I ran into a nastly little problem the other day because I had a type in one of my CXXFLAGS within /etc/make.conf This caused a configuration script to fail when testing strings.h and conclude that I did not have a functional C++ compiler since it had no way to tell the difference between an error given from an invalid C++ flag, and a regualr build error. Needless to say, I was pulling my hair out for several hours thinking the problem had something to do with either the seach path, the compiler, or glibc. If others are as bad at spelling as I am, this could lead to "red herring bugs" being filed in the bug tracker that shouldn't be there. There should probably be a means for portage to check the build settings to make sure everything is valid.
Portage is not a spell checker.
(In reply to comment #0) > There should probably be a means for portage to check the build settings to > make sure everything is valid. Portage already checks lots of things, but CFLAGS validation would be out of it's scope. Lower level things that affect the build system belong in the ebuild and/or eclasses.
The AMD64 profiles already do this. If you want the checks on your system, copy /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/amd64/profile.bashrc to /etc/portage/bashrc. It also checks for a bunch of other known-to-be-harmful flags.
