[ovs-dev] [PATCH] use AX_PTHREAD to detect pthreads

[Gurucharan Shetty]

>
> I am also concerned that it this will break the Windows build.
> Currently Windows uses some Windows-only code in m4/openvswitch.m4,
> which requires Win32 builders to specify --with-pthread=<dir> on the
> configure command line.  Ideally, we would want Windows builds to work
> the same as other builds.  Maybe that would mean that Windows builders
> should specify the PTHREAD_* variables on the configure command line,
> instead of --with-pthread, or that the OVS pthread-win32 support should
> move from OVS_CHECK_WIN32 to somewhere around the new invocation of
> AX_PTHREAD.  Either way, I think that this will require some change to
> what this patch does (and possibly an update to INSTALL.Windows.md)
> before it can go in.  I'm CCing Guru, who knows the Windows build, to
> get his opinion.

commit 94887cf4caa74bfb5 added the support for pthreads check for Windows.
As one can see in that commit, we have very specific Windows related
includes, ldflags, libs that we need added. This is mainly because
pthreads on Windows is downloadable and installed in any directory. I
do not know what is a good portable solution here if we need to make
Windows related changes again there.

One concern that I have in changing '--with-pthread' for Windows means
that the auto builds at different places will also need changing.
Unless the benefits look good, I would like to avoid making that
change.

>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben.