| > So you are throwing away the non Automake users, and you lose the | > ability to run ./configure --clean without Makefile (precisely after a | > distclean). | | Why can't you do this: | | %% AC_CONFIG_DISTCLEANFILES(FILES) | %% Clean FILES | AC_DEFUN([AC_CONFIG_DISTCLEANFILES], | [ac_distcleanfiles="$ac_distcleanfiles $1" | AC_SUBST(ac_distcleanfiles) | ]) | | You need to add support to automake to add ac_distcleanfiles to the | distclean target, but after that any macro can register files to be | cleaned. You can also do the cleaning (optionally) in config.status, | and in your own Makefile.ins--you won't be tied to automake. | | An additional macro for ac_maintainercleanfiles would be nice. A | similar method could be used to tell automake what files to distribute, | such as configure, configure.ac, config.h.in etc. that automake | currently hard-codes.
Because I fail to see the advantage for Automake to have to clean itself, rather than asking the cleaning. That's better to my eyes, also because a list of files might not always be the right thing to do. Keeping it under *program* control will make it work in all cases. And anyway, modularity mandates this design.