Re: [PATCH] build: use AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, not AM_CONFIG_HEADER

[Paolo Bonzini]

Il 29/12/2012 21:43, Stefano Lattarini ha scritto:
> On 12/29/2012 08:46 PM, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>> Il 29/12/2012 17:32, Stefano Lattarini ha scritto:
>>> * configure.ac: Here.  The latter has been removed in Automake 1.13.
>>
>> Is there any reason for this,
>>
> Avoiding to keep too much cruft around the codebase, and smoothing
> possible future transitions to Automake-NG.

Two lines of code are not "cruft".  It's only cruft if it happens
_outside_ the definition of AM_CONFIG_HEADER itself.

>> apart from randomly breaking
>> perfectly-working packages?
>>
>> The right way to do this is to rely on the autoupdate machinery.
>>
> I thought I had deprecated this macro in the 1.12.x series already,
> with proper warnings.  Wasn't that the case?

Deprecating is different from letting autoupdate convert it automatically.

> If not, I apologize for
> the inconvenience; while it's worth noting that the AM_CONFIG_HEADER
> macro has been clearly deprecated in the manual for a long time, I
> understand that that kind of deprecation can be easily missed, and
> a runtime warning is much more helpful and user-friendly.

Note that this sort of random breakage (or at least, this is how it is
perceived by users) is the main reason for hatred of Autotools.  It used
to be (around Autoconf 2.50-2.53, and Automake 1.4-1.6) that a
medium-sized project took a day to upgrade.  Things have been much much
smoother for the past 5-8 years, yet the memories remain.  Please do not
bring that time back.

Paolo