Re: _My_ turn for a 2.1 wishlist

Kai Henningsen (kai@khms.westfalen.de)
20 Jul 1996 10:54:00 +0200


mec@duracef.shout.net (Michael Elizabeth Chastain) wrote on 16.07.96 in <199607161813.NAA14032@duracef.shout.net>:

> I think it would be a good thing to split include/linux/autoconf.h into
> a whole directory full of files, include/config/*.h, with one symbol per
> file. This would solve the whole problem and allow CONFIG_SMP to be
> just another symbol. It would still force a lot of recompilation to
> change CONFIG_SMP but the system but it would force less recompilation
> than now, and the system would be more regular.

I think to be successful, this needs good support routines for maintaining
all that stuff.

Some points:

make-time:

* have something that updates the collection of flag files from the
central config source, but doesn't change the modification time if the
flag doesn't change (otherwise, no win at all)

code-time:

* have an utility that checks that every source includes exactly those
flag files it needs, and diagnoses (or maybe even fixes?) cases where this
isn't true. This utility might also check if every flag used is present in
the central config source, and vice versa.

Preferentially, the source could be shipped without the flag files, and
the make file could regenerate them on the fly. Maybe make clean or a
variation thereof should remove them.

Hmm. I think this might not be too hard to do with, say, Perl ... maybe
I'll have a try.

Something I've missed?

MfG Kai