Re: gnulib-tool recommendations don't honour command line flags

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Werner,

> I've invoked gnulib-tool as follows:
> 
>   gnulib-tool --import \
>               --m4-base=gnulib/m4 \
>               --source-base=gnulib/src \
>               --aux-dir=gnulib getopt-gnu
> 
> and the recommendations emitted say this:
> 
>   Don't forget to
>     - add "lib/Makefile" to AC_CONFIG_FILES in ./configure.ac,
>     - mention "lib" in SUBDIRS in Makefile.am,
>     - mention "-I m4" in ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in Makefile.am,
>     - mention "m4/gnulib-cache.m4" in EXTRA_DIST in Makefile.am,
>     - invoke gl_EARLY in ./configure.ac, right after AC_PROG_CC,
>     - invoke gl_INIT in ./configure.ac.
> 
> However, this should rather be
> 
>   Don't forget to
>     - add "gnulib/src/Makefile" to AC_CONFIG_FILES in ./configure.ac,
>     - mention "gnulib/src" in SUBDIRS in Makefile.am,
>     - mention "-I gnulib/m4" in ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in Makefile.am,
>     - mention "gnulib/m4/gnulib-cache.m4" in EXTRA_DIST in Makefile.am,
>     - invoke gl_EARLY in ./configure.ac, right after AC_PROG_CC,
>     - invoke gl_INIT in ./configure.ac.

Indeed, this is surprising. Maybe you had a gnulib-cache.m4 file in the
package's directory, that specified different settings? In any case,
it's worth looking really carefully at the changes that gnulib-tool
made. Consider using the --dry-run option until you found the parameters
and environmental circumstances that make gnulib-tool work as you like.

> Actually, I suggest two additions so that we have
> 
>     - add "gnulib/m4" to AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR in ./configure.ac

There is no need to recommend this, because
  - gnulib's parameters are cached in gnulib-cache.m4, a different file
    than configure.ac,
  - it does neither help nor hurt if the macro directories into which
    'aclocal' and 'libtoolize' add their macros is the same or a different
    directory than the one you specified for gnulib.

But you're right, it would make sense to coordinate with the autoconf
project on the approaches for distributing .m4 files.

>     - mention "-I gnulib/m4" in ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in Makefile.am
>       (use a single line for all include directives),

Why "use a single line"? Continuing the line with backslash-newline does
not work?

Bruno