Re: [PATCH 1/3] AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS: new macro, mostly for aclocal

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Eric.

On 11/09/2012 07:38 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 11/03/2012 06:05 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>> Similar to AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR, but accepts more than one argument.
>> This will allow projects to use several m4 macro local dirs.  This is
>> especially important for projects that are used as nested subpackages
>> of larger projects.
>>
>> See also:
>> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2011-12/msg00037.html>
>> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2012-07/msg00010.html>
>>
>> * lib/autoconf/general.m4 (AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS): New.  Expands to the
>> empty anyway, since it is only meant to be traced by tools like aclocal
>> and autoreconf.
>> (AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR): Updated comments to mark it as obsolescent.  It
>> does not elicit warnings yet, for backward-compatibility.
>> * doc/autoconf.texi (@node "Input"): Document AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS rather
>> than to the obsolescent AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR.
>> * NEWS: Update.
>>
>> Suggested-by: Eric Blake <address@hidden>
>> Helped-by: Nick Bowler <address@hidden>
>> Signed-off-by: Stefano Lattarini <address@hidden>
> 
> I'm adding my own sign-off and squashing this in; basically, I'm
> relaxing the documentation to plan for my subsequent patches where
> AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR will not be treated as obsolescent, but leaving your
> initial implementation separate from my improvements to make it clear
> what my improvements accomplish.
>
How does this interact with the fact that aclocal 1.13 will handle
*only* AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, while continuing (like it did before)
to ignore AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR?  For a rationale about this, see:

  <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=12845>

I still believe we should make it clear that AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR is
obsolescent and should no longer be used; albeit, to avoid gratuitous
backward-incompatibility, we'll refrain to have it elicit any warning,
at least for the time being ...

Regards,
  Stefano