Re: [gentoo-dev] some multilib-minimal enhancements [2/6]: add frob for consumers to disable automagic header wrapping

[Greg Turner <gmt@malth.us>]

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 1:37 PM, hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 12/11/2013 10:18 PM, Greg Turner wrote:
>>
>
> this needs more explanation. Why do we want this?

Sometimes the automagic header stuff is working against the ebuild
author, or at least threatens to, in the future.

The most plausible etiology would be: ABI "X" is going to generate
header_x.h but ABI "Y" is going to generate header_y.h, or no header
at all.  An argument could certainly be made this this calls for
either (a) a way to exempt a particular header from the header
automagic -- not all of them or (b) a general exemption from
ebuild-crashing, for headers that are present for a certain ABI but
not in other ABI's.  The only reason I didn't implement either of
those (both of which are probably preferable to mine) is that it
seemed nontrivial, and I'm lazy.

Regardless, if our standard advice is "try not to use this automagic
header wrapping feature, it can break autoconf assumptions" (IIRC, it
is -- but if it isn't, it probably should be), then we ought to
provide /some/ convenient means to get around it, other than sneaking
those headers in through some kind of inter-abi back-door, in order to
fake out the automagic (which is, effectively, what we require right
now).

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that thus far, every time I've thought,
initially, that I needed this feature, I've ended up deciding I didn't
need it, after all.

-gmt