Re: also copy install-sh

[Gary V. Vaughan]

Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>
> > Might be an option.  At least for branch-1-5, however, I'd rather
> > just back out my patch and go back to what people know.  The less
> > surprises, the better.
> >
> > We could also just mention that AC_PROG_LIBTOOL resp. LT_INIT uses
> > AC_PROG_INSTALL, and thus its requirements (which are documented in
> > Autoconf docs) have to be met, i.e., there has to be a file `install.sh'
> > or `install-sh'.
> >
> > How about that (just a doc update) instead?

Certainly we shouldn't take the risk of destabilizing branch-2-0 with
a code change like this.  If you want to test out the possible solutions
on HEAD, then that is perfectly fine... in fact, I think it might be
interesting to have a more complete solution to play with on HEAD.

The only real problem I see with continuing to assume automake will
handle install-sh issues, is that we advertise that libtool is perfectly
useable without automake:  someone who wants downloads and installs
libtool to use standalone like this can't actually do so without
manually fudging an install-sh into their tree.  Since the libtool tree
uses automake it has a perfectly good install-sh, but it isn't copied
into the install tree so it is lost if the libtool build tree is wiped.
So the user might end up copying across a random version from another
package, or having to download automake anyway just to get that file.

> Sounds good to me.  Maybe libtoolize should warn if install-sh is not 
> yet present (assuming it knows where it should be).

It seems unobtrusive to copy libtool's install-sh into $datadir, and
have libtoolize suggest using $datadir/install-sh if none is present,
along with a caveat that automake will instead install the definitive
install-sh later in the bootstrap...

HEAD can go further and actually perform the copy if automake doesn't
seem to be in use.

Cheers,
        Gary.
--
Gary V. Vaughan      ())_.  address@hidden,gnu.org}
Research Scientist   ( '/   http://tkd.kicks-ass.net
GNU Hacker           / )=   http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool
Technical Author   `(_~)_   http://sources.redhat.com/autobook

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