Re: dirlist

[Charles Wilson]

Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:

> > > > "Charles" == Charles Wilson <address@hidden> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>  Charles> Discussion in sibling message.
>
> (I wager this sibling message has been blocked as spam at
> lrde.epita.fr, like two of your previous mails; I'll see that
> tomorrow.)


That's odd.  Perhaps it is because my From: address is @ece.gatech.edu, 
but usually I use my personal ISP's smtp server (earthlink.net).  This 
message is being sent via ece.gatech.edu's smtp server, so it probably 
won't be blocked.


> Sorry, I don't want to be a pest but I have yet another
> question.  Forgive me if you have already explained this
> elsewhere and I don't remember.
>
> Why is dirlist searched in `acdir-APIVERSION' instead of
> `acdir'?  It seems using the former directory forces the
> installer to move the dirlist file around each time (s)he
> install a new major Automake version; while (s)he would have
> nothing to do if dirlist remained in `acdir'.  (Besides this
> would simplify tests/defs, and I like the idea that nobody
> have to twiddle the private acdir-APIVERSION directory.)


Nope, I didn't explain it.  The dirlist patch history goes back to 1.5, 
before there were versioned acdirs.  When 1.6 came out, I noticed:
  1) by default, an installation has no $acdir, only acdir-APIVERSION.
  2) the initial cygwin release of 1.6 broke, because my packaging 
script still put our custom dirlist file into $acdir -- but I'd already 
updated aclocal.in to look in acdir-APIVERSION.  So, I had to fix it.

I chose to fix my packaging script to put dirlist into acdir-APIVERSION, 
and keep the aclocal.in changes -- but I could've backed out the 
APIVERSION change in aclocal.in and left my packaging script alone.

In the end, I kept APIVERSION because:  what if you have 
backwards-incompatible m4 file?  Suppose /usr/share/acdir/ contains .m4 
files that work with am-1.4p5, but don't work with am-1.6.2?  (okay, not 
a good example, since 1.4p5 didn't have a versioned acdir).  Push it 
forward in time: m4 files that work with am-1.6.2, but don't work with 
am-1.7.x.  In that case, you might want
  /usr/share/acdir-1.6/dirlist
to contain
  '/usr/share/acdir'
but you'd have
  /usr/share/acdir-1.7/dirlist
with
  '/usr/share/acdir-new'
  '/usr/share/acdir'
That way, updated versions of the problematic macros can go into 
acdir-new, where they will override the older, incompatible ones in acdir.

OTOH, I can see the merits of the opposite position, and I'm not 
religious about the issue.  If you want me to change the dirlist 
location back to $acdir instead of acdir-APIVERSION, let me know and I 
will do so.

--Chuck