Re: user upgrade path for renamed macros

[Peter Simons]

Hi Filippo,

 > AFAICT AU_ALIAS call should be in addition to AC_DEFUN

I may be wrong, of course, but that doesn't sound quite right. According to
<http://osdir.com/ml/gnu.libtool.bugs/2004-12/msg00264.html>, the line

  AU_ALIAS([OLD_NAME], [NEW_NAME])

is equivalent to:

  AU_DEFUN([OLD_NAME], [NEW_NAME($@)])

In other words, a call to AU_ALIAS implicitly defines the old macro name (to
expand to a call to the new name). This would imply that AU_ALIAS *replaces*
the former AC_DEFUN definition. The usage examples I found on the web all
looked like this:

  AC_DEFUN([NEW_NAME], ...)
  AU_ALIAS([OLD_NAME], [NEW_NAME])

For the Archive, this appears to imply the following strategy:

 1) The call to AU_ALIAS must be added to the *new* macros.

 2) Once that's done, obsolete macros must be deleted altogether, or their
    definitions will conflict with the forwarding aliases.

Unfortunately, the Autoconf documentation is really vague on those things.
Maybe it would be best to ask the Autoconf guys for advice on how to proceed?

Take care,
Peter