js/src/Makefile.in has a lot of platform-specific hacks to work around compiler optimization bugs on various platforms, etc, as I noted in bug 462463 comment 4. We should move all these checks into js/src/configure.in, which will simplify the Makefile.

Ed, is this something you'd be interested in doing?

Sorry for the delay in replying. Yeah sure - this is something that I would be up for doing. However I'm going to have to be honest and (rather ashamedly) admit that last week was the first time I'd ever really looked at a Makefile (the joys of primarily using Windows); so I'll be wanting to check out the Make documentation a bit more first. For now though, just to make sure I've understood correctly, are you meaning places like here: http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/js/src/Makefile.in#342 or here? http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/js/src/Makefile.in#733 I'm presuming the latter? (or else both) Thanks!

We're talking about the latter, not the former.

(In reply to comment #2) > Yeah sure - this is something that I would be up for doing. However I'm going > to have to be honest and (rather ashamedly) admit that last week was the first > time I'd ever really looked at a Makefile (the joys of primarily using > Windows); so I'll be wanting to check out the Make documentation a bit more > first. You can't learn it without doing it. :) Feel free to ask questions, you can also find us in irc.mozilla.org #pymake.

(In reply to comment #2) > Yeah sure - this is something that I would be up for doing. However I'm going > to have to be honest and (rather ashamedly) admit that last week was the first > time I'd ever really looked at a Makefile (the joys of primarily using > Windows); so I'll be wanting to check out the Make documentation a bit more > first. One trick I've found very helpful in understanding and debugging makefiles is to run make with '-qp', redirecting the output to a file. The '-p' tells 'make' to print out a list of every variable's final value and where it was last set, and every rule that was defined, with the location of its definition. It's really helpful in tracking down where things come from in the thicket of 'include' directives. The '-q' means 'just check if anything needs to be remade, don't actually do anything'; the 'don't actually do anything' is the aspect that's useful here. You'll notice from the output of '-p' that make actually dumps twice. I don't remember exactly why this is, but that's why everything gets mentioned twice. It may have to do with recursive 'make' invocations.

Note to self: At the same time, sort out if we want to default to -Os or -O3 without PGO with gcc.