Re: Plan for single Makefile

[Michael Poole]

Why would an `import' statement be necessary?

It seems like the directory tree structure could be inferred from
SUBDIRS; if Makefile.am exists in the subdirectory and the user hasn't
inhibited single-Makefile-mode, then automake could perform the
various rewriting rules you describe.  If no Makefile.am exists, or
the user inhibited single-Makefile-mode, then automake could fall back
to the "cd $(TARGDIR); make $(TARGET)" type behavior.

(I personally know of nothing wrong with SUBDIRS except that its
current implementation uses recursive make; it has the flexibility of
an import statement and is at least a little familiar to people.
Keeping SUBDIRS also makes it easier to keep portability with older
versions of automake -- which is primarily useful for public CVS
checkouts where not all users have the most recent versions of
auto-tools.)

-- Michael Poole