adding a command line option for ACLOCAL_PATH-type search paths
the ACLOCAL_PATH functionality is useful (adding search dirs after -I), but a bit unwieldy as an env var. any reason we can't add a command line option for this ? call it --aclocal-path ? or --extra-system-acdir ? or some other other boring name ? for context, when cross-compiling, autotools (i.e. automake) tend to be installed in the system (i.e. /usr/), while all the libraries & macros being built against are found in a separate sysroot (e.g. ~/sysroot/). we want to insert that ~/sysroot/usr/share/aclocal path after the set of -I flags from the package, but before /usr/share/aclocal. -mike signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: multiple online manual versions
On 18 Jan 2022 19:27, Karl Berry wrote: > Having multiple versions of the manual online sounds all to the good to > me. As long as it's being done at all, I wouldn't hesitate to put up > the manuals for every release, not just the major releases. For 1.16.x, > I'm afraid I rather broke the previous rules for major releases anyway. > > https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-/ > > What I don't like about this approach is that it redirects from the > generic url to the versioned url. Also, the /savannah-checkouts/ seems > pretty ugly. > > I think it would be cleaner to create and commit > /automake/manual-/ for whatever s desired. > Could probably get them out of CVS. > > Then automake/manual/ could remain unchanged, as a copy of the > current . FWIW ... --best, karl. i agree that automake/manual/ should be canonical and the main entry point to the documentation. what should that page look like ? i see two ways: * the GCC method where it's a quick index of every version. great for referencing, but i think might put too much emphasis on multiversion. * the current page, but with an entry/link like "For older manuals, please see this index." and that takes you to the full version index akin to what GCC is using. this does a good job of steering people into the latest version without them thinking about it. in terms of layout after that, i'm of two minds. on one hand, i agree that it's kind of ugly that you're always redirected to the versioned one, and there's never a canonical manual/ base. but on the other, if people are copying & pasting links to the manual, everytime we make changes to the manual the rename or reorder chapters, we're breaking those historical links. if it always redirected to a versioned URL, people would be more likely to copy & paste links that are stable. so i would lean towards everything being anchored/entered here: https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/ we'd have the curated landing page & full versioned index in there. the versions would be subdirs rather than parallel so as to keep the higher automake/ dir a bit tidy. so: https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/1.15/ https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/1.16/ (or if you prefer, 1.15.x and such) any other manual/ access would redirect to the latest version. that way we don't break links already out in the wild. -mike signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: multiple online manual versions
Having multiple versions of the manual online sounds all to the good to me. As long as it's being done at all, I wouldn't hesitate to put up the manuals for every release, not just the major releases. For 1.16.x, I'm afraid I rather broke the previous rules for major releases anyway. https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-/ What I don't like about this approach is that it redirects from the generic url to the versioned url. Also, the /savannah-checkouts/ seems pretty ugly. I think it would be cleaner to create and commit /automake/manual-/ for whatever s desired. Could probably get them out of CVS. Then automake/manual/ could remain unchanged, as a copy of the current . FWIW ... --best, karl.
Re: multiple online manual versions
On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 8:14 AM Mike Frysinger wrote: > currently the automake website only hosts one manual version -- the latest. > when working with older code bases, especially when trying to update them > to newer versions, it can be helpful to have the older manual available to > quickly refer to. can we do this for automake ? i'm thinking of just the > major series (1.11, 1.12, etc...), not the patchlevel (1.16.1, 1.16.2). > > this is pretty common with other projects that have major releases and are > heavily developer oriented. for example: > * autoconf > https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/autoconf-/ > * gcc > https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/ > * binutils > https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs-/ > > the autoconf style should be pretty easy to replicate since it's using the > same infrastructure as automake: > https://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/autoconf/autoconf/manual/ Makes sense.
