Re: RFC for new FAQ entry: Flag Variables Ordering

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz]

>>> "Ralf" == Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

 >> This section attempts to answer all these questions.  We will mostly
 >> discuss `CPPFLAGS' in our examples, but actually the answer holds for
 >> all the compile flags used in Automake: `CCASFLAGS', `CFLAGS',
 >> `CPPFLAGS', `CXXFLAGS', `FCFLAGS', `FFLAGS', `GCJFLAGS', `LDFLAGS',
 >> `LFLAGS', `RFLAGS', and `YFLAGS'.

 Ralf> Are you planning on cross-referencing all these variables here?

Hmm, I'd rather expect the index to be the appropriate place for
such a list.  It appears that not all these variables are
indexed, I'll look into this separately.

[...]

 >> default Automake variable, and `mumble_CPPFLAGS' is the variable
 >> specific to the `mumble' target (we call this a per-target variable).

 Ralf> Maybe a cross-reference to the node defining the term "per-target
 Ralf> variable" would be helpful here.

Yep.  And vice-versa.  The node is `Program and Library Variables'.

Thanks for the proofreading.

[...]
>>> "Leonardo" == Leonardo Boiko <address@hidden> writes:
[...]

 Leonardo> Maybe you could add a small clarification: that LDADD
 Leonardo> and LIBADD are automake-specific variables.

Aargh!  This was amongst the first notes I wrote when I drafted
the section, and I later removed the paragraph because I thought
it would just confuse people to talk about variable that are not
compile flags in a section dedicated to compile flags.

I'll augment the section with a note about this this week-end
(I'm away the next two days).

 Leonardo> As far as I understand, there is a mumble_LDADD and a
 Leonardo> LDADD, but not an AM_LDADD, and plain LDADD is not
 Leonardo> from the user.  

Right.  LDADD records dependencies inside the package, I'm not
sure a user LDADD variable would be of any use.

 Leonardo> Thus LDADD and LIBADD are entirely different from the
 Leonardo> *FLAGS variables.  Is that correct?

Yes.  Oh well, almost.  You cannot really lump LDADD and LIBADD
together: there is no LIBADD variable, only per-target _LIBADD
variables.  To some extent, LIBADD is less confusing than LDADD.

 Leonardo> It may sound obvious, but I find it confusing =)

I confess I once wrote AM_LDADD in a Makefile.am.  (To make
matters worse, that was while teaching someone else how to write
a Makefile.am for his package!)
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz