Re: Disable the generation of back up ~ files

[Zack Weinberg]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 5:16 AM nu quaquaraqua <nuquaquaraqua@gmail.com> wrote:
> when running autoreconf -iv on v2.7, it sometimes generates a back-up of an
> existing configure script, namely configure~. Is it possible to disable
> this feature somehow?

It is not currently possible to disable this.  (The offending code is
`sub update_file` in $prefix/share/autoconf/Autom4te/FileUtils.pm; if
you look at it, you will see that the suffix used for the backup file
can be changed with the $SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX environment variable,
but there isn't any way to tell it not to create the backup at all.)

Because FileUtils.pm is shared with Automake, changes require
coordination between the two projects and take even longer than
normal.  Would you please file an issue for this feature request,
using https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?func=additem&group=autoconf
(you may need to create an account) so we don't forget about it?

zw