configure command line in installed directories?

[Robert S. Grimes]

Joel Sherrill wrote:
> Till Straumann wrote:
>   
>> I'm with Thomas.
>>
>> If I'm getting a bunch of binaries I would like to know exactly how
>> they were generated (that includes configure options).
>> Believe me or not but that helps me tracking down problems.
>>
>>     
> I think at some level it is the responsibility of who
> ever installed the RTEMS to keep up with that
> information.
>
> With that said, I have seen multiple times where
> there were people and years in between the
> installation of RTEMS and the person asking
> the question.
>
> Speaking from a help desk view, the more information
> we can get with fewer Q&A email cycles, the better.
>
> How many posts to the mailing list get the first
> reply of "not enough information"? And how many
> of those don't get followed up on properly.
>
> Wouldn't "send us this file" make that easier?
>   
As the (unintended) instigator here, I have been keeping quiet on this. 

Ralf's argument notwithstanding, I agree with Thomas and Joel on this 
one.  As someone who is relatively new to the scene, I remember quite 
dearly my initiation into the RTEMS community, and my first attempts to 
build tools and the OS itself.  It is not always easy to do the "right 
thing" when you first start out in a new field, and it is certainly 
difficult to know the relative importance of various tidbits of 
information, especially what to remember.  I recall having to try the 
configure command several times, due to minor discrepancies in 
documentation - and of course, my newbie lack of knowledge. So Joel is 
right when it comes to the support issue.  Remember, in many cases, the 
"system integrator", "admin", and the "application developer" are all 
the same person - the "newbie"!

As an aside, the reason for my original question (how to get configure 
options from the _build tree_ - I had forgotten where that was stored) 
is that, for the Virtex BSP, the application _does_ need to know 
something about how RTEMS was built - specifically, what xparameters.h 
file was used.  This is because the Virtex BSP is really not a _Board_ 
support package per se, as even with multiple exact physical copies of 
the "board", the FPGA configuration may vary.  This is indeed my 
situation, as I have three identical boards, with two different 
configurations; for example, one board has three separate instances of 
an SPI controller, while the other two have only two SPI controllers.  
Peripherals may be mapped at different addresses too.   That said, it is 
feasible to move the Virtex BSP towards a "componentized" architecture, 
such that these decisions (e.g. peripheral mix, addresses, etc.) can be 
determined during application build instead of OS build - in addition to 
easing the situation I've described, it would eliminate the exception to 
Ralf's assertion, which I believe would be a "good thing"...