Re: m4 files not unique in 8.3 environments

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

[Replying to an old thread.]

>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

 Eli> in practice most GNU packages, including Emacs (maintained
 Eli> by Richard Stallman, who wrote and maintains the GNU
 Eli> coding standards), do find ways to avoid the kind of
 Eli> problems with file names that are similar to the case in
 Eli> point.

Two years ago I renamed all files in the Automake distribution
to be 8+3 compatible when prompted by Richard Dawe.  I couldn't
find any reason to refuse: this is a single operation for me,
and would be repeated operation for the DJGPP porters.

Besides, I don't know how fnchange.lst works, but renaming files
is not enough.  You also have to update the mention of these
files in Makefile, etc.  Better have these straightened out from
the beginning, since it's easy.  Finally if all people use the
same distribution, debugging is easier.

I don't say that Gettext should be 8+3 compatible, but IMHO it
would be helpful that the files it installs in user packages be
so.  I feel sad that anyone who maintains a 8+3 compatible
distribution has to do extra work when using Gettext.


Back to the original problem,

  inttypes-pri.m4
  inttypes.m4
  inttypes_h.m4

if on DOS these three files overwrite each other as inttypes.m4,
and the reference to these files (in Makefile) all direct to
that short one, then you should have no problem building the
package.  Those files are only read when running aclocal and
autoconf to rebuild ./configure.  They are not needed during
./configure && make && make install.
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz