Re: FYI: fixing output of aclocal --verbose

[Akim Demaille]

Pavel Roskin <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello, Akim!
> 
> Another related question before I go ahead and enforce a single standard.
>
> Should versobe messages go to stdout or stderr? Automake uses stdout,
> while all other auto* and aclocal use stderr.

I'm not consistent on this regard in the sense of a single answer: my
point of view is that, of course, tools which _can_ produce on stdout
must always $verbose on stderr.

autoconf supports -o-, autoupdate too etc.

As far as autoreconf is concerned, I'd say the natural answer is
stdout, since it cannot produce actual output on stdout: it makes it
easier to | less.

But since it transmits the --verbnse to its slaves and its slaves are
$verbosing on stderr, it should stay in stderr, so that messages
remain in order.  A preferable solution for autoreconf, IMHO, but
somewhat more painful that the current status, would be to have
autoreconf redirect the verbose messages of the sub tools to stdout.

Unfortunately, this would also mean redirect actually error messages
from subtools to stdout, which doesn't sound right.