Re: 38-doc-ac-init.patch

[Ralf Corsepius]

Am 20 Aug 2001 16:48:23 +0200 schrieb Akim Demaille:
> This is the 700'th commit on my home repo :)
> 
> Index: ChangeLog
> from  Akim Demaille  <address@hidden>
> 
>       * lib/autoconf/general.m4 (_AC_INIT_PACKAGE): Warn if the
>       arguments are not literals.
>       * doc/autoconf.texi (Input) <AC_INIT>: Arguments must be literals.

Would you please explain why this is required?

I am in favor of this patch to be rejected.

Reasonale:
Requiring PACKAGE and VERSION to be literals renders version of
hierarchies of autoconfizcated sub-directories a pain. 

In particular, until now, it has been possible to have a file at some
location in such a source tree and to include it into all sub-packages'
configure.in to set VERSION (These are not independent of the toplevel
configury, but carry there own configure scripts for structual reasons.)

With your patch, this approach will be rendered non-functional. Instead,
it would be required to edit each single configure.in and to regenerate
all files depending on it (The example I am talking about has ~50
configure.ins).

Ralf