Re: AC_REQUIRE fails to ensure ordering of macros

[Paolo Bonzini]

> This means that there are basically two categories of AC_DEFUNed macros
> without arguments: those which are meant to be invoked, and those which are
> meant to be AC_REQUIREd. This raises even more questions:
>   - Wouldn't it be better to define them clearly using two different syntaxes,
>     say, AC_DEFUN for one, and AC_DEFREQ for the other?

There should be no reason to invoke without AC_REQUIRE a zero-argument
macro, except for:

1) macros that cause hard failures if they fail; are there any?

2) at toplevel, obviously.

>   - To which category does AC_PROG_EGREP belong? And what about AC_PROG_CC?
>     And AC_CANONICAL_HOST? Etc.

All in the latter category (AC_REQUIRE).  Maybe the solution is to
transition more and more macros to AC_DEFUN_ONCE.

Paolo