Re: Packaging Autotool files from a subdirectory

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Eric,

* Eric Lemings wrote on Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 06:14:54PM CET:
> 
> Over the years, I believe I've seen a few distributions that have
> platform-indepent files (README, ChangeLog, etc.) in the top-level
> directory of the package and relocate the Autotool-related files
> into a ./build/unix subdirectory for example.

Hmm, yes.  I've seen that a few times, too.

> Is that possible and, if so, is this documented somewhere?  Where
> can I find packages that are distributed this way?

As far as I know, this is not supported, and likely changes in Autoconf
and Automake releases may have made this harder to realize over time
(knowingly or not: I don't know).

You can move a lot of the needed files to subdirectories, though; see
the macros AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR, for example.

Cheers,
Ralf