Unit tests of internal functions

[Russ Allbery]

Ken Raeburn <raeburn at MIT.EDU> writes:

> I think it would be easier if we were using a script to build shared
> libraries given a list of OBJS.SH files and the other data, instead of
> sticking everything in shell commands directly in the makefiles, but Tom
> has objected to the script approach in the past.  (Bad experiences with
> libtool?)  Having to fit every new bit of functionality into one long
> command line makes things pretty ugly, IMO.  There may be ways to break
> things apart more sanely, though, like creating a makefile target to
> build a temporary file to hold some of the command-line options we need
> to pass to the linker on platform X, etc.

FWIW, I'm moving all of my packages to Automake and Libtool, and while
that approach is not without problems, I think it's the right direction to
go.  It means that there's at least some hope that other people have
already run into whatever weird build problem you have and have written
recipes to deal with, or even taught Automake and Libtool about it
directly.  Upstream on both projects is fairly responsive.

Also, there's the general advantage that a lot more people out there know
Automake and Libtool than know the build system of any single project,
which means it's more likely that you can find people who can patch your
build system.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>