[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [patch] Startup readline segfault (PR#491)

[Greg Wooledge <wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gaute (B) Strokkenes (gs234@xxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> An alternative approach would be to check whether we're on a Debian or
> Debian-ish system and then use dpkg or somesuch to check whether or
> not a working ncurses-dev is installed.  I'm pretty sure that this can
> be done in a clean way, and I could look into it if desired.

That's antithetical to how autoconf works.  The idea behind autoconf
isn't to depend on "known behavior" of vendor version numbers, since local
patches or upgrades could have fixed the problem you're working around.
Instead, it's considered better to test the actual functionality that
you're trying to discover.

So, even though it won't work in a cross-compiling environment, testing
a small program to ensure that it doesn't dump core is probably better
than checking installed package version numbers.

-- 
Greg Wooledge                    | "Truth belongs to everybody."
wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx             |   Red Hot Chili Peppers
http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |

pgpKZjhJy_81c.pgp
Description: PGP signature