RE: [autoconf 2.49e] configure --help creates config.log

[Tim Van Holder]

> I've just noticed that a configure script created by autoconf
> 2.49e creates
> config.log in it's current working directory even when only invoked as
> configure --help.  This shouldn't happen, since it will create a file even
True, I suppose this shouldn't happen.

> if run in the source directory as ./configure --help, but the source
> directory should be considered as read-only.
No it shouldn't; it's perfectly valid to configure & build in the source
directory.  If you want to treat srcdir as read-only, you should be running
configure from a different dir (../package/configure --help); and then
config.log would be created there instead of srcdir.  Note that some rules
(automake's lex/yacc rules, for example), will still create things in the
source directory (or try to anyway).