Re: is running autoheader mandatory?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Andrew,

sorry for the delay.

* Andrew Makhorin wrote on Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 10:47:41PM CET:
> I am a maintainer of a GNU project. Until recently I used autoheader
> to produce config.h.in. However, for various reasons I decided not to
> use autoheader at all, preparing config.h.in manually. Is it correct?

You can choose to do so.

> If so, is it correct to write
>    AC_DEFINE([FOO],[1])
> rather than
>    AC_DEFINE([FOO],[1],[some text])
> in configure.ac? This works ok without autoheader.

Sure.

> If running autoheader is mandatory, could anyone please explain me why?

It is not; but most people choose to use it because it helps keep
consistency.  If they also need a header for which they can more
precisely control its contents (e.g., because that header gets
installed) they typically use a second config header for which they
provide the input file manually.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Ralf