Re: AMLOCAL_AMFLAGS and the dist recipe

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi David,

* David Byron wrote on Thu, Nov 24, 2005 at 03:55:37AM CET:
> On November 17, 2005, Ralf wrote:
> >
> > Regarding the issue whether to put them all into aclocal.m4
> > or into separate files below m4/: Recent aclocal versions
> > will generate a bunch of
> > 
> >   m4_include([m4/foo.m4])
> > 
> > statements (if you choose to 'aclocal -I m4'), so there is
> > less macro code duplication.  I find updating easier if the
> > macro files correspond to each other.
> 
> I think this gets me back to the beginning again.  I prefer
> m4_include(m4/foo.m4) to having the macros copied into aclocal.m4 as
> well.  But, then make dist doesn't work.

It does if the m4_included files are given with relative paths _and_ lie
within the package you are building.

> My original two cases were:
> 
> 1. ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I ../../scripts/m4

which pointed outside your package and thus is a nono (do not specify
relative paths which point to something outside of your package).

> or
> 
> 2. ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I `cd ../../scripts/m4 && pwd`

Which is technically ok, but will include the contents in aclocal.m4.

> I don't know enough about automake/aclocal to know if a patch there to
> fix make dist for #1 is feasible.  I'll give it a shot if folks think it
> makes sense.

It can't be done safely, unless ../../scripts is part of your package.
And then it works already, AFAIK (untested).

Cheers,
Ralf