tech-pkg: proposal: USE_FORTRAN

Subject: proposal: USE_FORTRAN
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: None <mcmahill@mtl.mit.edu>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 11/17/1999 11:39:39

Problem:
 - The in tree fortran compiler (/usr/bin/f77) is buggy (see PR's 8574
 and 8663 for details).
 - Several of our packages use fortran and contain logic local to the
 package Makefile which adds the dependency on f2c for systems
 (pre-1.4) which don't ship f77.
Proposal:
 I'd like to create a variable 'USE_FORTRAN' in bsd.pkg.mk which would be
 set in the package Makefile for those packages which use fortran. That
 way the logic pertaining to the fortran compiler, possible dependency on
 f2c, and selection of the fortran compiler are done in 1 central
 location.
 The modification to bsd.pkg.mk would be the addition of:
 
.if defined(USE_FORTRAN)
.if !exists(/usr/bin/f77) || defined(USE_F2C)
DEPENDS+=	f2c-19989812:${PKGSRCDIR}/lang/f2c
FC=		f2c-f77
.else
FC=		f77
.endif
F77=		${FC}
.endif
 This way on pre-1.4 systems (which don't have f77) the f2c dependency is
 automatically picked up. Also, users can force the use of f2c as the
 fortran compiler by setting USE_F2C in mk.conf. 
 I will need to update bsd.pkg.mk, mk.conf.examples, Packages.txt and
 packages(7) to reflect this (and the packages which need fortran).
 The remaining question I have is if we should make f2c be the default
 for now since f77 is buggy. Long term, the goal should be to not ship a
 buggy compiler. I could perhaps implement f2c being the default by
 something like:
 USE_F2C?=	YES
 .if defined(USE_F2C)
 .if ${USE_F2C}=="NO"
 .undef USE_F2C
 .endif
 .endif
 Then users could put USE_F2C=NO in mk.conf to override the f2c default.
I will collect comments and suggestions before implementing this and doing
the final testing on my system.
Thanks
-Dan