Re: GnomeDocUtilsMigrationHowTo improvements

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org>]

On Sun, 2006-09-03 at 09:57 -0400, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> Hi Behdad;
> 
> On Sun, 2006-09-03 at 04:36 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> 
> > There are also a couple of technical problems with that document.  One
> > is:
> > 
> > <quote>
> > Set your build system up: 
> >       * If you don't have one yet, create a m4 directory in your
> >         toplevel source directory; and create a .cvsignore file in it
> >         containing at least gnome-doc-utils.m4. Add this directory and
> >         its .cvsignore to cvs. 
> >         
> >       * Add the following to configure.ac (resp. configure.in): 
> >         
> >               * AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
> >   * Add m4 to EXTRA_DIST in the top-level Makefile.am See below Note 2
> > </quote>
> > 
> > This is absolutely unnecessary, and it does create problems.  A lot.
> 
> I added that section as a result of what I did learn when porting
> gnome-utils to gnome-doc-utils; at the moment of the porting, if I did
> not include the macro directory in the EXTRA_DIST, make distcheck would
> fail (I did various checks and the only change that affected the outcome
> of distcheck was that).  Lately, I was able to pass the distcheck phase
> even when the m4 directory was not inside the EXTRA_DIST variable - so I
> think that porting my build environment to automake >= 1.7 did the
> trick.

I'm not referring to the EXTRA_DIST part in particular, but the entire
idea of enabling a MACRO_DIR.  AFAIU a MACRO_DIR should be used when you
want to use and distribute home-made macro files that may not be
available on the system.  I don't see any reason that one should do
that.  If the intention to make sure packages can be autogen'ed without
gnome-doc-utils?  I don't think that's important enough to warrant
adding a directory to all modules.


> I think it's safe to assume that yes: that bit is wrong when using an
> automake < 1.7; I'd like people with older versions of automake to test
> that bit and see if it was just a screw up in my build environment.
> 
> Ciao,
>  Emmanuele.
> 
-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/

"Commandment Three says Do Not Kill, Amendment Two says Blood Will Spill"
        -- Dan Bern, "New American Language"