Re: autobuild.m4

[Simon Josefsson]

Eric Blake <address@hidden> writes:

> According to Simon Josefsson on 4/12/2007 6:51 AM:
>> 
>> I just realized a namespace problem, when I wanted to apply the
>> following obvious patch:
>> 
>> +configure.ac-early:
>> +AC_REQUIRE([AB_INIT])
>> +
>
> Currently, the instructions at
> http://josefsson.org/autobuild/manual/autobuild.html tell the user to use
> AB_INIT manually.  If you automate AB_INIT (or possibly rename it) into
> gnulib's GL_EARLY, then the autobuild instructions need modification.  I
> think I am okay with leaving the macro as AB_INIT, and requiring the user
> to add AB_INIT to their configure.ac manually, outside of GL_EARLY; then
> autobuild clients consistently follow the autobuild directions, whether
> they use gnulib or manually grabbed autobuild.m4 from autobuild.

Hm, yes, I think I agree.  Complicating the manual might be more
costly than having a one-time cost of adding AB_INIT manually.  Adding
it manually might lead to AB_INIT being invoked earlier than GL_EARLY
too, which can be useful in case there is some serious problem.

> Maybe it is also worth modifying modules/autobuild to give a URL to
> the autobuild manual?

I agree.

> But I think it also means that you may want to improve gnulib-tool to
> detect when the autobuild module is in use, and print a warning to the
> user to add AB_INIT after AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR but before GL_EARLY in their
> configure.ac.

Yes, that too.

>> Would the non-gl_ namespace be OK if we make the 'autobuild' project
>> the master repository?  If so, it feels a bit silly to have Karl have
>> to pull in things from this project just to avoid a namespace problem.
>> I suggest we simply permit this non-gl_ namespace and consider the
>> 'autobuild' project the canonical upstream for autobuild.m4 (even if
>> it is technically not true).
>
> I personally don't care which of the two projects is the master, with the
> other project synchronizing upstream, but it seems easier if gnulib is the
> master since you already figured out how to make autobuild use gnulib even
> though it is a script-only project (hmm, maybe it is worth updating
> users.txt?).  Does anyone else care?

I added it to users.txt now.

/Simon