Bug 25803 – Use AC_CANONICAL_HOST instead of AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: FIXED
• Component: WebKitGTK

[Fridrich Strba]

The check in the configure.ac wants actually know about the "host" system where the binaries will be run and not about "target" system that is normally used for systems where the binaries are run on one system and producing binaries for other system.
We had this discussion on irc some 2 weeks ago. The problem does not show unless one cross-compiles. In the case of the cross-complilation, the current state produces a <target_cpu>-<target_os>-<target_platform>-jsc$EXEEXT which is not what we need.

[Fridrich Strba]

Created attachment 30352 [details]
Patch that fixes this problem and uses correctly AC_CANONICAL_HOST

[Jan Alonzo]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Created an attachment (id=30352) [review]
> Patch that fixes this problem and uses correctly AC_CANONICAL_HOST
> 

With this patch, does that mean we want to build jit for the HOST and not for the target? I wasn't in the discussions in IRC 2 weeks ago so would be good to know about the rationale of this change.

Thanks,

[Fridrich Strba]

Here, it is explained quite well, although, the naming is very counter-intuitive: http://www.airs.com/ian/configure/configure_toc.html#TOC30
TARGET makes sense only if you are building cross-compiling tools, target is there the system for which the tools generate code. This is not really useful here, because the JIT compiler will compile the code for the system on which is running. It is not in any sense a cross-compiling tool.
When you cross-compile webkit and you use the AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM, the autotools get confused and will assume that you are building cross-tools that will run on SystemA and produce binaries for SystemA, and will prefix the binaries with the SystemA's triplet. Like for mingw build i686-pc-mingw32-jsc.exe. The binaries are the same because this happens on install, but it is still annoying. 

[Fridrich Strba]

Created attachment 30366 [details]
Proper compliant clean patch including ChangeLog entry

[Fridrich Strba]

Created attachment 30376 [details]
This patch even has the proper e-mail address and spaces instead of tabs

[Jan Alonzo]

Comment on attachment 30376 [details]
This patch even has the proper e-mail address and spaces instead of tabs

r=me

[Jan Alonzo]

Landed in r43766