RE: AMLOCAL_AMFLAGS and the dist recipe

[David Byron]

On November 24, 2005, Ralf wrote: 

> > My original two cases were:
> > 
> > 1. ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I ../../scripts/m4
>
> which pointed outside your package and thus is a nono (do
> not specify relative paths which point to something outside
> of your package).
>
> > or
> > 
> > 2. ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I `cd ../../scripts/m4 && pwd`
>
> Which is technically ok, but will include the contents in
> aclocal.m4.
>
> > I don't know enough about automake/aclocal to know if a patch there
to
> > fix make dist for #1 is feasible.  I'll give it a shot if folks
think it
> > makes sense.
>
> It can't be done safely, unless ../../scripts is part of
> your package.  And then it works already, AFAIK (untested).

Sorry it took so long to sink in.  You're right.

I can think of a way to teach automake/aclocal to copy the files into
the dist tarball, but to make that work would mean "fixing"
ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS to point to the new place, which would be tough and
almost certainly unsafe.  Copying the files myself is certainly better
than this.

So I'll either stick with what I've got, or use one of your earlier
suggestions.

Thanks much.

-DB