On Sep 19, 2013, at 12:18 PM, Joerg Mayer <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If I understand things for windows builds correctly, we require python for
> windows builds as well nowadays. If that's correct we should get rid of the
> shell script.
For UN*X builds from SVN, you need Python (to build the Netware NCP dissector), so the shell script isn't necessary.
For UN*X builds from a source tarball, the tarball contains the results of at least some of the Python scripts (the NCP dissector *AND* the *register*.c files), so:
if you're just building from the source in the tarball, I'm not sure you need Python;
if you're modifying the source, I'd put you in the same category as people building from SVN, and require you to have Python.
So I'd be inclined to get rid of the shell scripts unless somebody can offer a good reason to keep them.
The configure script should not require Python; my inclination would be to have a "sorry, no Python, install it" script and, if the configure script doesn't find Python, have it set PYTHON to that script, so if you never need to run Python, the build Just Works, and if you *do* need to run Python, the build prints the error message from the script and fails, so you at least get told to install Python.