Re: autoconf 2.53 doesn't find autom4te

[Bruno Haible]

Alexandre Duret-Lutz writes:

> This will break the test suite ...
> The test suite relies on PATH.

It doesn't need to. You can easily modify the tests to export an
additional variable. I.e. instead of

   address@hidden@}
   ${AUTOM4TE='@bindir@/@autom4te-name@'}

you write

   ${AUTOM4TE=${AUTOCONF_TESTING_BINDIR-'@bindir@'}/'@autom4te-name@'}

and in the testsuite you set the environment variable
AUTOCONF_TESTING_BINDIR appropriately.

I use this technique in gettext's testsuite; it works nicely.

This is the usual trickery needed to fulfill three goals:

- Programs like autoconf should work even when called through an
  absolute pathname, and PATH contains a different version of the
  program or none at all.

- After "make" is complete, "make install" must not require write access
  in the builddir.

- "make check" should work fine even before "make install".

Bruno