[fpc-devel] One fpc.cfg per fpc version

[Mattias Gaertner]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:14:03 +0100
"Tomas Hajny" <XHajT03 at hajny.biz> wrote:

>[...]
> I guess that it's at least partly also due to different needs and
> preferences of different people. If I use one FPC version most of the time
> and only want to keep older versions for occassional regression testing, I
> do not need any sofisticated solution. Moreover, different fpc.cfg
> versions are not necessarily wanted in this case, because different
> parameters would make comparing the behaviour among FPC versions more
> difficult.

True. That's because the FPC team did a great job, so that in most cases
the standard fpc.cfg works with multiple versions.

 
> > For Lazarus switching should work without invoking a script or
> > changing a file. Only environment variables and parameters.
> 
> Still, my open question is: what are the drivers for needing to support (=
> having to maintain) different fpc.cfg files for different FPC versions?
> Moreover - if people use different approaches and want to have different
> versions and different locations (differing per distribution, user
> preferences, etc.), can't you simply let them to choose their preferred
> approach in Lazarus explicitly (either using single fpc.cfg for
> everything, or having version specific files configured explicitly by the
> user when setting path to his FPC installations)?

Well, I thought too that those two approaches are enough.
But people use -FD, -Xp, -V, @, PATH, PP, PPC_CONFIG_PATH,
PPC_EXEC_PATH, symlinks, scripts, etc. I wonder if Lazarus should
provide GUI elements for them.

My dream:
User installed some FPC versions, Lazarus finds all available versions
and user can choose from the list. If it is not in the list, the user
selects once the new compiler and Lazarus adds it to the list.


Mattias