Re: PATCH: patsubst support

[Alex Hornby]

Alexandre Oliva writes:
 > On Oct 27, 2000, Akim Demaille <address@hidden> wrote:
 > 
 > > Yep, by default Automake must not let the users do nonportable
 > > things.
 > 
 > I tend to agree.  But I wouldn't say `must not', I'd say `should not'.

What is the policy regarding changes to non-portable behavour?

Current CVS autoconf will pass through patsubst style variables to to
Makefile for dynamic expansion via make. I have now got a patch that
expands these statically which I need to decide to the default for. I
have illustrated the possible default behavours with a Makefile.am
expansion;

# Makefile.am fragment
FOO = foo bar
BAR = ${FOO:%=%.c}

a) default static expansion to on, this is good for portability 

# Makefile.in fragment
FOO = foo bar
BAR = foo.c bar.c

b) default static expansion to off, avoids surprising anyone depending 
   on dynamic expansion by make, retains the same non-portable
   default behavour as current CVS.

# Makefile.in fragment
FOO = foo bar
BAR = ${FOO:%=%.c}

What do people think?

Regards,
Alex.