| I've proposed a solution that would solve this problem without | removing any flexibility. Just to keep everyone on the same page, my | current proposal is: | | * autoconf's search path should be: | 1. any directories specified in `-I' options | 2. the current directory (i.e., $top_srcdir) | 3. the directories specified in $AC_MACRO_PATH (if set) | 4. the system-wide site macro directory (set at autoconf install time)
As a side note, I would suggest that the people shipping macros install them under a common tree, aclocal for instance, *but*, they use a single directory prefix. For instance, Autoconf macro files are all under autoconf/, autotest's under autotest/ etc. We should not need too a AC_MACRO_PATH, pointing to aclocal should suffice. Automake, for a start, should store its macros under aclocal/automake/. | * The search path should be used by the existing m4_include macro. | No new macros are needed. Agreed. | * When including a particular file, the first instance of that file | that is found in the search path is used. Thus, files distributed | with the package take first precedence, followed by files in the | user-specified $AC_MACRO_PATH, followed by files in the | system-wide site macro directory. | | The only modifications that are needed are: | | * add support for $AC_MACRO_PATH | | * add configure option for setting system-wide site macro directory | | I think this proposal solves the problem nicely, but I'm not totally | wed to it. If you have an alternate solution, I'd love to hear it. | However, I don't think it's reasonable to ignore this problem | altogether. | | Please let me know what you think. Thanks! It sounds good!
