Re: [PATCH 1/2] aclocal: multiple local m4 macro dirs with AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR

[Stefano Lattarini]

On 07/21/2012 05:51 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 07/13/2012 04:40 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> 
>>>>> My plan for autoconf is to implement AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, which can be
>>>>> invoked multiple times and also takes a whitespace-separated list in a
>>>>> single call, but which will basically then call AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR once
>>>>> per unique entry (that is, AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS will be smart enough to
>>>>> filter out duplicates).
> 
> Minor setback - existing autoconf already had an internal macro
> mistakenly named AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, with the wrong semantics (being
> internal, it should have been named _AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, but we can't
> change the past).  While I could rename it, I'm worried that someone
> using the public documented version in 2.70 but accidentally building
> with the internal version from 2.69 will have weird errors.
>
Yes, this seems like a recipe to increase user's frustration :-/

> I'm thinking we're better off using a slightly different name, so that
> people accidentally building with older autoconf but using the new macro
> will get outright failure.
>
I sadly agree.

> Any ideas for the best name to use?  Maybe
> AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS_SECONDARY, since the macro is designed to be use to
> designate secondary directories where automake will look but not
> install?  AC_CONFIG_OTHER_MACRO_DIRS?
>
What about AC_CONFIG_EXTRA_MACRO_DIRS?  This would also be in line with the
Automake naming scheme ...

>>>> I'll keep my automake patches on hold until you have gone ahead with your
>>>> plan, to avoid introducing inconsistencies and messing up the already
>>>> suboptimal automake history even more.
> 
> I suppose you'll also want autoconf 2.70 released so you can actually
> take advantage of whatever I come up with;
>
Well, not actually; if I'm ready to make aclocal flexible enough to support
also multiple calls to AC_CONFIG_MACRO, I won't need autoconf 2.70 published
to implement the new features I care about.  What I need is just to have the
AC_CONFIG_EXTRA_MACRO_DIRS semantics and name set in stone, before I try to
implement that in aclocal.  So, once you have decided on the name and
semantics, and implemented them, I'll be fine, even if 2.70 is only released
an year from now (although I'd obviously prefer it to be released earlier ;-)

> and I want to also get the check for a POSIX shell done.
>
That would be great :-)  Thanks for keeping this ball rolling!

> Here's hoping I can get to the point of a
> release in less than a month :)
> 
That would be definitely good enough for me.

Thanks,
  Stefano