[OE-core] [PATCH 2/5] devtool: add configure-help subcommand

[Paul Eggleton]

Hi Khem,

On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 22:14:09 Khem Raj wrote:
> > On Jan 25, 2016, at 9:53 PM, Paul Eggleton <paul.eggleton at linux.intel.com>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > When you need to set EXTRA_OECONF for a recipe, you need to know what
> > options the configure script actually supports; the configure script
> > however is only accessible from within a devshell and (at least in the
> > case of autotooled software fetched from an SCM repository) may not
> > actually exist until do_configure has run. Thus, provide a "devtool
> > configure-help" subcommand that runs the configure script for a recipe
> > with --help and shows you the output through a pager (e.g. less),
> > prefaced by a header describing the current options being specified.
> > 
> > There is basic support for autotools, cmake and bare configure scripts.
> > The cmake support is a little hacky since cmake doesn't really have a
> > concise help option that lists user-defined knobs (without actually
> > running through the configure process), however that being a design
> > feature of cmake there's not much I can think of to do about that at
> > the moment.
> 
> this option is autotools specific. We need to convey this precisely. may be
> involve autotools in the option name or something

Whilst not all non-autoconf configure scripts provide a --help option, some do. 
ffmpeg/libav is one example (and one where you really do need to see the output 
since there are a lot of options...)

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre