[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] configure: much faster configure --help

[Diego Biurrun]

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 05:47:25PM +0100, Alexander Strasser wrote:
> Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 05:40:53PM +0100, Erik Auerswald wrote:
> > > 
> > > MPlayer's configure does a lot of work before checking command line
> > > options. This includes updating of an ffmpeg git repository before
> > > producing help output, even when only asked for help.
> > > 
> > > The attached patch rearranges configure's help output code to be in
> > > front of ffmpeg repo checks and updates and introduces a new check,
> > > if the first command line option is --help or -h and prints the help
> > > immediately.
> > > 
> > > This drastically speeds up checking for available configure options,
> > > if done the common way of "./configure --help". If the --help resp.
> > > -h option is somewhere else on configure's command line, the (kept)
> > > existing check will find this after doing all the initial setup
> > > work, taking much longer overall.
> > 
> > I'm not really convinced of the usefulness of this in the first place,
> > but even then I consider it overkill.  Just check for --help/-h early.
> 
>   I do not understand your reasoning.
> 
>   The latest version Erik and I worked out:
> 
>   1. Detects the help option in every position
>   2. Is consistent with current configure behaviour
>   3. Does not duplicate the check for the help option

Maybe, maybe not.  The only version I saw moved around a large swath
of code and might have unforeseen side-effects.

Diego