On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 11:45:12AM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote: > > Alexandre Duret-Lutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Maybe `automake' should not be a symlink but a script that > > select the right automake version to use for a project. > > I heard Debian has had poor results with that, but I haven't tried it > myself. It's probably hard to get right unless you can find some > really reliable way to pick an automake. It would be neat if so. Debian has used such a scheme for "autoconf" since about last May. I was initially horrified at the idea, but it works a lot better than you might think. The autoconf script will run version 2.13 unless it can detect some feature that indicates autoconf 2.5x is used: * a new option is given, such as --trace, or * configure.ac is used, or * AC_PREREQ() specifies version > 2.13 The same wrapper is used for "autoconf", "autoheader", and "autoreconf". In my experience, the heuristics work decently well. After fixing my macros, I can always force version 2.50 using AC_PREREQ in configure.in. Debian's automake packages don't use this scheme, but I don't see why it shouldn't work just as well. Automake could, for example, scan the value of AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS to see whether to invoke automake-1.4 or automake-1.5. -Steve -- by Rocket to the Moon, by Airplane to the Rocket, by Taxi to the Airport, by Frontdoor to the Taxi, by throwing back the blanket and laying down the legs ... - They Might Be Giants
