Re: Patch: (comments please) EXEEXT fix

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "adl" == Alexandre Duret-Lutz <address@hidden> writes:

>>>> "Tom" == Tom Tromey <address@hidden> writes:

Tom> I'm interested in comments on the EXEEXT stuff.  Does this satisfy all
Tom> the constraints?  I think it does (besides aesthetic appeal, that is).

adl> I'm unhappy with this :( There are projects, like the one which
adl> triggered this report (a PalmOS application), written
adl> specifically for *one* platform where .exe has no meaning.

Good point.
This isn't our primary target, of course, but we also don't want to
simply mandate that all projects must be portable.
That wouldn't be sensible.

adl> Automake is here used because it helps to simplify the
adl> Makefiles, however requiring to append $(EXEEXT) would just
adl> obfuscate them.  Given that Automake is meant to ease the
adl> maintainance of Makefiles, I would rather vote for *not*
adl> obsoleting the overriding of `foo:' by `foo$(EXEEXT):'.

adl> The warning is another problem.  I understand that people using
adl> `foo:' will usually want to upgrade to `foo$(EXEEXT):'.  In my
adl> case I wish there was a way to disable it.  Maybe this can be
adl> kept for later, as part of some -Wmumble option like Lars
adl> suggested.

This seems reasonable to me.
If we add an option to disable the warning, then maintainers who are
writing non-portable (to Windows etc) applications can explicitly
request this behavior.
We can even later make it an error unless the option is specified.

My current choice for the option name is `no-exeext'.
You would put this into AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.

We'll add the `-W' machinery later.

Tom