Re: symlinked files break "dist"-target

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Felix" == Felix Natter <address@hidden> writes:

Felix> I created a minimal "hello-world"-package for this:
Felix> http://www.ndh.net/home/natter/hello-1.0.tar.gz

Congratulations -- you found a `make dist' oddity that we never
considered.

The problem is that by default we use `ln' to make the dist tree.  But
`ln' isn't exactly like `cp' (or `ln -s' -- which we used to use but
got rid of due to other problems, as I recall) when working on
symlinks.

If there was a portable way to test for the presence of a symlink we
could use that in the distdir rule.

But right now I think we have two choices:

1. Always use `cp'
2. Disallow what you are trying to do.

I'm inclined to #2.  Good performance in `distdir' seems to be a
popular choice.  Also relative symlinks that point outside the package
don't seem to be an important thing to support.

However, as always, I'm open to arguments for #1, or other solutions I
haven't considered.

Felix> Furthermore, the dist-target usually uses gtar, although I only
Felix> have /bin/tar. Is there a way to detect $(TAR) ?

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE should be doing that already.
Why does it detect gtar when you don't have it?

Tom