Re: libtool.m4 not always copied

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Vincent Torri wrote on Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 01:43:30PM CEST:
> On Thu, 17 Apr 2008, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>> * Richard Purdie wrote on Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 12:38:15AM CEST:
>>> Let me try again to explain the problem. Makefile.am contains:
>>>
>>>         $(ECHO) address@hidden@@address@hidden '{global:' > address@hidden
>>>         $(SED) s/$$/\;/ libpng.sym >> address@hidden
>>>         $(ECHO) 'local: *; };' >> address@hidden
>>>
>>> automake expands ECHO_C, ECHO_N, ECHO_T and lt_ECHO but not ECHO
>>> anymore. libtool 1.5 macros happened to let ECHO be expanded but in
>>> 2.2.2 this is lt_ECHO.

>> In this particular case above, plain 'echo' should suffice.
>
> I've mentioned that problem in the libpng mailing list, and one of the 
> dev would like to use a variable like ECHO_C or one of the other. Is it  
> reasonnable ? Is it compatible with former libtool ?

Why not use plain echo?  The libpng developers have control over the
arguments passed to echo, they do not contain backslashes nor start with
a hyphen; in that case, 'echo' is perfectly portable.  As portable as it
ever gets.  No need to factorize.

ECHO_C does something completely different and unrelated, described in
  info Autoconf 'Preset Output Variables'

and not applicable to the above.

Cheers,
Ralf