On 13 Jun 2001, Dan Winship wrote:

: > There was a suggestion by Todd Vierling <tv@wasabisystems.com> that we
: > try to hack the AC_CHECK_LIB macro in autoconf as an alternative way
: > to deal with hidden dependencies.
:
: You don't need to hack the macro. Just fake out the cache:
:
: danw@twelve-monkeys:/tmp> cat configure.in
: danw@twelve-monkeys:/tmp> echo ac_cv_lib_c_main=no > config.cache

The problem is that pkgsrc developers don't notice the hidden dependencies
until one of them Just Happens To Be Installed (and is thus detected)
...typically by a non-developer who ran into it by accident.

The idea behind changing the autoconf macro is to default to a "not found"
state on *all* CHECK_LIB instances unless explicitly specified, inverting
the logic.  This eliminates nearly all the error involved.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@wasabisystems.com>  *  Wasabi NetBSD:  Run with it.
-- NetBSD 1.5 now available on CD-ROM  --  http://www.wasabisystems.com/