Details
-
Improvement
-
Status: Resolved
-
Minor
-
Resolution: Fixed
-
1.4.0
-
None
-
None
-
CentOS 4.6 (linux), GCC 4.2.3
Description
Now that 1.4.0 is out of the way.... I'm in the process of getting Axis2/C to build on Solaris, AIX, HP/UX, Tru64 and Windows (with MinGW) so am modifying the "configure.ac"s and "Makefile.am"s. Rather than try and submit huge patches that achieve this I thought I'd have more luck getting patches accepted if they're smaller and more manageable.
One problem I've come across is the way libxml2 is used in the build system (if "--enable-libxml2" is supplied).
The first problem is that it's difficult to use libxml2 if it is installed in a non-standard place so extra CFLAGS and LDFLAGS must be supplied for the build. This should not be the case as the configure script(s) use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro to check for libxml2. This uses pkg-config to find out if the libxml2 package is installed and if so, what CFLAGS and LDFLAGS are required to use the package. Unfortunately this information is not then used in the Makefile(s).
The second problem is the samples and tools configure scripts check whether to use guththila or libxml2 when they don't need to. The axiom configure script needs to know so that it can build the correct wrapper library and the top level configure script needs to know so it can pass the option to the axiom configure script and so it can configure in guththila (if guththila is enabled). The samples and tools shouldn't care which parser is being used so don't need to check (the check just adds unnecessary complexity).
The third problem is that the Makefile in axiom/src/parser/libxml2 builds libaxis2_libxml2.la as well as libaxis2_parser.la which appears to be a bit pointless. The libraries are identical and nothing uses libaxis2_libxml2,la. This can be removed.
The final problem is that lots of Makefiles explicitly mention the libxml2 or guththila libraries when they don't need to. The build system uses libtool which maintains the dependency information required to use a library. When libaxis2_parser (either the guththila or libxml2 version) is built libtool adds the dependent libraries (either guththila or libxml2) to the libaxis2_parser.la file. When anything else is linked with libaxis2_parser.la by libtool then libtool will automatically include the right dependent libraries to the link (In fact, for the same reason very little needs to explicitly link with libaxis2_parser.la since if things link to libaxis2_axiom.la libtool makes sure they get the right libaxis2_parser as it is required to build libaxis2_axiom.la).