prog_DEPENDENCIES

[Bob Rossi]

Hi,

I've been using the autotools more and more. I now I have a question
about how the prog_DEPENDENCIES work. I recieved a patch recently that
looked like this,

  -std_btree_driver_LDADD = -ladt
  +std_btree_driver_LDADD = libadt.a

  -std_btree_driver_DEPENDENCIES = $(top_builddir)/various/adt/src
  +std_btree_driver_DEPENDENCIES = libadt.a

the person that sent it in said,

  The attached patch allows to build with parallel
  make, so with -jN where N > 1. This is helpful when
  having multi-processor systems or sharing the compile
  load with distcc.

Now, in the past, I've always done -ladt in the LDADD section instead 
of libadt.a. Am I doing the correct thing here?

Next, the change to _DEPENDENCIES. Is his change correct? The directory
that I had there is where libadt.a is built. Finally, I read on the
automake manual page,

  If prog_DEPENDENCIES is not supplied, it is computed by Automake. The
  automatically-assigned value is the contents of prog_LDADD, with most
  configure substitutions, -l, -L, -dlopen and -dlpreopen options removed.
  The configure substitutions that are left in are only @LIBOBJS@ and
  @ALLOCA@; these are left because it is known that they will not cause an
  invalid value for prog_DEPENDENCIES to be generated.

This makes me think maybe I shouldn't be adding _DEPENDENCIES at all
unless I want to link something in that isn't in LDADD. Is this correct?

Thanks,
Bob Rossi