autotest/package.m4 question [PATCH]

[William Pursell]

I've included a patch here, but mostly just to
clarify my questions, so I thought it more
appropriate to post here than to
autoconf-patches.

What is the 'official' gnu position on automake,
and what's the relationship between autoconf
and the rest of the autotool chain?  I find it
extremely annoying when packages write
their own Makefile.in's, and it seems that autoconf
should be pushing for automake adoption.
(This relates to the first hunk in the patch.)

Secondly, I tend to start a project from scratch every
now and then to ensure that I remember all
the necessary details to autoconfiscate
something (a task that autoreconf has helped
with immensely--thanks and kudos to the author), and
I've just started incorporating autotest.  Whenever
I start a new project, package.m4 doesn't exist
yet and I'm wondering if the 2nd hunk of
the patch is a good idea.

Thirdly, is there any standard way to take a file
foo.c and generate an autoconfiscated tree structure?
I have a script that allows me to run:
$ autoconfiscate foo.c
but it generates a tree that contains a lot
of my own personal optimizations (read: errors
or workarounds to my misunderstandings of the
tool chain), but I suspect there is a standard
tool already.  I suppose autoreconf could be
considered that tool, but it still requires
a fair bit of knowledge to set things up.  I'm
hoping for a no-brainer.  (Maybe something like
KDevelop....I don't know, I'm just rambling.)


diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index 5753d37..2595801 100644
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -21204,7 +21204,7 @@ Still within @file{configure.ac}, as 
appropriate, ensure that some
 @file{tests/atlocal}.

 @item
-The @file{tests/Makefile.in} should be modified so the validation in
+The @file{tests/Makefile.am} should be modified so the validation in
 your package is triggered by @samp{make check}.  An example is provided
 below.
 @end itemize
@@ -21228,7 +21228,7 @@ clean-local:
          $(SHELL) '$(TESTSUITE)' --clean

 AUTOTEST = $(AUTOM4TE) --language=autotest
-$(TESTSUITE): $(srcdir)/testsuite.at
+$(TESTSUITE): $(srcdir)/package.m4 $(srcdir)/testsuite.at
         $(AUTOTEST) -I '$(srcdir)' -o $@@.tmp $@@.at
         mv $@@.tmp $@@
 @end example


--
William Pursell