| 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], ["$sysconfdir/a2ps.cfg"])
|
| The natural way to implement it and follow the spec is to pass the
| value of the sysconfdir Make variable to gcc as the expansion of a
| macro, so that compilation will put it into the program. The Make
| variable's default value could be set up in Makefile by Autoconf;
| that would make --sysconfdir work.
Yes, thank you, I know this. This is what I do. But pardon me, this
is by no means something I consider ``natural''. The ``natural'' way
is just the way I described above. By ``natural'' I mean the one
people *want* to use, by natural I am referring to the fact that what
when you pass values to a C program, you do it with AC_DEFINE.
What you name ``natural'' is what I call ``an counter intuitive
exceptional workaround which people understand well once they first
failed''.
Did you read the piece of documentation I sent? If you didn't, please
do, it describes very well that there is not only C programs that have
to face this problem, and there is no universal natural answer (well,
in your sense of natural, there is one in mine).
| Second, because sysconfdir depends upon prefix, what will actually
| happen is
|
| #define A2PS_CONFIG_FILE "${prefix}/etc/a2ps.cfg"
|
| This problem won't happen using the above implementation.
Yes, you are right, using the workaround the problem doesn't show up :)
| 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.
Who is using it, and for what purpose?
And it is definitely not easy to implement, I strongly disagree.
I'm ready to endure strict standards once I understand them. So
please, tell me why you want that there are two different means to say
the same thing? Why do you want both
./configure --prefix=/foo
make
and
./configure
make prefix=/foo
?
If the Makefile must support this feature, why should configure accept
--prefix?
The problem can be summarized as: ``I don't understand the point of
this part the standards''.
