Re: [PATCH] Compilation failing without Lua (--without-liblua)

[David Fifield <david () bamsoftware com>]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 01:45:12AM -0800, Fyodor wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 03:42:51AM -0500, Patrick Donnelly wrote:
> > Off-topic: Wouldn't --without-nse be a better name for
> > --without-liblua? We don't have --without-python to exclude Zenmap
> > after all :)
>
> Good question.  We offer three liblua library configuration
> directives.  From ./configure --help:
>
>   --with-liblua=DIR       Use an existing (compiled) lua lib from DIR/include
>                           and DIR/lib.
>   --with-liblua=included  Use the liblua version included with Nmap
>   --without-liblua        Compile without lua (this will exclude all of NSE
>                           from compilation)
>
> This is similar to how we treat other libraries like libpcre, openssl,
> libpcap, etc. (though some of them are required and thus don't have
> the --without version).  So while I agree that --without-nse makes
> more sense by itself, the current option name provides consistency
> with the --with-liblua options and with the option flags for the other
> libraries.
>
> Also, who knows, maybe Nmap will use Lua for more than NSE at some point.
>
> On the other hand, as you note, we do also have options like
> --without-zenmap, --without-ncat, etc.

We're misusing --with and --without in the case of zenmap, ncat, and
ndiff. Strictly speaking, these should be --enable and --disable.

http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/External-Software.html

        Some packages require, or can optionally use, other software
        packages that are already installed. The user can give configure
        command line options to specify which such external software to
        use. The options have one of these forms:
                --with-package[=arg]
                --without-package

http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/Package-Options.html

        If a software package has optional compile-time features, the
        user can give configure command line options to specify whether
        to compile them. The options have one of these forms:
                --enable-feature[=arg]
                --disable-feature

--with and --without are for external packages, and --enable and
--disable are for features of the local package.

David Fifield
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