Created attachment 5901 [details] [review]
Patch with some changes to configure.in

Patch does the following:

o changes --with-libxml-prefix to --with-libxml-config-prefix 
(since thats all it's used for, to find xml2-config)

o adds some comments on that change inside the file
(feel free to remove that)

o adds --with-libxml-src which allows libxslt to be built even though
libxml isn't installed yet

o moved some commented out i18n stuff to the end of the file 
(so thats its not in the middle of all libxml finding code)

o fixed a small bug where a string containing a ',' wasn't protected
with []

Tried, I applied the patch, applied correctly,
removed config.cache, launched

./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --disable-shared

which failed with:

checking for perl... perl
Enabling memory debug support
checking for libxml libraries >= 2.4.6... configure: error: Could not
find libxml2 anywhere, check ftp://xmlsoft.org/.

Now type 'make' to compile libxslt.


  xml2-config is here and in the path,

So what is the patch really about ?
  - the change of --with-libxml-prefix seems a bit gratuitous, right ?
    doesn't seems a problem. Changing is more likely to break 
    people scripts than do any real good
  - the --with-libxml-src option is not understandable to me. You
    need libxml to build libxslt. What's the real purpose of this
    option ? 
  - the I18N comment should simply be removed. But it's not harmful
  - the , "fix" is it seems actually breaking the configure stage.

Daniel

First off....whoops...not my intention to send a broken patch :)

>So what is the patch really about ?
>  - the change of --with-libxml-prefix seems a bit gratuitous, 
>    right ? doesn't seems a problem. Changing is more likely to 
>    break people scripts than do any real good

Ok, I agree somewhat, the new patch doesn't change it (although it 
does change the help text that explains the option (since it's only 
used to fins xml2-config)

>  - the --with-libxml-src option is not understandable to me. You
>    need libxml to build libxslt. What's the real purpose of this
>    option ? 

The purpose was this. I'm working for XFree86 to convert their docs 
over to DocBook XML instead of the current LinuxDoc SGML versions. 
Part of that means making available tarballs with all necessary 
software so I wanted to bundle libxml and libxslt together and write 
a little makefile glue to allow both to be built after each other and 
*then* for both to be installed after each other. For that purpose I 
needed the src-switch. 

The decision may shif to just pointing people to the original sources 
instead so this might not be needed anymore. I've separated it into 
an optional patch.

>  - the I18N comment should simply be removed. But it's not harmful

Done.

>  - the , "fix" is it seems actually breaking the configure stage.

An error in thought. Fixed as well.

I have made two new patches, one that just cleans up the configure 
script a bit, makes it a little more verbose about missing/found 
versions of libxml and fixes where a string containing a ',' wasn't 
protected with []. The other one adds --with-libxml-src and thus 
makes it optional. I include it here for your information.

Regards,
David

Created attachment 5934 [details] [review]
Some cleanups of configure.in

Created attachment 5935 [details] [review]
Adds --with-libxml-src=

Okay, applied both patches and commited after checking,
this should close the issue,

   thanks,

Daniel

Hum, I think this was shipped in the last releases, let's close this,

Daniel