Re: Using @bindir@ etc. in C headers

[Florian Weimer]

* Nick Bowler:

>> It would like to get config.status expansion going, among other things.
>> It's nice to consolidate these things in a single place, and avoid
>> scattering such constructs and several places.
>>
>> What do you think about this?
>
> Autoconf is to be used as part of build systems that comply with the GNU
> coding standards and these standards say that the user can set prefix etc.
> on either the make command line or the configure command line.
>
> In other words, the following should produce a working installation
> (assuming a clean build):
>
>   ./configure
>   make prefix=/some/where install
>
> Substituting installation directories into C source files at configure
> time is probably not going to work in this case.  This is why the manual
> recommends using make rules to do it.

For the install target, the prefix= setting should not trigger
recompilation and thus does not affect what gets baked into binaries.
Instead, it should only affect installed paths.  The config.status
approach makes it more likely that this happens.

I can't find a reference that you should be able to specify prefix= on
the make command line for a non-install target.

Thanks,
Florian