got rid of STRIPCHARS compile-time variable to make the code more readable, and corresponding configure option. + make sure that CONFDIR from environment gets translated to absolute path

src/configure

@@ -717,7 +717,6 @@ with_fam
 enable_xattr
 enable_idxthreads
 enable_camelcase
-enable_stripchars
 enable_python_module
 enable_pic
 enable_qtgui
@@ -1367,9 +1366,6 @@ Optional Features:
                           manual" and "my sql manual" are the same, but not
                           the same as "mysql manual" (in phrases only and you
                           could raise the phrase slack to get a match).
-  --enable-stripchars     Remove diacritics and fold character case in indexed
-                          terms. This will yield less precise searches but the
-                          index will be smaller
   --disable-python-module Do not build the Python module.
   --disable-pic           Do not compile library objects as position
                           independant code. This is incompatible with the php
@@ -4396,21 +4392,6 @@ $as_echo "#define RCL_SPLIT_CAMELCASE 1" >>confdefs.h
 
 fi
 
-# Not by default as these are little used for now.
-# Check whether --enable-stripchars was given.
-if test "${enable_stripchars+set}" = set; then :
-  enableval=$enable_stripchars; stripcharsEnabled=$enableval
-else
-  stripcharsEnabled=no
-fi
-
-
-if test X$stripcharsEnabled = Xyes ; then
-
-$as_echo "#define RCL_INDEX_STRIPCHARS 1" >>confdefs.h
-
-fi
-
 # Disable building the python module. This is built by default, because
 # it's really the easiest way to interface and extend recoll. It forces PIC
 # objects for everything (indexing performance impact: 1%), because it's