Re: Portability warnings: split into non-GNU and non-portable?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Reuben Thomas wrote on Sat, Jan 27, 2007 at 08:25:41PM CET:
> On Sat, 27 Jan 2007, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> 
> >Why not, I guess.  Except that automake isn't really able to distinguish
> >between GNU extensions and a large class of typos or otherwise malformed
> >makefiles.  Bothered enough to write a patch?  ;-)
> 
> To clarify what I meant, I meant splitting the non-portable constructs it 
> currently detects into a) GNU extensions and b) other non-portable 
> constructs.

That's how I understood it.  My point is that the current Automake code
doesn't "detect" GNU extensions.  It cannot distinguish between correct
GNU make extensions and plain bugs.  Merely not warning about any of
those would be a regression for some cases: for example, they may not be
noticed by 'make' on your system, say, because on your system some
Automake conditional branch won't be expanded.

> Does that sound sane?

Not so sure.

> Shouldn't therefore be a large patch.

Yes, what you propose shouldn't be hard.  Can't tell you whether it
would be acceptable, but you can give it a try.

Cheers,
Ralf