Re: help2man

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 08:39:44AM -0500, Bob Rossi wrote:
>   dist_man_MANS = cgdb.1
>   # Autogenerate the man page using help2man. This happens whenever the
>   # user modifies either configure.in or usage.c, which contains CGDB's usage.
>   cgdb.1: $(top_srcdir)/cgdb/src/usage.c $(top_srcdir)/configure.in
>     help2man --output=$(top_srcdir)/doc/cgdb.1 
> $(top_builddir)/cgdb/src/cgdb$(EXEEXT)

you should make sure that the executable is up-to date; do something like:

cgdb.1: $(top_srcdir)/cgdb/src/usage.c $(top_srcdir)/configure.in
        $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) -C $(top_builddir)/cgdb/src cgdb$(EXEEXT)
        help2man --output=$(top_srcdir)/doc/cgdb.1 
$(top_builddir)/cgdb/src/cgdb$(EXEEXT)

> The only thing that bothered me was that the documentation said that
> CGDB could no longer be cross compiled.

The dist tarball can be cross-sompiled, of course.  ``make dist'' creates
a tarball which contains up-to-date cgdb.1

> [...] It would probably be good to
> suggest to the user to move there usage function to a file of it's own,
> to reduce the possibility of needing help2man.

I don't think this is necessary.  Some people don't do it this way.

> Second, and this might be an autoconf question, but is there a way to
> put the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(cgdb, 0.6.0) macro in a separate configure.in
> of it's own?

You can m4_include() a file which defines the version number from
configure.ac; this was discussed several times on the autoconf
(automake?) list.

> AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(cgdb, 0.6.0) macro

Please note that this for is obsolete.  To get the best results from
current automake & autoconf, give the version number to AC_INIT and
call AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE without parameters (or with an option list only).
See the fine manuals.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan