Re: Distribution of m4 macros

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 11/06/2009 10:55 AM, Christian Egli wrote:
> Hi all
>
> When integrating gnulib in liblouis a changed a few things with regards
> to m4 macro location. In particular I added the following to
> configure.ac
>
> AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
>
> and the following to Makefile.am
>
> ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4 -I gnulib/m4
>
> I also create an empty m4 directory. Now, autoreconf (--force --install)
> places some libtool m4 macros, like libtool.m4, etc, in there.
>
> When I do make dist the m4 directory is automatically included in the
> tarball (without mentioning m4 anywhere in a Makefile.am as a SUBDIRS).
> Make distcheck and everybody else is happy.
>
> However, for an other dev, who is using libtool 1.5.22, autoreconf 2.59
> and automake 1.9.6, make distcheck is failing because the m4 directory
> is not included in the tarball.

Correct. The new behavior requires newer auto*tools.

> Now, I could probably simply add m4 to the SUBDIRS and add an empty
> Makefile.am to m4. This might solve the problem, but this doesn't seem
> to be standard practice and I'm trying to understand what is going on
> here.
What you describe had been standard practice when these tools had been 
current (many years ago)

> How is the m4 directory included in the tarball? How does automake know
> that it has to include it?
They are being traced.

> Was this functionality missing in an older
> automake?
Yes.

> And finally: Is the right way to fix this really to add the m4
> directory to SUBDIRS?
You can choose
* Require newer auto*tools.
* Apply an approach similar to what you outline above (and stay bug-ward 
compatible)

If I'd were you, I'd use the former approach, combined with appropriate 
AC_PREREQ and AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([<automake version>]).

Ralf