[feature] Extend configure args for AutotoolsToolchain

[uilianries]

What is your suggestion?

Hello!

The configuration tools.cmake.cmaketoolchain:extra_variables allows extending CMakeToolchain definitions without touching the conanfile.py. This option allows users to customize recipes without needing to open a PR and is equally beneficial to maintainers, as the recipe remains as simple as possible.

The same is not possible when the recipe uses autotools + configure to build a project; there is no mechanism to inject new configure_args without changing the Conan recipe.

It would be great if Conan could have a configuration dedicated to AutootoolsToolchain and Gnutoolchain that extends configure arguments as well. For instance:

tools.gnu:extra_configure_args: List with arguments to be passed to Autotools configure command

Have you read the CONTRIBUTING guide?

• I've read the CONTRIBUTING guide

[memsharded]

Thanks for your suggestion @uilianries

While CMake is massively popular, and used as de-facto standard for new projects, Autotools is nowadays mostly for legacy gnu-like projects, so the same level of configurability and extensibility is not expected.

What was the use case? What real world scenario did you find? with any particular ConanCenter package?

[uilianries]

@memsharded I can list a few PRs from ConanCenterIndex for instance:

• libmount: Add an option for legacy cross-buildin: [libmount] Add option to disable year2038 support. conan-center-index#27161
• openssl: use_validated_fips : openssl: add use_validated_fips option conan-center-index#27222
• capnproto: add option for lite: capnproto: add lite_mode option conan-center-index#26282
• ffmpeg: add option for decoder: ffmpeg: add option to use the opencore amr nb/wb decoder instead of built-in amr decoder conan-center-index#26217
• licurl: Add option to build exec: Libcurl - Option to build executable conan-center-index#25022

The OpenSSL is a good example, because it has several options already, and still, we have a few PRs asking for new options, making it impossible to combine and validate the build graph.

The same can be applied to FFmpeg and libcurl.

[memsharded]

I am not sure if I get it. Those really look like options, they change the resulting binary, in a pretty incompatible way.

The OpenSSL is a good example, because it has several options already, and still, we have a few PRs asking for new options, making it impossible to combine and validate the build graph.

I see, I think it is worth discussing with the team, thanks!