Re: HTML format documentation

[Richard Stallman]

    Let me take the example of a2ps.  a2ps uses a configuration file which
    is installed in syscondir.  To find it the path is hard coded in a2ps,
    and a natural means to do that would be

    AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([A2PS_CONFIG_FILE], ["$sysconfdir/a2ps.cfg"])

The natural way to implement it and follow the spec is to pass the
value of the sysconfdir Make variable to gcc as the expansion of a
macro, so that compilation will put it into the program.  The Make
variable's default value could be set up in Makefile by Autoconf;
that would make --sysconfdir work.

    Second, because sysconfdir depends upon prefix, what will actually
    happen is

            #define A2PS_CONFIG_FILE "${prefix}/etc/a2ps.cfg"

This problem won't happen using the above implementation.

    We are asking for the removal of this feature (i.e., that the sequence
    above is considered right).

Sorry, I will not do this.  People use it and it is easy to implement.