On 06/26/2012 10:15 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote: > What about this: since the great majority of the packages out there do > not seem to override nor patch the Automake-provided auxiliary scripts, > we could just make automake always reinstall such scripts by default; > and allow the users to mark scripts that are not to be reinstalled > this way (maybe a new autoconf macro -- "AM_BUILD_AUX_FILES_LOCAL", or > something similar buth with a better name). > > How does that sound?
The whole idea of using the latest-and-greatest version of a script is to ensure that we pick up any upstream bug-fixes in that script, even when using an unpatched older distro automake. This idea makes sense for scripts that are generically useful (ie. you _always_ want the latest-and-greatest config.guess), but I concur that for internal details it is not as important. > >> Either the build-aux >> scripts are heavily tied to a specific automake version >> > Most of them are, yes. And should be considered internal details. > Such files are: > > - elisp-compile > - py-compile > - mdate-sh > - missing > - ylwrap > - test-driver > - tap-driver.sh > - tap-driver.pl Does the --help output (or at least the introductory comments) for these scripts mention that these are scripts necessary for correct operation of an automake-generated Makefile, but not independently useful? It might be worth setting proper expectations. > > Other files are more generally useful, and thus less likely to undergo > "gratuitous" backward incompatibilities: > > - ar-lib > - compile > - depcomp > - install-sh > - mkinstalldirs The division that you have listed here seems reasonable. > >> (and thus should not be shipped as independent scripts mirrored in gnulib), >> > In fact, I cannot understand why files like 'ylwrap' and 'missing' > (only useful to implement some automake internals) are being mirrored > in Gnulib ... > >> maybe it is better to remove the mirroring of 'missing' in gnulib, and >> to fix GNU M4 to use automake rather than gnulib for obtaining its copy >> of 'missing' during bootstrap. >> > Yes please! Sounds like we're in violent agreement, then. I'll go ahead and prepare a gnulib patch, as well as fixing GNU M4 to quit relying on gnulib for 'missing' (it may mean repairing M4's bootstrap script to run automake --install, which has not previously been the case). But I will also go ahead and post the formal automake patch that tries to restore the measure of back-compat. > > If we need a genuinely generic and stable script that offers some of > the features of 'missing', it should be implemented in gnulib -- then, > if possible, it will be automake which will start syncing it from the > gnulib repo. For the scripts that you mentiones, like 'install-sh', which are generically useful, should we go ahead and re-home them to have gnulib instead of automake be the canonical upstream? -- Eric Blake ebl...@redhat.com +1-919-301-3266 Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
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