Re: rpl library to make use of autoconf tests.

[Paul Eggert]

Bruce Korb <address@hidden> writes:

> Paul Eggert wrote:

> > We'd like to merge them into Autoconf at some point, but haven't
> > gotten around to it.
> 
> Please don't.  Autoconf/automake/libtool already add 100's of thousands
> of bytes to every distributed package

It'd be an option.  If you left the option out, your package wouldn't change.

Right now, it's inconvenient for users, since they need to pull in
pieces from several different places -- some from Autoconf, some from
Gnulib, some from Gettext, etc.  It'd be better if they didn't need to
understand all this stuff; if there was just a single way to say "I
need localtime_r (or whatever), and I'd like my package to provide a
substitute if the host doesn't have localtime_r".

Given the current Autotools design, the logical place to provide this
functionality is Autoconf.  Other tools can provide their own
substitutes (e.g., gettext for gettext-related stuff) but the
mechanism needs to be in Autoconf.