AC_REQUIRE problems -- summary

[Stepan Kasal]

Hi,
  please forgive me that I reply to my own post.

I'd like to post a short summary:

Three possible fixes were proposed:
1)  AC_DEFUN(AS_IF)
2)  AC_REQUIRE could expand the macro to a section near the begining of
    the script.
3)  In "autoconf with functions", AC_REQUIRE could expand to code which
    calls the function if it has not been called yet, ie. the
    requirement is evaluated dynamically, not statically.

Ad 1), it's implemented, will be available in autoconf >= 2.59c .
I recommend the use of AS_IF as the standard workaround for this type
of problems.

Ad 2), I no longer plan to do it.  The change would introduce too much
problems (non-declared dependencies).

The option 3) is much safer, and we should rather spend our effort there.

One question remains, what is "autoconf with functions".
Autoconf-3 will be probably able to assume shell functions.

But I don't think we have to wait or split the source.  I think we can
introduce and experimental "functions" option to autoconf, perhaps
declared in configure.ac before AC_INIT, which would switch on the
support of shell functions.

I don't think I'll find time for this anytime soon, but I wanted to
present my vision here.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan