to build for your system,
you have to modify the makefile. If you are lucky, its just
uncommenting the section relevant to your OS.

extconf.rb is a ruby program which you run, examines your system,
figures out where ruby is installed, the local policies, what your
compiler is, etc.

Its basically autoconf for ruby "C" modules, though probably more
inspired by Perl's make wrappers.

Anyhow, no such thing exists for lua, as far as I can tell.

Btw, I'm no great extconf.rb fan. When it works, its great, but the
only thing I hate more than the autotools is learning yet another
autotools replacement system specific to some language, and extconf.rb
is pretty light on documentation.

> Depends on your system, which you did not name to us.

Because extconf.rb figures that out, and does the right thing on
common OSes (X, windows, linux, BSDs, ... ).

Cheers,
Sam