Re: automake 1.9 and ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS

[Bruno Haible]

Hello,

Jose E. Marchesi wrote:
> ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS seems to be ignored by automake. The
> "-I m4" argument should be passed to aclocal in the bootstrap chain.
> 
> Would be nice to have a note about this in both the output of
> gnulib-tool and the manual. 

Umm, where exactly would you like to see this documented?

The gnulib documentation has this example showing some gnulib-tool output:

     Don't forget to
       - add "lib/Makefile" to AC_CONFIG_FILES in ./configure.ac,
       - mention "lib" in SUBDIRS in Makefile.am,
       - mention "-I m4" in ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS in Makefile.am,      <=======
       - invoke gl_EARLY in ./configure.ac, right after AC_PROG_CC,
       - invoke gl_INIT in ./configure.ac.
     ~/src/libfoo$

When you define ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS and you use autoreconf to recreate all
your autoconfiguration infrastructure, it should take into account these
flags, says the automake documentation:

      `ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS' contains options to pass to `aclocal' when
   `aclocal.m4' is to be rebuilt by `make'.  This line is also used by
   `autoreconf' (*note Using `autoreconf' to Update `configure' Scripts:
   (autoconf)autoreconf Invocation.) to run `aclocal' with suitable
   option...

The only case where adding the option to ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is not enough is
when you have your sources in a version control system, and you have an
'autogen.sh' for regenerating the autoconfiguration infrastructure, _and_
it does not use 'autoreconf'.

I'm not saying that this situation is uncommon - my packages are in the
same situation - but people who bypass autoreconf must be experts anyway, no?

Bruno