Re: syslog by default?

Tatsuo Ishii writes:

> There was a discussion about --enable-syslog by default. What was the
> consensus? I think this is a good one.

It would be a good one if we make the blind assumption that syslog()
exists on all platforms.  That is possible, but not guaranteed.  (BeOS,
QNX, Cygwin?)

The alternative suggestion to turn it off if syslog() is not found makes
me wary.  These schemes have invariably lead to problems in the past.
Recall libpq++ being missed because of false test results, readline
support mysteriously disappearing and nobody noticing until Mandrake had
shipped their CDs.  There are possible scenarios where syslog support
could be missed by configure, such as when you need some compat or bsd
library.

An alternative scheme I wanted to implement for readline is

--enable-foo => force feature to be used
--disable-foo => force feature not to be used
<nothing> => use feature if available

but I'm afraid that this would create more confusion than it's worth
because a prudent user would specify --enable-foo anyway.

I'd rather type a few more things and get predictable behavior from
configure rather than relying on it to pick the features for me.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net   http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter