Should `configure' record LDFLAGS as well as CFLAGS?

[Jim Blandy <jimb at redhat dot com>]

There may be some well-known reason this isn't done, but I don't know
it, so I thought I'd ask anyway.

When you run the configure script for GDB, it captures the value of
the `CFLAGS' environment variable and sticks it in the makefiles it
generates, so you don't need to retype it.  For example:

$ CFLAGS=-g3 $D/configure --prefix=$DI
$ make
... this make then runs with CFLAGS set to `-g3'.

I think this is because the Makefile.in files all have lines like
this:

$ cd $D
$ find . -name 'Makefile.in' | xargs grep '@CFLAGS@' 
./gdb/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./gdb/gdbserver/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./gdb/rdi-share/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./bfd/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./opcodes/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./readline/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./readline/examples/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./readline/shlib/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./readline/shlib/Makefile.in:LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@ @LOCAL_LDFLAGS@ @CFLAGS@
./libiberty/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./libiberty/testsuite/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./sim/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./sim/common/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./sim/igen/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./sim/ppc/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./sim/w65/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./utils/spu/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
./intl/Makefile.in:CFLAGS = @CFLAGS@
$

However, LDFLAGS isn't (usually) treated the same way:

$ find . -name 'Makefile.in' | xargs grep '@LDFLAGS@' 
./gdb/rdi-share/Makefile.in:LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@
./bfd/Makefile.in:LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@
./opcodes/Makefile.in:LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@
./readline/shlib/Makefile.in:LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@ @LOCAL_LDFLAGS@ @CFLAGS@
./intl/Makefile.in:LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@
$ 

So whatever setting for LDFLAGS you establish while running
`configure' only affect the compilations the configure script runs
itself; the program then gets built with whatever settings you pass
when you run `make'.

This seems inconsistent to me: if you configure and build with
different LDFLAGS, configuration tests might yield results that are
wrong for the build.

And you can't just stuff everything you want in CFLAGS.  If I say, for
example:

$ CFLAGS='-g3 -L ${LIB} -Wl,-rpath,${LIB},-dynamic-linker,${LIB}/ld-linux.so.2' $D/configure --prefix=$DI

that gets into all the Makefiles, but then I get lots of messages from
the compiler invocations that just build .o files warning that the
-rpath and -dynamic-linker options are being ignored since I'm not
linking.

So, does anyone know why we shouldn't add LDFLAGS = @LDFLAGS@ to
gdb/Makefile.in?