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

[Khem Raj]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:21 PM, Paul Eggleton
<paul.eggleton at linux.intel.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2016 16:17:39 Paul Eggleton wrote:
>> 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...)
>
> I meant to add, even if configure --help doesn't work (or there is no configure
> script at all) the header this subcommand prints will work with any recipe
> provided that do_configure is actually implemented and contains some actual
> commands as opposed to calls to some other function.

my worry is it being associated to do_configure, and we know that only
a subset ( although a large one) is only using autotools but not all.
So think about avoiding that confusion.
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
> --
>
> Paul Eggleton
> Intel Open Source Technology Centre