Re: srcdir detection (was: Re: gettext 0.14.5 compile issue)

[Bruno Haible]

Stepan Kasal wrote:
> So if configure was called with full path, srcdir is set to the full path.
> This can cause problems: VPATH build is recognized by "test $srcdir = ."

You can forget about the gettext problem; that one is fixed by a one-liner
patch to gettext-tools/configure.ac.

The other problem with a VPATH build is that it only works with GNU make.
This is a problem that exists across all packages and therefore should be
fixed in autoconf.

There are two ways for a user to arrive at the situation where $srcdir
is the current directory but not ".":
  1)   ./configure --srcdir=`pwd`
  2)   `pwd`/configure

Your patch addresses only the second one.

Bruno


PS:
> if test -z "$srcdir"; then
> ---
> if test "x$srcdir" != x; then

Ah, come on. You don't need to write sh code for the 1980'ies. "test -z"
and "test -n" are clearer than the 'x' hack. The autoconf manual says
    "Contrary to a common belief, `test -n STRING' and `test -z STRING'
     *are* portable."