This is a question I've had on my mind for a long time and every time I search for it I don't get anything.

Anyway... Is it possible to rerun configure for an application? For example, PHP. Like right now I'm really wishing I would have configured PHP with tidy built-in -- but I didn't. I'd rather not have to start over by downloading source, configure, make, make install.

This happens every so often with PHP and other applications, so my questions is, is it possible to just reconfigure an application somehow without having to rebuild?

No.

The tipical configure script is an automated way to create the makefiles that will guide the build process.

These configure script will search for needed libraries, will enable or disable some functionalities (which in turn might add or substract dependencies) and will set up everything for the later compilation. So, configuring the sources is a previous step to compile them with the needed functionalities.

If you reconfigure the sources, you need to rebuild the program with the new settings. And of course, you need to make install afterwards to put the new binaries in your system.

Ok. I guessed that'd be the answer. Damn, wishful thinking never works out ;p

You have to run "make clean" or "make distclean" before running ./configure again. Read this to see the difference between the 2 commands.

Regards

Never heard of distclean before. I only ran make clean and it seemed to compile OK and my change took effect. I'll keep it in mind for the future. Thanks all for your quick help.