On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 05:30:55PM +0000, Johnny C. Lam wrote:
> Newer GNU configure scripts try to determine the maximum length of command
> line arguments by trying trying to echo longer and longer strings until
> it find the longest string that it can echo (65536 on my i386 box).  
> (...) How should we determine this on NetBSD systems?
> If it's exceptionally variable, can we arbitrarily choose a reasonble
> default for various MACHINE_PLATFORMs?


P L E A S E ! :) Nothing like going into a meta pkg and typing make install
there on a sparc, and see each dependancy hang five minutes (not kidding :)
in that step. Over and over again.

Maybe there should be a global cache in pkgsrc for configure run results.
That way it wouldn't be required to set at sometime in advance, yet configure
runs over time would add the pieces missing.

A system update (via build.sh) could invalidate the cache, or it could store
for which system (e.g. == 1.6ZE) it is valid. Hmm, could even do a package
for it, so you don't have to assemble the whole thing on your own over the
runs of various make installs.

Especially on "weak" machines that would *significantly* boost the time the
configure step takes :) And at least I'd be willing to pay the diskspace
for it (which shouldn't be enourmous anyways).

-Martin