Re: [gimp-devel] [gtk-list] strange automake configure problem

[Matthew Shawn Wilson <mswilso2 catt ncsu edu>]

Sorry for putting this on two lists.

On Sat, Mar 21, 1998 at 03:18:59PM -0600, Tim Mooney wrote:
> On 21 Mar 1998, Tom Tromey wrote:

<SNIP>

> You're right that this sucks, because for large packages (gimp + plugins with
> debugging information is well over 100 Megabytes on alpha-dec-osf4.0+) it's
> sometimes necessary to install using a different prefix.  Also, I usually
> install X programs with their files under ${whatever}/X11 (i.e.
> --includedir=/local/include/X11, --datadir=/local/share/X11, etc).

I don't see how this is a problem with regard to aclocal.  If you
are the system administrator of your own box, you should know where
aclocal macro files are installed.  Part of installing a library that
has automake macros is to install the macro where it belongs in the
aclocal data directory.

> >I agree that this situation sucks.  Suggestions for how it could be
> >improved are welcome.
> 
> Could `aclocal' be modified to tell someone where it expects to find the .m4
> files when given a command line flag?  Something like
> 
> 	aclocal --where-are-your-files
> 
> ;-) would output (in my case) `/local/share/aclocal'
> 
> and then a simple configure test could be called to find the right directory
> to install the `*.m4' file(s) for any package that wants to install `*.m4'
> files.
> 
> Tim

If you'll take a look at aclocal, it's just a perl script.  The prefix
for your macro files is clearly defined there - $prefix = "/foo";
So - you can grab the prefix with a simple awk script...

You can also call aclocal like this:  aclocal -Iwhere/are/your/files

Matt Wilson
mswilso2@catt.ncsu.edu