Re: Fix distcheck for Autoconf

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Benoit Sigoure wrote on Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 06:17:19AM CET:
> On Nov 6, 2007, at 5:20 AM, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>>
>> AC_CONFIG_FILES should not live in the source tree and should not be
>> packaged.
>>
>> Our manual even states:
>> | Be sure to distribute @file{package.m4} and to put it into the source
>> | hierarchy: the test suite ought to be shipped!
>
> What's wrong with having package.m4.in in your source tree and in 
> AC_CONFIG_FILES and letting configure (well, actually config.status) 
> generate package.m4?

Then config.status generates package.m4 (unconditionally!), so make must
recreate the testsuite (which depends on package.m4) using autom4te.
But autom4te is a developer tool, which we assume the end-user does not
have.

For the Autoconf package itself, that is not so much of a problem: it
ships autom4te.  But for every other package, you just now need Autoconf
installed on the end-user's system.  That is one of the non-design-goals
of Autoconf.

testsuite should be shipped (so autom4te is not needed), which in turn
means all its prerequisites should be shipped.  And none of those should
depend on files that are not distributed, because it will otherwise
break builds from read-only source trees.  distcheck should tell you so
for your own package.

So what my patch does is an ugly workaround, that, iff the source tree
is up to date, avoids writing into the source tree.

Cheers,
Ralf