autoconf and cross-compiling?

[Dan Kegel <dank@kegel.com>]

I'm trying to document the right way to cross-compile
applications which use autoconf/automake.  configure
has a --target flag, but I can't see how to get it to do anything
useful.

The goat book has what looks like a helpful section
  http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/autobook/autobook_261.html#SEC261
which talks about the macros AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM and AC_ARG_PROGRAM,
but it turns out this only affects tool names *when installing*.
It's useful when *building* cross compilers, not when using them.

My best guess at the moment is:
  Before running 'configure', set the environment variables
  CC, CXX, RANLIB, and AR to point to the cross-development
  tools you want to use, *and* tell configure the target name,
  e.g.
    CC=powerpc-linux-gcc CXX=powerpc-linux-g++ RANLIB=powerpc-linux-ranlib AR=powerpc-linux-ar ./configure --target=powerpc-linux

Is this right?

If so, this is suprisingly clumsy.  I would expect configure to let you set
both the target name and the tool names in one fell swoop, e.g.
    ./configure --with-target=powerpc-linux
but since few people do cross-development, maybe this hasn't been made easy.

- Dan

(originally posted to gnu.gcc.help, but no response there)

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