On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Steve M. Robbins wrote: > On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 02:15:24PM -0500, Sean Finney wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 09:34:48AM +0200, Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote: > > > >>> "Sean" == Sean Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Sean> - ./configure now tests for auto* and makeinfo > > > > > > Sean> is that really necessary? > > > > > > Yes. Automake create Makefiles that know how to rerun the auto* > > > tools when necessary. So configure check for them. > > > > does this introduce any problems if the target machine doesn't > > have (or has ancient versions of) auto*? or, if the auto* isn't > > found, does it just not implement said functionality? > > Yes and no. You can run into trouble if the target machine has a > different version (older OR newer!) of autoconf or automake. Mostly > this is due to a badly-written macro which is, sadly, rather common. > ... > > You can completely disable these "maintainer rules" in the > *distributed* makefiles via the AM_MAINTAINER_MODE macro. Look it up > in the automake docs. >
Using AM_MAINTAINER_MODE seems to be a Good Thing, in light of the potential problems for users, when it is absent. Is there any reason I _would_not_ want to include it in my configure.am and modify my bootstrap script to specify '--enable-maintainer-mode'? <rant> This macro seems misnamed to me. I'm thinking that generating the auto* rules _is_ a maintainer mode, as they are potentially dangerous/confusing to the end user. If they are generated by default, and to disable generating them (without explicitly asking for them) one should use a rule named 'AM_DISABLE_MAINTAINER_MODE' or something similar. Chalk this up to 'historic reasons'? </rant> ...Chad
