Re: Templates

eisentrp@csis.gvsu.edu writes:
> On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Tom Lane wrote:
>> I believe it would be a bad idea to remove the option entirely, because
>> that would mean that if config.guess and/or configure didn't recognize
>> your platform, you'd have no simple way of forcing a template choice.

> If config.guess doesn't recognize your platform then configure fails,
> period. Specifying --with-template isn't going to help. The customary way
> to cope with that situation is to use the --host option, which is also
> much more flexible in terms of input format.

config.guess shouldn't even be executed if the user's given
--with-template, IMHO.  However, accepting --host to override
config.guess isn't really the issue here.  The problem is to select an
appropriate template if none of the patterns in template/.similar match
your platform name.  We have had many cases before where the platform
vendor comes out with some random new variant on their uname output that
causes the .similar match to fail (Alpha's "evNN" being the latest
example).  I'd rather be able to tell people "use --with-template=foo"
than have to explain to them how to alter the regexps in .similar.

On another part of the thread, it's true that Makefile.custom is not
intended for random users; it's intended for people who know what they
are doing.  There are enough such people who use it that you will not
get away with removing it ;-)
        regards, tom lane