Re: Change request: file names

[Akim Demaille]

| I'd like to request the following changes in file names for some future
| version of autoconf:
| 
| -) use acversion.in, not acversion.m4.in
|    reason: not all systems support multiple dots in filenames
| 
| A similar problem exists in the man directory (the config.guess and
| config.sub man pages), but that is not so easily solved.

I don't like this one.  But we can distribute acversion.m4, would that
make your life easier?  

The point is, fine with making efforts to have configure DOS
compliant, but I would not accept sacrifying the elegance of the
Autoconf package for DOS.  So, given that `.in' means `is configure
input' (or more accurately `instantiated a make time based on
information from configure') I don't want to change the double dot
into something else.

Nevertheless, you'll see that the test suite uses config.hin to make
your life easier.

| -) use .in instead of .pl/.sh for the script templates
|    reason: DOS (and probably Win9x/NT as well) can/does treat
|    .sh and/or .pl as executable extensions. So when bootstrapping
|    autoconf, you may end up running the templates instead of the
|    scripts (once the scripts have been generated, 'autoconf' will
|    usually be used before autoconf.sh, but that does not entirely
|    negate the problem).
|    It would also be more consistent with the naming conventions
|    autoconf uses for templates (name + .in).

Agreed, _because_ of the last argument.  I honestly don't care about
what DOS thinks about .pl or .sh.

Still, I'd like another maintainer's opinion on this.